Super Bowl 2012: No Matter Who Won, Los Angeles Still Loses

By Simone Wilson Mon., Feb. 6 2012 at 11:00 AM

Our sentiments exactly.

Last night's Americana showdown at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis was blaring on the TV sets of 47.8 percent of the nation's households -- Los Angeles very much included.

After all, we couldn't bear to be out of the loop on all the Super Bowl tweets and commercials and pop-culture commentary this hungover Monday! (Did y'all catch Gisele's hilarious post-game schooling of Tom Brady's teammates? And M.I.A.'s very non-world-peace-ful middle finger to the masses? Hashtag fever!)

But it was really, really hard for L.A. to care about the game itself.

New England versus New York, way over on that blustery other coast? Might as well have been Mars versus Pluto.

Why doesn't the second largest city in the country have a football team? In short: because we have no stadium, and because the NFL has been skeptical about moving an existing team/creating a whole new one on an already crowded roster.

But we're going to set aside our snarky skepticism of AEG's proposal for an NFL venue in downtown L.A., just for a second, to ask from our down-home hearts: How are we supposed to bond with the rest of the country on the second most patriotic day of the year when we didn't even have a horse in the race?

Our sister news blog at The Village Voice is glowing with hometown pride:

Late last night, the mayor's office announced plans for football festivities, which include a ticker-tape parade starting at Battery Place and Washington Street at 11 a.m. tomorrow. It will continue up the Canyon of Heroes (or, y'know, Broadway, as most of us like to call it), and end at Worth Street. At 1 p.m. at City Hall Plaza, the mayor -- who loves the Giants -- will present the team with "Keys to the City."

Meanwhile, the only part of Sunday's big game we could call our own was that embarrassing performance by LMFAO. (Sorry, America.) Not exactly the stuff of city keys.

To rub it in, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced on Super Bowl eve that the NFL is not looking into an L.A. team at this time. (Also dispelling, once and for all, rumors that the San Diego Chargers might be headed north.) ESPN comments on that big buzz kill:

So stop looking all butthurt, Brady. The biggest loser last night -- and all season long -- was most definitely Los Angeles. Hell, the closest thing we've got to a team are a bunch of role players playing flag football on a raggedy field up in South Pasadena.

[@simone_electra / swilson@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]

Tags:

LMFAO, Los Angeles, NFL, stadium, Super Bowl

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Der Mondfleck

Why do we need a NFL team? idaman has it right. F a stadium build more schools.

blah

Nah, we're good.. no NFL team needed

Rts6789

would you like some cheese and crackers with that whine. poor L.A. you know that's what the whole country was thinking all year. build a stadium. figure out how to get power to run it. no black outs during games. californa all ready looked like an idiot when the oakland game went dark twice. good way to beat a injured QB. wait for pain pills to wear off. is LA shaking into the ocean yet. one way to put out the wild fires. no water. no electrical. no money. the wrong coast. yeah you sure could use a NFL Team.

thejman7

I remember - not too long ago - when the LA area had two football teams. Two! If one sucked, we always had the other one to fall back on; just like we do with basketball. If makes no sense for Goodell not to have a team in L.A. - the country's second largest television market. He has to go. It's time for the NFL to pick someone who has the vision to make an L.A. team a reality. It's embarrasing that Minneapolis has all four professional teams and we don't. Sure their teams may suck but they still have them.

idaman

I'm tired of AEG'S constant attempts to have cities build arena's at the expense of taxpayers, for their own profit. The economy sucks and we don't need to build jacksheet for a bunch of overpaid ball dribblers and throwers...how bout we build a giant school and put all the best teachers in it to teach our kids the best they can. The politicians and AEG (developers) conspire to pick the pockets of the common man. That's what this is all about-telling you that you need some sheet you can't afford....if its such a good idea, let AEG fund it without taxpayers dollars...dollars that can be better spent on screening out pedophile teachers from the lausd.