By Jason Klein
Originally Written For New York Yankee Legacy Magazine – October 2010
Click each individual thumbnail below to read the feature story, exactly as it appeared in New York Yankee Legacy Magazine:
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By Jason Klein
Originally Written For The Official Steiner Sports Blog – 5/17/10
Super Bowl XLVIII or XLVIIIce Bowl?
The New York Jets and Giants are both lobbying to host the 2014 Super Bowl at the New Meadowlands, a brand new, 1.7 billion dollar facility set to open its doors in 2010. The stadium has everything the NFL covets in a venue for their marquee event: it’s modern, has tons of luxury suites, is in a huge media market and is surrounded by a major city with unlimited entertainment opportunities.
It does, however, lack one very important feature: a roof!
Topping 40 degrees on an average February day in New Jersey is a struggle, sort of like selling PSL’s to frustrated Jets and Giants fans in a poor economic climate. Playing the most important game of the NFL season in less-than-ideal conditions would be a very real possibility should the game be played outdoors in the Northeast.
During last Wednesday’s Super Bowl “pep rally” in New Jersey, Jets Owner Woody Johnson snidely remarked: “We’ll be lucky if it snows!”
Lucky? How so?
Snow would present some unique, and potentially dangerous challenges for those fans traveling to the game – leaving open the possibility of empty seats for the big game. Plus, the NFL would be showcasing a compromised version of their product to the world.
While playing the Super Bowl in a cold weather city is nothing new –Minnesota and Detroit have each hosted Super Sunday under a dome – actually playing the game in those conditions without a roof would be without precedent.
Some have argued that the most legendary and memorable games in history have taken place in the cold weather. Heck, the 1967 NFL Championship Game was nicknamed “The Ice Bowl.” With a game-time temperature of -13 degrees and a wind-chill of -48 degrees, the Green Bay Packers hosted the Dallas Cowboys for the right to play in Super Bowl II.
True, this game was both exciting, and unforgettable, but there’s something else important to note about the contest. It was a home gamethe Packers earned by finishing with a better record than the Cowboys. The Packers went on to face the Raiders in the Super Bowl, played at a neutral sight, the Miami Orange Bowl – game-time temperature: 86 degrees.
Forcing two teams, who have battled all season long, to play the most important game of their lives on a neutral site, in potentially cold and dangerous weather conditions ignores the integrity of the game. The rationale behind a neutral site has always been to provide an ideal venue to both teams, without any obstacles or advantages for either team.
With that said, if the NFL were to allow the team with the best record left standing to host the game, and that team happened to play in an outdoor, cold-weather stadium – so be it. Luck of the draw. As long as the Super Bowl site is a neutral one, it should be played in ideal conditions.
It’s also been suggested that the game of football is a sport tailor made for cold, snowy weather. While there may be some truth to that, there is no need for the fans to endure such treacherous conditions. The old Texas Stadium had it right: cover the fans and let the players play in the elements. The Jets and Giants could have shown similar compassion for their soon-to-be wet, shivering fans when building their new home.
Instead, the New Meadowlands will open its doors this September, sans roof. In four short years, they hope to host a Super Bowl there. They will learn their fate following a May 25th NFL owners vote. Both the Jets and Giants acknowledge that weather will be a factor in the decision, but it didn’t have to be this way.
Had they put a roof on their new football Mecca, this vote would be a slam dunk. Speaking of dunks, they would also be a top candidate to host future NCAA tournaments. Concerts, shows, speaking engagements, and conventions would also be the norm, year-round. One would think, over time, the additional events would help generate enough added revenue to offset the cost of putting a dome on the building…right?
It’s a hypothetical question left dangling out in the cold, like the thousands of fans forced to sit in potentially snowy conditions. When that happens, one can bet that Jets and Giants ownership will be warm and toasty, tucked away inside one of their new luxury suites, safe from the elements.
With comfy seats like that, no wonder Johnson thinks he “would be lucky if it snows.”
The average fan, trying to enjoy the game? Not so lucky.
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By Jason Klein
Originally Written For The Official Steiner Sports Blog – 4/22/10
It’s baseball season. So why is everyone still talking about the NFL?
