We know that Irving Mayor Herbert Gears wouldn’t mind if the Cowboys don’t make it to Super Bowl XLV, to be played next February in Arlington. No team has ever made it into a Super Bowl played at its own home field–the closest was when the San Francisco 49ers beat the Dolphins at the 1985 game played at Stanford University in nearby Palo Alto.
So no one really knows how the economic impact of the game would be affected. Most observers believe that the crowd that comes to the Super Bowl comes no matter who is playing, therefore plenty of out-of-town guests can be expected regardless. Others predict that several million fewer dollars would flow into the region if the Cowboys are the NFC champion, but that it would be a lot of fun to see anyway.
Well, a host of odds on next year’s game have come out since the Saints claimed Super Bowl XLV. Most of them are along these lines, giving the Cowboys about a 12-1 shot of winning the next championship. Of course, Dallas is the second-highest NFC team on that list, suggesting that their odds of simply making it to the title game are even better than that.
