34 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
With picturesque beaches and perfect weather,
South Florida is where millions of Americans
go when they want to stop working—for spring
break, for retirement or for watching a game
that means everything. Or a game that means
very little: During the entire decade of the 1960s,
Miami hosted the NFL’s third-place game. Yes,
there was a game to see which team would finish
third. It was called the Playoff Bowl. (If they had
held it every January in, say, Minnesota, would
the players even have gone?)
Miami’s history is intertwined with Super Bowl
history. South Florida has seen the game go from
a concept to an enormous event, from the gritty
Orange Bowl to whatever that luxurious suburban
stadium is called now. Miami held the first Super
Bowl with a roman numeral (V) and the first one
on artificial turf (also V). It’s where the Super Bowl
first ditched marching bands at halftime—Up With
People performed at Super Bowl X.
You know that stat that no team has played
in a Super Bowl in its own city? It is strangest
in Miami. In the first decade of the Super Bowl,
Miami hosted the game four times. The Dolphins
reached three Super Bowls during those 10 years,
yet they never played once in their hometown.
Miami has been a gracious host; the two most
loathed teams in league history, the Cowboys and
the Patriots, have never won a Super Bowl there.
And it has grown with the Super Bowl, from a one-
pro-team town to a four-pro-team sports mecca.
You can easily use Miami to tell the story of the
Super Bowl... of pro football... of pro sports...
of America... of the world! What? Too much hype?
Nah. If the Super Bowl has taught us anything, it’s
that there is no such thing as too much hype. So
grab a drink with an umbrella in it. Sit in a lounge
chair next to the pool. You might recognize the
guy next to you. His name is Joe Willie.
THERE HAVE BEEN
many victory guarantees in sports, but really,
there has been only one. The rest were just echoes.
Moses Malone, Tim Tebow, Pat Riley, Rasheed
THE SUPER BOWL
was not born in Miami, but it did grow up there. You
might not realize this. You might think of the Super
Bowl as a fat, rich and happy entity that plops down
wherever it wants and entertains people—not unlike
Charles Barkley. But the 2020 Super Bowl, the 54th,
will be the 11th held in South Florida, one more than
New Orleans, and unlike New Orleans, Miami has never
blacked out during the game, in any sense of the term.
The shocker ended long-held beliefs of AFL
inferiority. While Joe Namath (right, talking
to broadcaster Kyle Rote in Fort Lauderdale)
guaranteed the Jets would win, 50 years
later this feels like a sicker burn: He said
Baltimore QB Earl Morrall would have been
a third-stringer in New York.
