Notre Dame Beats USC 28-24
Wins National Title in
First Annual Big Apple Bowl™
City Reaps Bonanza
Rasheed-Salaam and Wychkesky Lead Fighting Irish to Victory
Dateline New York City Jan 1 2010
What is The Big Apple Bowl, and can we measure its impact, in advance?
The imaginary headline seen above is not the wild dream West Side Stadium opponents would like you to think it is. Lost in the controversy over a stadium on the West Side of Manhattan is the positive economic impact of such a stadium on the city of New York. The Big Apple Bowl is one of several annual events that will have such an impact on the city. The problem is, how can we assess that impact? To what can we compare the proposed stadium? There have been several stadiums built over the past generation, so can't we just compare this proposal to those actual structures, say, a stadium built in Cleveland or Baltimore or Pittsburgh, and come up with a clear picture of the likely impact on our city? The answer, unfortunately, is no, and here is why.
Every year, almost 35 million non-city residents visit New York. Of those 35 million, about 30 million are American. Think about that number for a moment. It means that ten percent of the population of the entire United States visits the city each year! Over ten years, the equivalent of the population of the whole of the United States visits New York City! These figures dwarf the numbers of cities like Pittsburgh and Baltimore and Cleveland. Now, why are these figures important to our discussion?
People want to come to this city, and this facility will create events that will bring visitors. This is a fact that the small-minded opposition folk don't want to talk about. New York City is unique in America, the jewel city of the nation. Every night, millions of people around the world go to sleep dreaming about visiting New York. Give them an excuse, a reason to come, and they will come. Which brings us to the title of this page.
This proposed stadium will open up New York City to unique annual Winter events. The Big Apple Bowl is one such event.
When discussing the stadium, if one can get past the provincial, small-town mind set of the opposition, one runs into another impediment to open debate, namely, the hardcore group in the opposition camp who hate football. They feel that football is silly, and that the human race should spend its time on earth pursuing loftier endeavors. At the mere mention of football, their eyes glaze over. "Do we have to talk about football again?" The answer is yes, it is time to talk about football.
Football developed quite differently than baseball. Baseball in the 19th and early 20th Century was the game of the people. It was played in cities and small towns across America. Football, on the other hand, was the university sport. It grew and flourished on the campuses of America. Most of the great teams played in the east and mid-west. In the early years of the 20th Century, football powers included Ivy League schools such as Yale, Harvard, Princeton and Brown, and mid-western universities such as Michigan and Notre Dame. The season would conclude every year around Thanksgiving, usually with a game against a school's main rival.
In 1890, the city of Pasadena held the first Rose Parade on New Year's Day. They wanted to show folks back east just how lovely life could be in California, even in the dead of winter.12 years later, they tried adding a football game. The idea was to pit the top team of the west, in this case Stanford, against the top team of the east, the University of Michigan. It was no contest, as Michigan crushed Stanford 49-0. That was the end of that, and for the next decade, chariot races were held instead of football games. In 1916, football returned as the main attraction, as Washington State defeated Brown 14-0. A game has been played every New Year's Day since then.
After World War One, the game's popularity soared, and a new stadium was built to house it, the Rose Bowl. The reason for the success was obvious. It is an easy sell. Imagine a mythical university, Acme U. You are the president of Acme University. You have been invited to play in the Rose Bowl. Would you hesitate for even a moment before you turn to your alumni and ask them, "Would you like to spend a few days in California during the Christmas vacation, culminating in a football game with our university playing against a western power?" It's the kind of question that makes the alumni appreciate their hard working president! Indeed, the Rose Bowl Game has been sold out every year since 1947. Since the creation of the Rose Bowl, other Bowl Games have been spawned, such as the Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl. Today, there is a seemingly endless string of bowl games across America in the month of December. So, the question is, how would the proposed West Side Stadium fit into the national bowl picture, and what would the economic impact of such an event be?
In the past fifteen years, many stadiums have been built across America. Philadelphia, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Cleveland, Baltimore, Cincinnati, on and on. None of these new stadiums, with the exception of 
Detroit, actually created the possibility of a new high impact bowl game. Most were eliminated from consideration from the outset, being open air stadiums. As president of Acme U, you certainly don't want your alumni sitting in a snow storm in Baltimore on New Year's Day. Tenure is rather tenuous, these days. As noted, Detroit is the exception, because it is an indoor stadium. In fact, Detroit has a bowl game, the Motor City Bowl. There are some similarities between the Detroit stadium and the proposed West Side Stadium. Ford Field was built in downtown Detroit, replacing a stadium located far out of the city proper, and opened in 2002. The 2003 Motor City Bowl matched Bowling Green and Northwestern, and drew a very respectable 51,000 fans. The game was played the day after Christmas. That is 51,000 visitors to the city, the day after Christmas, who would not have otherwise come to Detroit. The 2004 version matched the Universities of Connecticut and Toledo. The game was played on the 27th, two days after Christmas, and drew a bowl record 52,552. While Toledo is about an hour and a half driving time away, the fans from Connecticut clearly had to stay in the Detroit area for a couple of days. Detroit! A lovely city, but not the first place I would choose to spend a few days over the holiday season, and my spouse is from Detroit, proper, so I have spent more than one Christmas there.
Now, let us consider the Big Apple Bowl, and the allure of New York City. New York is a magical place during the Christmas holidays. The tree at Rockefeller Center. The windows at Lord & Taylor. St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Rockettes at Radio City and The Nutcracker at Lincoln Center, the great musicals on Broadway.. There is a special feel in the air, a time of enchantment. No wonder Americans flock to New York during the Christmas holidays.
All right, Mr. or Ms. President of Acme U, you've just received an invitation to play in this year's Big Apple Bowl game. Would you hesitate for even a moment, before you turn to your alumni and ask them, "Would you like to spend a few days in New York during the Christmas vacation, culminating in a football game with our university playing against a major power?" Ah, the sweet smell of success!
What does this mean to the city of New York? More than 78,000 unique visitors, staying in our hotels, going to the theatre, eating out every night, doing all the fun things people love to do, including watching the ball drop in Times Square, culminating in a football game at the cachet stadium of America, West Side Stadium, on January 1st. These are 78,000-plus visitors who would not have otherwise visited New York City. The economic impact of money spent by visitors for the Rose Bowl is estimated at 200 million dollars. The Fiesta Bowl at Tempe, Arizona (that's Tempe, Arizona!) is estimated to generate 150+ million dollars. I am not an expert, but only a fool would think that the impact of such a game on New York City would not easily surpass these figures. Because, while the opposition doesn't want to admit this fact, Americans want to visit New York and spend several days there, and will do so if given a good reason.
-T E McMorrow, 3-6-04, revised 1-5-04
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