The FYC brings up something we've been wondering about this whole Super Bowl week as well: Where are all the "Jesus, the Super Bowl is in Detroit! It sucks here!" stories? One of the great traditions of Super Bowl week is reporters bitching about the host city (Bill Simmons turned this into a modern art form when the Super Bowl was in Jacksonville.) In his ESPN blog, Chuck Klosterman hints at all the burned-out buildings near downtown, but on the whole, there hasn't been much. Here we are in Detroit, a city that no one would wish a Super Bowl on their worst enemy, and scribes are being suspiciously silent.

We don't mean to gratuitously rip on Detroit; ripping on host cities is the way it's supposed to work. But why so quiet about Detroit? Maybe their big PR campaign worked? Maybe. But The FYC has a different theory.

Yes, the Super Bowl could have been in a more "fun" location. And, yes, Detroit has seen better days. But it really makes me wonder: How much does the lack of venom by the national press this year have to do with a respect for the city of Detroit; and how much does it have to do with the fact that ESPN essentially rules over every single sports writer in America? ... I noticed that not only were sports writers not attacking the city of Detroit for sucking, they were actually defending it. The same group of writers who had viciously assaulted the last two hosts of the NFL's championship game, all of a sudden not going for blood?!? Excuse me, sir, but I smell a rat.

It's just a theory. But considering how quickly anything off-topic has been quashed this year, well, it's not an interesting one.

ESPN Sucks, Reason 135,972 [The FYC]
What's Right About Detroit [Detroit Free-Press]
Who Started The Fires? [ESPN]

(Addendum: For the record, we do not think there's some huge conspiracy here, though if there were, we're sure Castro and the mob were involved. It just seems strange that everyone just kind of locked into place, no?)

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