The Home Field Curse
The third type of the curse is one that affects the host team of the Super Bowl. No team has ever played the big game in its own home stadium. The closest have been the San Francisco 49ers who played Super Bowl XIX in Stanford Stadium, rather than Candlestick Park, and the Los Angeles Rams who played Super Bowl XIV in the Rose Bowl, rather than the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Besides those two, the only other Super Bowl venue that was not the home stadium to an NFL team at the time was Rice Stadium in Houston: the Houston Oilers had played there previously, but moved to the Astrodome several years prior to Super Bowl VIII. The Orange Bowl was the only AFL stadium to host a Super Bowl and the only stadium to host consecutive Super Bowls, hosting Super Bowl II and III. MetLife Stadium, which is scheduled to host Super Bowl XLVIII, is the home stadium of two NFL teams, the New York Giants and the New York Jets.
The Indianapolis Colts were in a rare, but not unprecedented, situation at the end of the 2011 season, becoming the fourth host team of a Super Bowl to have the worst record in the NFL for their particular season. This also happened to the 1973 Houston Oilers (Super Bowl VIII), the 1980 New Orleans Saints (Super Bowl XV), and the 1983 Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Super Bowl XVIII).
The New Orleans Saints, whose home stadium the Mercedes-Benz Superdome hosted Super Bowl XLVII, were affected heavily by the New Orleans Saints bounty scandal as their Head Coach Sean Payton was suspended for the entire 2012 NFL Season due to the implications against them and former Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams. Some media outlets such as Fox Sports and Sports Illustrated have claimed that the Home Field Curse was in effect there. However, many fans, local and otherwise blame the bounty scandal on Commissioner Roger Goodell. The end result to their season was their elimination from post-season contention in Week 16.
The hosts curse has a wider effect on the San Diego Chargers, in which that every time San Diego has hosted the Super Bowl, an AFC West rival has represented the AFC (the Broncos in Super Bowl XXII and XXXII – the Broncos winning the latter – and the Raiders in XXXVII). Outside of San Diego, the only time a divisional rival of the host has played in the Super Bowl was in Super Bowl III where the New York Jets won on the Miami Dolphins Orange Bowl.
Generally, the host team of a Super Bowl has a VIP section in the stadium during the game. In some ways, the curse is beneficial to the host city as its economy would receive more out-of-town visitors if the host team was not playing in the Super Bowl. Combined with the increased costs of airfare and hotel during the event, the economy would see a bigger revenue boost as a larger portion of attendees would be local if the host team participated.
The last Super Bowl host to make the playoffs is the 2000 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Since then, the hosts of the next 12 Super Bowls have failed to make the playoffs.
From 1966-2011, excluding the 6 Super Bowls held in a stadium without a professional team, the Super Bowl host team had a record of 249-364-2. In those 40 years, the host teams had 11 winning seasons, 4 split seasons, and 25 losing seasons. Mathematically, the probability of that many losing seasons or more occurring by chance (given the variable length of NFL regular seasons and assuming a long-term average probability of winning any one game of .5) is 0.35%. The probability of the combined win/loss record is 0.0002%.
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Famous quotes containing the words home, field and/or curse:
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—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
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—Maria Stewart (1803–1879)
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—Adela Rogers St. Johns (1894–1988)