2012 looks like better year to host Super Bowl than 2011

If the NFL labor battle gets worked out later this week or early next week as many league insider think, chalk one up for the little guy.

And by that I mean Indianapolis and this city’s leadership. And you could throw in Colts owner Jim Irsay, though I’m sure he won’t like being called little in reference to other NFL owners.

Instead, let’s say chalk one up for the good guys, the home team or however you want to couch it.

Let me explain.

In 2007, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, one of the biggest of the big boys among NFL owners, threw his weight around and out-muscled Indianapolis for the 2011 Super Bowl.

Lucas Oil Stadium was finished before the Jerry Dome down in Dallas, so the vote by the NFL owners didn’t really make sense. After all, the NFL commissioner all but promised that if we built a new stadium, the Super Bowl would come. But there was this: Jones didn’t want the 2012 Super Bowl because he thought it might be sullied by the labor rift the league has been struggling with since March.

So after finishing runner-up for the 2011 Super Bowl, Indianapolis and Colts officials did what was logical. In 2008, at the NFL owners meeting in Atlanta, they bid for the 2012 Super Bowl—and won.

At the same meeting, the NFL owners opted out of the collective bargaining agreement with players, and union leaders went absolutely ballistic. There was talk of owners trying to break the union. It had all the makings of a long labor fight.

Jones was surely pleased with his calculated manuever.

But for those who went to the 2011 Super Bowl in Dallas, especially the media, nothing was more talked about than the soon-to-be expiring labor deal.

It truly was a distraction from the big game and the city hosting it. But with all the problems Dallas had—ice storms, slabs of snow cascading off the stadium onto people, malfunctioning stadium entrances and stands that couldn’t pass government inspection—maybe it was a good thing for Dallas that there was something to distract the throngs in the Lone Star state for the game.

It now turns out that by the time the 2012 Super Bowl rolls around, this labor fight will in all likelihood long be forgotten. The sole focus will be on the city and all its amenities.

And if needed, its ice melting salt and shiny, efficient snow plows.