Former Houston Oilers Head Coach, Jerry Glanville, once claimed the NFL stands for, “Not For Long.” These days, the National Football League has more lasting power than ever. It’s been nearly three full months since the New Orleans Saints hoisted the Lombardi Trophy, yet football continues to be top of mind for most sports fans. Why?
The NFL has successfully turned the most innocuous league-related occurrences into “must-see” events. What other professional sports league can create a buzz around the release of their upcoming schedule? This past Tuesday, media outlets were alerted of the impending football calendar announcement to occur at 7:00 PM sharp, strategically leaking a few of the marquee matchups in the hours leading up to it. The next morning, fans around the country were playing the ever popular “WLWLWL Game” with their co-workers and friends, sparking heated water cooler debate.
Tonight, the NFL takes center stage once again. The 2010 NFL Draft will make a weekday appearance, and will do so under prime time’s hot lights. This annual roster replenishment affair is often over-analyzed, contains little action, and drags on for hours, yet, few NFL fans will miss it. Fans are so trained to hang on every NFL-related word, they’d probably watch paint dry if Chad Ochocinco were the one doing the painting.
Every morsel of NFL activity is precious, something fans should cherish…at least that’s the way the league portrays it…and why not? Their product is unique, exciting, contains some of the biggest stars in the sports world, and is extremely limited in nature.
While leagues like Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association schedule never-ending 162 and 82-game seasons respectively, NFL teams only play 16 contests per year. That’s it. Each game is so meaningful, and is analyzed and promoted as individual events, rather than single games that make up a larger season.
An NFL Sunday is a holiday, a sacred day full of rituals that include face painting, jersey wearing, tailgating, chest bumps and fist pounds. The final Sunday of the season, Super Bowl Sunday, is so big it needs two full weeks of hype leading up to it.
Fantasy football has also added to the game’s development in recent years, giving fans across the nation reason to watch out-of-market games and follow players they would otherwise have no interest in watching. Other new technologies including Facebook and Twitter, are meticulously used by league personnel, and players, to keep fans informed, and well connected to all breaking league news. Even Commissioner Roger Goodell operates his own Twitter account.
The league’s relationship with HBO’s “Hard Knocks” is another marketing tool working in their favor. Each season, an NFL franchise is featured throughout training camp, granting curious fans exclusive access into the locker room, team meetings, and after-hour activities. The show gives fans a better understanding of how a team functions, and brings them closer to some of the game’s biggest stars.
The NFL’s focused marketing strategies have its popularity rising at an alarming clip. They have embraced technology and used it to further infiltrate their fans’ lives. Face it, the NFL is everywhere, all the time. There is no off-season anymore for the nation’s most popular sport. For now, baseball is America’s Pastime. But, Not For Long.
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By Jason Klein
Originally Written For The Official Steiner Sports Blog – 3/4/10
This past Tuesday, Yankees Manager, Joe Girardi, once again played the role of Pinstriped Scientist, looking to concoct team chemistry, like he successfully did last season. In 2009, Girardi mixed all the right elements from baseball’s periodic table. The result: an on-field explosion that carried the Yankees all the way to a World Series Title.
Last season, Girardi conducted a bit of an experiment with his players during Spring Training. The club traded their bats and pine tar for pool sticks and chalk, and spent the day at a local billiards joint. The bonding session helped solidify the foundation of the team’s close-knit group, forming relationships that, many claim, set the tone for their Championship run.
If Girardi wants to end this upcoming season the same way he did last season, he figures, he should probably start it the same way too. It’s a new tradition for the most traditional franchise in professional sports. This year’s class trip found the Yankees at a Tampa-based arcade for a day filled with video games, skee ball, and pop-a-shot – something that resonated very positively with the players.
The stress-free environment allowed the players to forget the daily rigors of training, trying to earn a roster spot, or just fitting in. While at the arcade, every player was on even ground. Royce Ring could hang out with Mariano Rivera. Ramiro Pena could socialize with Alex Rodriguez. There were no superstars or bench players inside the arcade, a sense of equality off-the-field that should translate well into on-field team chemistry.
Wednesday afternoon, they started putting the theory to test. It was back to business as usual at George M. Steinbrenner Field and the Yankees picked up right where they left off last November, defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-3 in their first Spring Training game of the new season. They even did it in walk-off fashion, as Colin Curtis hit a three-run home run in the 9th inning to secure the win…what, no pie? It was a first small step towards defending their title, the 27th in franchise history.
