I am not a sports fan, and of all the sports, football (American style) is the sport I like the least. Today I read an article in the Houston Chronicle about Superbowl organizers seeking 10,000 volunteers to direct visitors from airports and hotels and (did I read this correctly?) to Sell Souveniers. OMG!
link and excerpt:
Help wanted for Super Bowl
10,000 volunteers needed, but don’t expect spot on sideline
By BILL MURPHY
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle
Local organizers of Super Bowl week announced Monday that they will need 10,000 volunteers to greet visitors at the airport, work information booths in hotels and help out at NFL Experience, a pavilion with activities and souvenirs.
But if you’re hoping for a spot on the sidelines on game day, you’re likely out of luck. The registration brochure clearly states, “No volunteers will be utilized in Reliant Stadium on game day.”
This organizers of this giant money fest where big players and big investors make a gazillion dollars each are asking folks to volunteer to help make them More Money?
Nowaynohow. Maybe I can leave town when the thing comes here. Maybe I should just cover my ears for the time being. Isn’t it several years away anyway? Plenty of time to make plans. Houston is already working itself into a tizzy about how ugly the place is (deservedly so) and I thought I heard that the new Reliant Stadium is suing the roofing company because the roof is dirty or moldy or something. With so much time to obsess over the superbowl, things can only get worse.
The only thing I can say is that the SB does bring in a lot of tourist money to whatever city it’s held in. Not just to the stadium, but to the city at large.
I can see asking for volunteers for information booths and such, I guess, but to sell souveniers? That’s just bizarre.
Actually, Ca3799, it’s the roof to Minute Maid Park that has a mold problem. However, a recent article by the Chron (and no longer available online unless you have a paid account) said that the roof’s manufacturer has agreed to wash the roof. However, the Sports Authority still wants to claim it as a warranty defect and maybe get a new roof (if I remember the article correctly). Since I drive past Reliant Stadium everyday going to school, I can tell you that that roof is still pearly white.
That’s my only contribution to the thread because I don’t follow football, and I’m probably to going to stay barricaded in my apartment Superbowl weekend to avoid the traffic snarls. I do second Cheesesteak: volunteers to sell souveniers is bizarre.
Yea, Jacksonville has the SuperBowl AFTER Houston - in Feb. 2005 (for the 2004 season). Big Hype. Big push for volunteers. Big push for corporate sponsorships and contributions. Big stink (well, little stink, 'cause were just so SB crazy) when the publicly owned electric/water/sewer utility and the publicly owned airport authority both pledged cash and services to the SB. It’s gets even better. Since NE Fla / SE Ga. don’t have enough Class “A” hotel rooms, or night clubs, the SB Committee is going to bring in a bunch of cruise ships to fill the void. The Dept. of Transportation is being pressured to put decorative lights on the 5 downtown bridges, so it will look purty on TV. At a cost of 1/4 to 1/2 million $ each (they want realllly purty lights).
The official Super Bowl 39 web site . Can’t find a link to the bridge lighting, beyond brief newspaper stories without relevant pics.
That reminds me, PlanMan. The city and the county, according to another report a few months back, are either starting or accelerating a program to landscape the freeways around here (particularly from Bush Airport down IH-45 to downtown). There ain’t enough for all those little trees to grow big enough to block out the billboards for men’s clubs and restaurants. Metro’s also in a big hurry to get the light rail system up and running (which conveniently runs from downtown to Reliant Stadium).
It’s amusing how much stuff the city and county want to get done before the Superbowl. The light rail, the Hilton Americas, the downtown street reconstruction, etc. I’ll be amazed if any of it is finished by then.
Of course, lets not forget Houston’s first light rail, that HAPPENS to go from Downtown Houston south towards Reliant stadium. Lets not worry first about making a light rail that goes out toward the residential communities. We need to make an impression for the superbowl (lower case intentional).
We are a city where people come for jobs. It is a wonderful place to live, not to visit. Actually it can be good fun to visit, but it is not really a tourist destination, and most of us are cool with this.
The volunteer thing is nothing new, this has been going on at pretty much every PGA Tour event for years. They at least get onto the course for free, though.
Traffic will suck. Restaurants and hotels will be overcrowded, and the friend who is a caterer is already talking about “extra help” needed. (No, i’m old, i’m sick and i’m grouchy.)
Volunteers, huh?
