By Kevin Helliker | The Wall Street Journal
(Editor’s note: Opinion pieces are published for discussions purposes only.)
In a Super Bowl between NFL superpowers, the only underdog here is Glendale.
Don’t count it out. Sunday’s game at Glendale’s University of Phoenix Stadium won’t do much to improve the city’s finances, especially since little else is happening here. Events such as NFL Experience are taking place in Phoenix and Scottsdale, and it is safe to say that is where most of the 100,000 visitors to these parts will be staying, especially the NFL elite. In Valley of the Sun circles, Glendale isn’t cool.
But there is something dubious about all the criticism this city of about 230,000 west of Phoenix has received ahead of the Super Bowl. In local and national publications, Glendale has been lampooned for borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars to build a hockey arena for the NHL’s Coyotes, a deal that went wrong every which way. Following the recession of 2008, tax revenue plunged along with property values, the team went bankrupt and the city cut services to make debt payments.
