From ‘Violence-complacent’ to ‘Terrorist-ready’

Abstract

This study focuses on emerging discourses of stadium and event security at the US National Football League’s (NFL) annual Super Bowl game. Unlike the championship series in other US sports leagues in which games are located in the cities of the teams that qualify, the NFL’s Super Bowl game is ‘awarded’ to cities after a competitive bidding process. The Super Bowl provides an interesting case study because football stadia are now developed based not only on franchise owners’ demands regarding profit and control, but also on the NFL’s requirements for hosting a Super Bowl. These requirements reach beyond the confines of the stadium itself and into the urban spaces and communities in which stadia are located. In this new geo-political context, ‘Super-Bowl-ready’ means shifting from ‘violence-complacent’ to ‘terrorist-ready’—indeed, since 9/11, the US government has classified the Super Bowl as a ‘national special security event’. Both the host city and the event are, in military parlance, ‘target-rich environments’, offering tantalising opportunities for ‘terrorists’ to strike at the very heart of the ‘American way of life’. This new discourse of security complicates the longstanding and well-documented rhetoric connecting stadium development with urban growth. Rather than replace the pro-growth discourse, post-9/11 frames were effectively incorporated by journalists into the pro-growth discourse—both vulnerability and safety are now presented as contributing to the ‘fact’ that hosting a Super Bowl is good for the city-as-a-whole.