Which cities deserve to host a Super Bowl?

There are plenty of cities that haven’t had a Bowl for a long time — or never hosted one at all. The next few years feature classic Super Bowl locations – Tampa, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Phoenix/Glendale – but the NFL can and should expand its geographic ambitions to mix it up and bring the Bowl to underserved football fan communtiies. So with that in mind, here is our list of cities — and fans — that deserve to someday play host to football’s biggest game.

San Diego hasn't hosted a Super Bowl since 2003, a game where Tampa Bay shellacked the Raiders after Oakland's center went on a bender in Tijuana, Mexico. "America's Finest City" has now lost the Chargers to L.A., and the Clippers to L.A., and the Padres lose to L.A. 15 times a year. Ron Burgundy and those fans deserve something nice! 

It’s a great football town, though to get a crowd, the NFL would have to tell residents that it's the University of Alabama having a rare February scrimmage. And they’ll have to accept that the players are paid in money, not in no-show jobs or leased vehicles. Why not Tuscaloosa, since a good quarter of the players are going to be Crimson Tide alums anyway? Bowl Tide!

The Super Bowl and the London games have a lot in common. The crowds don't particularly support a specific team as much as they support the sport of American football. There's a lot more Roman numerals on things than at a normal game. And if Jacksonville is involved everyone will cheer, but inside they'll be kinda bummed about it. It’ll be worth it just for the drunken hooligans shouting for a hand ball penalty every time the quarterback drops back to pass.

Arrowhead is a classic NFL stadium, and the Chiefs have a rich history, having won Super Bowls IV and LIV. What's a fifty-year gap between titles anyway? Kansas City is known for its jazz music and its barbecue, and has the most boulevards of any city besides Paris, which makes sense, as K.C. is known as the Paris of Western Missouri.

Maybe it's an unusual destination for February, but Portland is really just as rainy in the summer. The Super Bowl is ready for all-vegan concession stands. The problem is that Portland's stadium holds only 20,000 people, but the rest of the fans can go bird watching, shop for used books, or hit up a food truck festival. The problem will be lagging fan interest. Even if the game is close in the fourth quarter, Portland fans will insist they were “more into the Super Bowl's early stuff” from the first half, before riding a fixed-gear bike to a Timbers fan rally. 

San Antonio was a great temporary home for the Saints when they were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. NFLville can take over the Riverwalk, and if a team makes a comeback, announcers can talk about the defenders of the Alamo. (Though the Alamo was a total blowout. Davy Crockett was the Jim Kelly of his era.) Plus, the Spurs maniacal mascot — the motorcycle-riding, always-pantsless Coyote — will add a real edge to the proceedings.

It would be so special to have the NFL’s biggest game in the nation’s capital. And thanks to the recent unrest at the Capitol, local law enforcement has had a dress rehearsal for what it would be like to deal with Raider fans. If the league is worried about a team having home-field advantage in the Bowl, you’re probably safe in assuming Dan Snyder's squad will not be making the title game. 

The Grand Ol Opry is 40 years older than the Super Bowl, but the Bowl has never come to Music City. There's definitely plenty of live entertainment for Super Bowl visitors in Nashville, plus they can have a halftime show with Garth Brooks and Chris Gaines.

The Green Bay Packers won the first two Super Bowls, and two more later, but for some reason, the NFL has never seriously considered Green Bay, WI as a Super Bowl site. Maybe that's because the city's population just over 100,000, roughly the same as the number of fans who attended the Packers' last Super Bowl triumph at Cowboys Stadium. But there's plenty of tourist attractions, like Lambeau Field, the Packers Museum, and the Packers Heritage Trail.

Toronto is a beautiful, diverse city in Canada that hosted six Bills games between 2003 and 2013. While fans might be confused at first that there’s only 11 players on a side and no one’s punting on third down, they’ll soon be charmed by the American game. Or they’ll be so polite that no one will be able to tell. And Drake will be in the halftime show, whether the NFL actually books him or not.

Estadio Azteca drew a crowd of over 76,000 for an NFL game in 2016, so there’s a real appetite for "Fútbol Americano" south of the border. The city has hosted two World Cups, aka the “Super Bowl of the other football” so it’ll be prepared for a big event...provided its field is in good shape.

Amazon is going to underwrite Seattle’s campaign for the game, delivering their bid in less than two days, assuming Roger Goodell has Prime. Imagine the skills competition as wide receivers compete to catch fish at the Pike Place Market! Eddie Vedder can sing the national anthem, Irene from "The Real World" can do the coin toss and slap the losing team captain, and Macklemore will be incarcerated to prevent him from performing.

The Super Bowl marks the end of the season, and there’s no more powerful symbol of the End of Days than Denver International Airport’s nightmare horse statue. Legal weed in Colorado means the NFL could see record concessions sales at the game!

Barcelona has hosted a giant international sporting event before, with the 1992 Summer Olympics, but we want a Spanish Super Bowl just to hear the announcers try to properly pronounce “Thuper Bowl,” Catalan-style. They’d have to start the game after midnight to accommodate American time zones, but everyone takes a long afternoon siesta, so they’ll be ready. Just don’t tell the players about Ibiza.

Fans of “The Wire” will be thrilled to have a Super Bowl in Charm City, though the NFL runs the risk of fans skipping the telecast, but claiming they’ve watched the game so their friends think they’re cool. They also run the risk of the Irsay family secretly moving the Super Bowl site to Indianapolis in the middle of the night.

The NFL needs to expand its reach into the Southwest beyond just Arizona. And what better place than Albuquerque, where fans can dine on delicious chicken from Los Pollos Hermanos and visit the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History. 

You know when the TV cameras find the star of the Super Bowl and ask what he's going to do next, and he says, “I’m going to Disney World!” What if that guy’s already at Disney World? Mind blown.

You know what Super Bowl crowds rarely do? Get blind drunk before the game and then throw stuff on the field. Snowballs, batteries, rescue cats, cheese steaks, shards of the Liberty Bell, ring-worn Rocky Balboa trunks, Tastykakes — literally anything is in play. The Super Bowl of Brotherly Love would add a much-needed level of menace to the annual game. But the NFL better book Boyz II Men to play the halftime show, or there might be a riot by the middle of the third quarter.

These NFL teams have been pampered too long in warm-weather cities and domes for the Super Bowl, and honestly, so have the fans. Let's play a Super Bowl on the shores of Lake Michigan, to see which champions are truly tough, and who wins a Lombardi trophy covered in celery salt.

After all of the Bills' devastating losses in the '90s, not to mention the city's contributions to the apex of all sports-watching snacks, the wing, the people of Buffalo deserve a Super Bowl. Who needs warm weather and beaches when Buffalo has the Buffalo & Erie County Naval and Military Park and a bronze statue of Tim Horton – outside of a Tim Horton’s?

After hitting rock bottom with an 0-16 season, the Browns have finally returned to the playoffs, and the fans have begun to believe their first Super Bowl appearance is possible. In the meantime, if the Browns can’t go to the Super Bowl, maybe the Super Bowl can go to their city. Visitors can enjoy the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, tour the Earnest Byner Butterfingers factory and get a latte made by former No. 1 pick Tim Couch! The best part is that no matter what happens, Cleveland fans will get to see a football team win a title in their city – provided the NFL doesn’t do a live TV special to announce it's moving the game to South Beach.