National Football League

Chicago makes Super Bowl pitch

Published May. 31, 2012 1:00 a.m. ET

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Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has made a pitch to the NFL for the city to host a Super Bowl.

During an informal meeting Thursday with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, Emanuel floated the idea of staging American football's showpiece event at open-air Soldier Field, myFOXchicago.com reported.

"We talked about why Chicago, just two weeks ago had a bunch of world leaders here, [the] sixth largest NATO summit, if we can do that it'd be a perfect place to have a Super Bowl," Emanuel said.

The Super Bowl is held in early February each year, a time of near Arctic conditions in Chicago. However, the NFL has changed its long-held policy of hosting Super Bowls in warm weather cities or indoor stadiums.

The first open-air Super Bowl in a cold weather city will be held at Metlife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., in 2014.

"If we can do it successfully there, I think that opens up doors that we'll all be looking at. Obviously [Chicago] knows how to host great events, the mayor just mentioned several and we've got a great stadium," Goodell said.

One problem that would need to be overcome is that the NFL has a minimum seating guideline for the Super Bowl of 70,000 for host stadiums. Soldier Field's capacity is just 63,500.

However, Goodell said, "Capacity's always an issue, but I think at the end of the day we'd have to look at the specifics that would be part of the bid."

The Super Bowl is estimated to bring in about $150 million in revenue to host cities.

Emanuel joked that he had an ace up his sleeve in convincing Goodell.

"I found out a secret and that is the commissioner's in-laws live in the Chicago area, and I'm holding them hostage until that happens," he said.

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