CHICAGO, United States (AFP) — Super Bowl 55 was moved from Los Angeles to Tampa by NFL team owners on Tuesday, days after developers delayed a new California stadium’s projected opening by a year to 2020.
In addition to shifting the 2021 Super Bowl venue to Florida, owners also awarded Los Angeles the 56th Super Bowl in 2022 during league meetings in Chicago, the NFL announced.
Owners made the move five days after the new stadium project, set to be the new home of the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers, was pushed back from a 2019 scheduled unveiling.
Last year, NFL owners awarded the yet-to-be-built Southern California venue the 2021 Super Bowl. But record rainfall in the region caused construction delays, up to 15 feet of water flooding the excavation site, forcing delays that put the project too far behind schedule to finish in 2019.
The current rotation of Super Bowl host cities now includes a domed venue in the cold-weather market of Minneapolis, Minnesota, for Super Bowl 52 next February, then Atlanta for Super Bowl 53 in 2019, South Florida in 2020, Tampa in 2021 and Los Angeles in 2022.
© Agence France-Presse