Yeah, right. Especially to give directions. Most people don’t know their way around this town, only the part where they live.
You know, I detest televised sports in general. My favorite events are the Tour de France and Whitbread (er) Volvo World Cup … maybe the Paris Dakar Rally. But do you think for one moment that I didn’t throw a party with four entirely different types of yard long submarine sandwiches (plus a ½ keg of Michelob lager) only to watch my beloved Niners win the Superbowl with the digits of my birth year on my exact birthday? Well, maybe, yes.
Well, if you think of all the infrastructure improvements cities put in place before the Olympics, preparations for the Super Bowl make a bit more sense, though the Super Bowl is a much smaller event. Of course, the NFL doesn’t want you thinking of anything Super Bowl-related as being small.
Acutally, Siegfried, the roof is extremely filthy. I saw it for the first time last Friday and was shocked at how dirty it was.
According to this article in the Houston Chronicle, quite a few people agree that the roof is indeed damaged. Astros cry foul over park roof
Fans walking to the game Sunday said they had noticed the roof’s black streaks and yellowish tint from the highway and downtown streets, and wondered what it was. “We saw it driving in,” said Ron Jensen of west Houston. Some guessed that it was mold, a common problem in humid Houston. Jensen suspected it was Ship Channel pollution. Regardless of the cause, Astros fans said someone should clean it.
But the fact that Minute Maid’s roof is one of the few in the country that is retractable “probably accelerates the problem,” according to Roodvoets. In shade, the organisms would likely multiply. “You get a little bit of dust … and a spore of mold, and it starts to grow,” Roodvoets said. The start of the problem, scientists believe, is moisture. Since the temperature of the membrane is often lower than the dew point temperature outside, the roof gets coated with condensation much like the dew on morning grass.
Astro fans hope it gets done soon. “It’s definitely filthy,” said Becky Baker of west Houston on Sunday. Her friend, Shane Ressman added, “I’m hoping they clean it up for the All-Star Game” in 2004.
Well, if these events bring in such massive amounts of tourist cash, why can’t they find the money to pay people working in Information Booths etc.? It seems to me that those who stand to benefit financially want their income to effectively be subsidised by volunteers.
Of course, if some morons want to give up their time to act as guides for the financial benefit of large corporations, who’s to stop them? I guess that, like the OP, i find the cynicism on the part of the multi-million dollar organizations that benefit from this volunteering to be rather contemptible. And the city representatvies who push the scheme as if it’s some sort of civic duty are, if possible, even worse.
Obligatory Simpsons reference:
[homer]
“Do you know that so-called volunteers don’t even get paid?”
The problem would be, as I see it, who would pay for the information booth? It doesn’t really benefit any individual corporation to have them, it’s like a public service. As such, I’d expect the government to pay, but they may not have the cash to do so, having to pay for other infrastructure improvements.
Corporate sponsorship might be possible “this information booth is sponsored by Pepsi”.
All i would answer to this is: if no-one is willing to pay for the information booth, then don’t have one. If the city’s businesses and the corporations connected with the Superbowl don’t feel, either individually or collectively, that they benefit from having such a booth, and are not willing to fund it, then what’s the big deal? Simple, free-market solution.
People visiting the city should be able to buy their own maps, guides, etc. And it’s not like the lack of some volunteers is going to stop people from attedning the Superbowl.
siberia, I said that Reliant Stadium’s roof is in good condition. And it is. Minute Maid Park’s roof is in bad condition. The article you linked to says as much, and I even said that my first post to this thread.
Roof on Reliant Stadium = good.
Roof on Minute Maid Park = bad and getting a lot of press about it.
My humblest apologies, ** Siegfried **. I realized my error after I posted and should have posted a correction but the hamsters were giving me fits. I should not have posted without my daily ration of caffeine.
Don’t worry about, siberia. It’s been one of those “I need a caffeine IV stat!” days today for me, too. I was almost last to an exam because I went to the wrong class (went to my first Tues/Thurs class instead of my first Mon/Wed class).
Here’s a radical idea. How 'bout having the damn NFL pay for the information booth? They’re the ones making all the money from the tv ads, and the ticket sales, and the merchandising revenue etc, etc. ad infinitem. If you don’t take it from them, they’ll just blow it on team executive salaries, hookers and $1,000,000 long snappers, so the city might as well take it from them first. Follow the money!