Unlike previous camps, 2010 has been relatively smooth. The drama and non-baseball related storylines have been non-existent. The only real source of controversy has been over the 5th spot in the pitching rotation, a post to be filled by either Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes, or a combination of Chad Gaudin, Sergio Mitre, and Alfredo Aceves.
In addition, the Yankees enter the 2010 season with some familiar faces like Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui gone, and some new additions like Curtis Granderson and Javier Vazquez onboard. The “Core 4” of Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera will again be at the heart of the Yankee Universe, as they pursue yet another Title. It would be the sixth career ring for each franchise icon, and the 28th Championship in club history.
First thing’s first, the Yankees have to get through eight long months of baseball before they start planning another trip down the Canyon of Heroes. Number twenty-eight is the goal this year – the target is once again, literally, on Girardi’s back – he changed uniform numbers. It’s a responsibility he’s thoroughly prepared for. He methodically laid the foundation this Tuesday at the arcade, shaking things up and formulating stronger team chemistry.
After last season, he’s got this down to a science.
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By Jason Klein
Originally Written For The Official Steiner Sports Blog – 1/26/10
Mark Sanchez stood at the podium, his playoff beard finally gone, like the Jets hopes of winning Super Bowl XLIV. His “Wonderboy” T-Shirt…no where in sight, replaced now with a blank, white one, perhaps symbolic of the clean slate the New York Jets will have the next time they take the field in 2010.
All the big wins down the stretch, the top ranked defense and running game, the bluster…all just a memory now. That’s the way it goes in the NFL. One day you’re playing in the Conference Championship Game, only sixty minutes from Super Sunday, and the next thing you know, you’re staring at a blank page, pen in hand, script unwritten.
Unfortunately for authors like Sanchez, Head Coach, Rex Ryan, and the rest of the Jets organization, it’s often difficult to stick to any script in this league. There are always so many variables, unforeseen injuries, salary cap calamities, unfavorable schedules, and inclement weather that could get in the way.
Opportunities like the one the Jets just had are rare in the NFL. Bright futures can dim rather quickly. Players age, become free agents, or retire, and windows propped open by hope and promise are humbly slammed shut with little notice.
The 2010 Jets should be favored to win their division, and contend for a place in Super Bowl XLV. It’s exactly what awaited the 1999 Jets after losing to Denver in the AFC Title Game the year prior. That team, devastated by a week one Achilles tendon injury to quarterback Vinny Testaverde, failed to reach their Super goal. So have the ten Jets teams since.
It took eleven years to get back to where they were in January 1999 – a halftime lead in the AFC Championship Game, and only thirty minutes from the Super Bowl. This year, like 1999, they failed to score in the second half as the Indianapolis Colts took the game 30-17, and punched their ticket to Miami at the Jets’ expense.
Make no mistake about it though, the Jets did not lose this game in “Same Old Jets” fashion. They were beaten by the better team, with the better quarterback. There is no shame in the way this latest Jets team played. They were resilient, positive, had great team chemistry, and captured the imaginations of every fan that bleeds green and white. Ryan made everyone a believer in 2009.
In his final team meeting of the season, Ryan told his players to “wear their Jets stuff and be proud of it.” Why shouldn’t they? Ryan has created a new culture within this organization, an environment that players can thrive in, and one that is enticing for prized free agents to come be a part of.
Though there is no assurance of anything in 2010 and beyond, the Jets appear to have all the pieces in place to succeed – in this unpredictable league, that’s the best any franchise can hope for. Gang Green is set up with a young, star quarterback, a fiery, crafty head coach, a powerful defense and running game, and a brand new stadium – all components that any NFL author would salivate at the chance to write into the script.
There was no storybook ending this year, and there is no guarantee there ever will be. But the future appears bright and Jets fans will have to wait at least one more season for the next chapter in Jets history to be written.
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By Jason Klein
Originally Written For The Official Steiner Sports Blog – 1/19/10
The “house money” is all spent. Moral victories no longer exist. No, that’s all over now. Complacency expired with the clock in San Diego.
Jets 17, Chargers 14.
