Written by Pablo Figueroa at The Sporting Charts
There are two undeniable and hard truths regarding Super Bowls: none of them has ever reached overtime, and no home team has ever been able to host the game. Even while we are dealing with a smallish sample of only 49 games so far, the fact that we haven’t seen any of these occurrences fascinates me to no end, especially the latter part.
With the San Francisco 49ers out of playoff contention and starting a rebuilding project (presumably with a new quarterback), again it means that the team hosting the Super Bowl won’t be a part of the festivities for the 50th straight year. In many ways, the announcement of a city hosting the Super Bowl has almost meant a death sentence for its franchise.
The first couple of decades of Super Bowls were rotated mostly among a fixated set of fair-weather stadiums and domes, with teams like the Dolphins, Saints, and Rams never being a serious threat to contend. The end of the 80’s brought upon a new era for the NFL, as the league started a period of expansion and the construction of new stadiums, which allowed for new locales to be able to host the ultimate event.
In more recent times, even controversial new stadiums have been immediately selected for a Super Bowl after completing construction, as it has become a tradition for the NFL as a way to boost its brand. But even as the money has rolled in for the city and its corresponding franchise, they probably would have traded it all for a chance at winning a championship.
As we can see from the table below, the teams that have hosted the Super Bowl since Super Bowl XXV have been mostly terrible on that same year:
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