How Windsor is involved in Super Bowl XL

Windsor, Ontario is definitely a part of this Super Bowl, the first time a Canadian city has been part of the festivities.

According to sbxl.org/faq, here is how the City of Windsor is involved:

• Establishing their own Windsor Super Bowl XL Planning Committee, whose members include Windsor’s mayor, Eddie Francis and Gordon Orr, Managing Director of the Windsor Convention & Visitors Bureau. The Planning Committee is exploring a downtown Windsor festival.
• Windsor hotels are part of the NFL room block.
• NFL Canada, one of three international NFL affiliates, will promote Windsor as a destination for Canadian NFL football fans to celebrate and enjoy the game.
• Windsor venues are under consideration for Host Committee and NFL events during Super Bowl Week.
• The Host Committee works with the Convention and Visitors Bureau of Windsor, Essex County and Pelee Island.

For those who have never been to Windsor, it’s a primarily blue-collar neighbor of about 208,000. It may be next to Detroit, but it’s not Detroit.

But as an AP sportswriter described Windsor, “Some prostitution is legal. Strip clubs are easy to find. Marijuana use is largely tolerated. Cuban cigars are available. A brightly lit casino beckons Americans from across the Detroit River.”

The same article did point out an observation I also saw last summer in Windsor. The city has done a really nice job with its riverfront, lining it with trees and sidewalks and making it friendly for joggers. The skyline of Detroit is rather nice from there.

It has been fun to read the American perspective and the “excitement” of discovery. Another AP article notes Canada's 19-year-old drinking age and its bare-it-all strippers with alcohol.

(Michigan doesn’t allow alcohol and total nudity together. Detroit apparently requires G-strings. Several media outlets are reporting that Michigan doesn't offer total nudity. I can't confirm or deny this; if true, that's a change.)

Also noted were the city's 14 licensed escort services. The article noted that the women, she said, are hired by the hour as escorts. Prostitution is legal under Canadian law, but soliciting is not. That means deals must be made between the client and the escort.

An article in the Globe and Mail noted that some believe the event will result in a cash flood of up to $300-million for the Windsor area.