Two Sportscasters Claim Super Bowl Will Regret Las Vegas Visit

What happens in Vegas will be a major news distraction that’s bad for the NFL, two Super Bowl sportscasters predicted this week.

ESPN’s Joe Buck said that “something” will happen to distract the players and fans from the big game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday and that it will be “a mess.”

There’s going to be some story, there’s gonna be something that happens because it’s Vegas, and it won’t stay in Vegas,” Buck said during a Monday appearance on “The Opening Drive on 101 ESPN in St. Louis. “It’s gonna be a big something that happens.”

Buck wouldn’t elaborate on what that big something will be.

“I just think that is going to be a mess in my mind,” he said, adding that he’s happy he won’t be in Vegas to see it happen personally.

“I’m not that way,” he said. I’m not looking for the Maxim party and going out all night. It’s just not my thing, and then you combine that with Vegas….”

OK, Boomer

CBS Sports analyst Boomer Esiason had essentially the same impending sense of doom when asked what Las Vegas brings to the Super Bowl.

“Trouble,” he told a reporter in the press room on Tuesday. “You know, they did keep (all the leagues) out of here all those years for a reason, when you think about it … before all this gambling became legal.”

Esiason came to sportscasting after a long career quarterbacking with the Cincinnati Bengals, New York Jets, and Arizona Cardinals, saying, “We’re playing with fire, almost.”

“I’m loving every minute of it,” he said. “But I’m not playing, and I’m not distracted. I would have kept them in Arizona myself. Keep everybody out of here until the game. Get them here on the morning of the game.”

Already this week, Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Janarius Robinson was arrested on the Las Vegas Strip on suspicion of DUI, according to multiple reports.

What Happened in Phoenix

Even without Vegas, trouble seems to find the Super Bowl. Last year, when the Chiefs beat the Eagles, 38-35, at State Farm Stadium, headlines focused on lewd comments allegedly made by former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Michael Irvin toward a female employee of a Marriott hotel.

Irvin was temporarily pulled from the NFL Network’s Super Bowl coverage. He later brought a $100M defamation lawsuit against the hotel chain, which was settled out of court, according to the Dallas Morning News.