A Super Bowl week that had gone so smoothly for the Big Easy suddenly turned bizarre—and just when everyone was watching. The lights went out on the biggest football game of the year soon after halftime ended. The outage lasted for 34 minutes and was blamed on an unspecified “abnormality” in the Superdome’s power system. Certainly, it was an embarrassment for New Orleans, which was hosting its first Super Bowl since 2002; the city was eager to show off how it has been rebuilt since Hurricane Katrina—and is hoping to get the Super Bowl back in town in 2018. Forbes.com contributor Patrick Rishe says the blackout is also “an embarrassment for the facility operators, and quite frankly, it is a black eye for NFL operations.” And until New Orleans replaces “this outdated facility,” the Superdome may never host another Super Bowl, Rishe says. “The most recent trend for Super Bowl cities and facilities is to head to newer facilities. … New Orleans has cashed in on their historical calling card as a festive host city,” reads Rishe’s column, which you can read in its entirety here. Mayor Mitch Landrieu called the outage “an unfortunate moment in what has been an otherwise shining Super Bowl week for the city of New Orleans,” adding that he expects to receive “a full after-action report from all parties involved” in the coming days. The Associated Press has more on the potential repercussions of the blackout here.
Today’s poll question: Do you think the power outage at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome during the Super Bowl will negatively affect the city’s chances of hosting the 2018 Super Bowl?
