The Big Game may land in the Big City in just five years – stadium permitting.
Later this month, executives from the New York Jets will present a proposal to bring the Super Bowl to the new West Side Stadium in 2010, The Post has learned.
As football fans gather in Jacksonville, Fla., for today’s 39th edition of the sporting world’s biggest attraction, Jets owner Woody Johnson and president Jay Cross were pressing the flesh with NFL team owners last week in an attempt to bring the Super Bowl to New York for the first time.
“We’re trying to make sure that people know that we’ll be ready for the 2010 Super Bowl,” Cross said in a phone interview.
The proposal will be made to eight owners who comprise the owners’ Super Bowl Committee. That influential body will then make its recommendation to the league’s 32 team owners, who will make the final decision in May.
NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue acknowledged the Jets’ efforts in Florida last week, saying, “We are aware that Woody Johnson and Jay Cross are here in Jacksonville, persuading the owners and gaining support for a 2010 Super Bowl at the new West Side Stadium.”
The NFL’s decision would hinge largely on the Jets getting approval to build the controversial retractable-roof stadium. The Super Bowl is always played in cities with warm January weather or domed stadiums.
Super Bowls generally produce up to $350 million in economic activity for the host city, and Cross predicted that number could grow two- or threefold should football’s main event land in Gotham.
Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg ripped into Cablevision owners for their last-minute offer of $600 million to buy the air rights over the MTA property on which the new stadium would be located.
“This is a joke and it’s a disgrace,” Bloomberg fumed of the action by the Jim Dolan-led company.
“It’s a p.r. stunt cooked up by some people who have no interest in this city, who have said they’re trying to protect their monopoly and will obviously stop at nothing.”
But officials at Cablevision-owned Madison Square Garden, near the stadium site, defended their bid as genuine, saying “Madison Square Garden is ready, willing and able to make a firm and binding commitment.”
Additional reporting by Heidi Singer
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Breaking ranks with two of her leading Democratic primary opponents, mayoral hopeful C. Virginia Fields last week rejected the concept of a voting referendum on the city’s controversial West Side Stadium proposal.
“At this stage, I think that it is nonsensical,” the Manhattan borough president told The Post. Instead, the social worker-turned-city legislator called on the Bloomberg administration to immediately stop all stadium plans and bring the project before the City Council Land Use Committee.
“Let’s bring it back and have the voices of people who have been elected to make these kinds of decisions be part of those discussions,” Fields said.