Remember when we circled Feb. 7, 2021? That’s when Super Bowl LV was coming back to Tampa. It’s big for the local economy. It’s international media and a marketing coup no chamber of commerce or tourist board could afford. Then the Bucs went all in with Tom Brady and even brought back former All-Pro tight end Rob Gronkowski. Some NFL media types have even projected the Bucs to be playing on their own RayJay turf. The synergistic planets were aligning.
But as we look at America’s shambolic, re-open/shutdown handling of COVID, especially in Florida, we also notice the viral elephant in the room. Football is a sweat-swapping contact sport. What kind of NFL season will this turn out to be—or not to be? In a pandemic year when an Olympics is called off, some college football conferences have already canceled seasons, some NFL players have complained about protocols and a presidential convention is forced to go virtual, the Super Bowl is hardly invulnerable.