It’s January 28, 2009, and you can’t find a flight from New York to Tampa, no matter who you know or how hard you try. Flights leaving LaGuardia and JFK International airports have been booked for weeks, and even neighboring launch pads like Newark International in New Jersey and little MacArthur Airport all the way out on Long Island are booked solid.

People around the New York metropolitan area have even resorted to making the 20-hour drive from New York to Tampa, figuring, “What the hell?  Let’s make a road trip out of it!”

Even if you can find a way to get down there, good luck getting a ticket. This one is a scalper’s dream, and it will cost you in the neighborhood of $5,000 just to get into Raymond James Stadium. Even then, you’ll probably be stuck on the pirate ship buried in the corner of the building.

Every hotel within 50 miles is being invaded by armies of people cloaked in green or blue—there hasn’t been a vacancy in weeks. 

And the trash talking is like nothing you’ve ever seen—unless you’re from New York, that is. At a moment’s notice anywhere in the city, you can hear the green people, “J-E-T-S Jets, Jets, Jets!”, and the blue people, “Back to back, baby! Come get some!”.

It’s an unbelievable sight. The NFL is staging a Subway Super Bowl.

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