NFL should end use of neutral site to host Super Bowl

	Detroit did a fine job hosting the Super Bowl, but using a neutral site takes away some of the excitement. Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

There was a point in Detroit last week, during the build-up to the Super Bowl, when I found myself wondering, why doesn't every sport do this? And by "this," I mean, hold its championship at a neutral site, chosen years in advance. This arrangement allows the NFL to plan events long in advance and make the week into a celebration of the sport and its history.

I was sure baseball should do the same thing. Seven games in one stadium. And baseball would even have an advantage over the NFL in that it would have a broader choice of host cities, because October weather is palatable pretty much everywhere. Kansas City or Pittsburgh or San Francisco could host the World Series as readily as conventional choices like Miami or San Diego or Houston.

You might lose the excitement of a team winning a Series in front of its home crowd, but did baseball fans think any less of the 2004 season because the Red Sox won the World Series in St. Louis? Or the American League title in Yankee Stadium, for that matter?

Like I said, I was thinking this was a pretty bright idea.

But after Super Bowl Sunday I reversed field completely. In fact, I came to believe its reverse: not only should the World Series keep its current setup, but the NFL should drop its current method. Let one of the conference champions host the Super Bowl in its home stadium.

The reasons:

1) The energy level. Steelers fans showed us something by taking over Ford Field. How much better was the game because 80 percent of the fans were waving Terrible Towels. There's a reason why network broadcasts of any big game start with a pan across the stadium showing 60,000 people going berserk. This year's sloppy game would have been even flatter if Steeler Nation hadn't taken over the building.

2) The Super Bowl would feel more like a piece of all that preceded it. One of SI's veteran photographers, who has been shooting Super Bowls since the 1970s, told me that he considered the AFC and NFC championships the real title games; the Super Bowl was a show. The game is something to "get to" as much as it is to win.

The Super Bowl certainly doesn't feel like a regular game, from the pregame and halftime pomp to little details like the changing of balls after every play so the NFL can slap the Super Bowl-used tag on a few more pigskins. But the biggest source of disconnect is the use of the neutral site. Give the game to the city of the team with the best record that year -- instead of a city chosen nearly a decade ago by league officials -- and the Super Bowl will feel more like a part of the season's continuum.