South Florida Host Committee Chair: 'Fix Was in for New York'

South Florida Super Bowl host committee chairman Rodney Barreto is, like my boy Dan Graziano, quite upset with the outcome of the 2014 Super Bowl selection process.

Unlike Dan though, Barreto isn't upset that the weather and locals might harm the Super Bowl -- he thinks the NFL fixed the process to guarantee that the Big Apple would land the Big Game:

"The fix was in for New York. We threw $1 million extra on the table last night for game-day expenses. We could have put $10 million and it wouldn't have made a difference. We put an incredible presentation that clearly was head-and-shoulders above everyone.''

This is a pretty strong stance for someone who's had a Super Bowl in his territory fourteen times since 1977 (not counting Jacksonville's lone appearance in 2005, either); obviously South Florida has wonderful weather.

But it's not like they have a monopoly on the game, and accusing NFL commissioner Roger Goodell of "fixing" Tuesday's vote to send the Super Bowl to New York/Jersey simply for the publicity it creates is a bit over-the-top, given the commish's penchant for making sure that no one who crosses him lives to tell about it (metaphorically, as far as I know).

On the other hand, though, the Super Bowl is now locked into non-Florida locations until 2015 at the earliest (Indianapolis, Texas, New Orleans and NYC will host the next four, respectively), which means that will Barreto have to wait at least a whole five years before he sees the Super Bowl back in South Florida.

In all seriousness, the New York selection -- even if it's a called a "one-time" experiment by the NFL -- is disastrous for South Florida, because it opens up other venues like Green Bay (seriously), New England, Denver , Washington and London as possible future Super Bowl hosts. The latter two have already made overtures and, clearly, the more locations that are in play for the annual event, the harder Barreto's job becomes.