2014 Super Bowl logo features snowflake

[September 28, 2011]  NEW YORK (AP) -- Let it snow -- but not too much.

That would make for just about perfect weather conditions for the 2014 Super Bowl being co-hosted by New York and New Jersey.

"A little snow would be great for us, but whatever comes our way, we're going to be prepared for it," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said Tuesday during the unveiling of the host committee's blue-and-white snowflake logo for the game.

"Some of our most memorable games were played in unusual weather circumstances. Winter and cold are part of football, and snow is also," he said.

The game at MetLife Stadium will be the first outdoor Super Bowl in a cold-weather venue. Although the lowest Super Bowl kickoff temperature has been 39 degrees, average February temperatures at East Rutherford, N.J., are 24 to 40 degrees.

"The world will be waiting for us to probably screw up on this because this is the first cold-weather Super Bowl," New York Jets owner Woody Johnson said. "It was very courageous of our commissioner, Roger Goodell, and our fellow owners to vote yes on this -- albeit on the fourth or fifth ballot."

The logo and advertising campaigns were touted at a "power breakfast" news conference at The Modern, a restaurant in the Museum of Modern Art.

Broadcast ads, debuting Sunday, are delivered in booming baritone that proclaims: "A game so important, an event so monumental, a Super Bowl so historic it takes two states to host it." The campaign and logos were designed by Source Communications in New Jersey.

The TV ad includes the Statue of Liberty with shoulder pads, and yard lines on a field on the George Washington Bridge, which connects the two states. The logo has an "NY" and "NJ" flanking the flake at the span's base.

"We thought it would be both fun and direct to put the snowflake right into our major symbol," said Al Kelly, the former American Express president hired in April as chief executive officer of the host committee.

The NFL said an additional game logo will be released a year before the game is played.

If anyone thinks ticket prices were off the charts at this year's NFL title game at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas -- $600 and $1,200 -- wait until this one comes to town.

"I expect our ticket prices will probably be the most expensive ticket prices of any Super Bowl that's been held," he said, "but I think that's a decision that sits with the NFL, and it's a decision that hasn't been made yet."

NFL owners awarded the game to the $1.6 billion venue in May 2010, just as the stadium was opening.

Kelly said 22 businesses had signed up as sponsors and will pay a minimum $1 million each. Among the co-chairs representing the sponsors are Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs & Co.; Janet Robinson of The New York Times Co.; Massimo d'Amore of PepsiCo Beverages Americas; Gerald Hassell of BNY Mellon; Robert Kapito of BlackRock; and Michael Kowalski of Tiffany & Co.

Goodell said for now, the NFL would not consider a Super Bowl outside the United States -- London's Wembley, for example -- preferring instead to concentrate on its teams' stadiums.

[Associated Press; By RONALD BLUM]

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.