Get greedy Jets fans. Gang Green is in the final four. They are about to play in a game the franchise has only seen on three other occasions, 1968, 1982, and 1998. The New York Jets…say it with me…are going to the AFC Championship Game and are only 60 minutes away from Super Bowl XLIV. Believe it.
With that said, every fan who bleeds green and white should be thinking big, thinking about getting two more victories and hoisting the Lombardi Trophy amid a green and white confetti rain. Reaching the AFC Title Game is a great achievement…no doubt. But don’t settle here. Don’t be satisfied with just a “great” season. Dream of a “Super” season. It’s now within reach.
Opportunities like these are so rare. Teams come so close, fall just short, and then prepare for a future that may never come. One season a franchise makes it to the Championship Game, and the next season their balloon of hopes and dreams pop like their quarterback’s Achilles tendon in week one (see Vinny & the Jets circa 1999).
There are so many variables in the NFL. Teams battle devastating injuries, unfavorable schedules, inclement weather, a salary cap, and have to peak at the right time just to have a shot at a January run. There are no guarantees in the NFL…well…other than Joe Willie’s pledge prior to Super Bowl III.
Namath’s magic occurred a generation ago, the 2009 Jets are trying to exorcise the demons and do something that no Jets team has done since that unforgettable day in January 1969.
This is no longer just a feel good story. The Jets are in way too deep for that. An appearance in the AFC Championship Game officially qualifies as “serious business.” It’s an opportunity that may never come around again. The New York Jets head into Indianapolis to face Peyton Manning and the Colts on Sunday at 3:00 PM. A trip to Miami, and a place in history hangs in the balance.
No time like the present. No guarantees for the future. No turning back now.
Get greedy Jets fans.
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By Jason Klein
Originally Written For The Official Steiner Sports Blog – 1/5/10
The sign outside may have read “
Giants Stadium,” but the building finally felt like home for Jets fans on Sunday night.
The Jets, perhaps, saved their best performance for last as they did battle with the Cincinnati Bengals in the final game played in Meadowlands history. Gang Green overcame frigid temperatures, and all the odds, to defeat the Bengals 37-0 in a rout. In the process, they clinched the 5thseed in the AFC playoffs, the franchise’s first trip to the post season since 2006.
The Jets were destined to do what their co-tenants couldn’t the week prior. The Giants’ final Meadowlands performance left a sour taste – falling to the Panthers 41-9 in week 16. By contrast, the Jets refused to lose, holding the playoff-bound Bengals to just 72 total yards of offense…in the whole game!
Mark Sanchez completed an up-and-down rookie season on a high note, managing the offense and feeding Thomas Jones. Following the game, and a refreshingly frosty Gatorade bath for head coach, Rex Ryan, players did a victory lap, shaking hands with the fans and shutting out the lights at the old building in style.
It was the final great moment inside a building that provided many along the way. Jets fans will always remember moments like the Monday Night Miracle victory over the Dolphins in 2000, the 1999 Divisional Game against Jacksonville, and the back-to-back routs of the Packers and Colts to end the 2002 regular season and start the playoffs respectively. Giants fans will quickly forget the team’s 2009 shortcomings and focus more on the three Lombardi Trophies, hoisted after the 1986, 1990 and 2007 seasons.
Whatever your allegiance, there is tons of history oozing from within the Meadowlands walls. A new partnership joining Steiner Sports with the Meadowlands allows fans and football historians alike to own pieces of that nostalgia.
Interested in owning a pair of seats from within Giants Stadium? Steiner Sports new partnership makes that possible. Fans will have access to seats, seatbacks, pieces of the turf, goal posts, and various other items from within the building. It’s the perfect way to commemorate the past and look forward to a bright future inside the New Meadowlands starting in 2010.
As the Jets prepare for their Wild Card Weekend rematch with Cincinnati, and the Giants start to prepare for what will no doubt be an exciting 2010 campaign, the lights inside Giants Stadium are now dark. There will never be another game played inside the building that served as home for two teams, and enjoyed one glorious timeline of moments.
It finally felt like home for Jets fans on Sunday night. Giants fans have always felt ownership. With both teams moving across the parking lot next season, now it’s the fans who can start to make pieces of the building their own.
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Jason Klein 