The Associated Press has a story out titled “What’s next for Charlotte: Olympics? Super Bowl?” It’s about, as you probably guessed, what the next megaevent is that the Queen City will try to attract. Options mentioned include, yes, the Super Bowl, the Olympics, and the G-20 Summit. The whole thing is pretty silly, aside from maybe the Super Bowl thing:

Charlotte has never made an organized attempt to get a Super Bowl. The Panthers’ stadium was built in the mid-1990s and is older than half the others in the NFL. The league has also been leery about awarding its biggest game played in February to an open-air stadium outside of Florida and California, although New York landed the 2014 Super Bowl.

I expect we’re going to hear a lot about Charlotte trying to attract a Super Bowl soon. Why? A study is underway to come up with upgrades to Bank of America Stadium. We don’t know what that will entail, but I’d be surprised if it didn’t come to something in the hundreds of millions of dollars. This being the NFL, the expectation has increasingly been on local and state governments to pay a big chunk of the costs for new arenas and arena upgrades. And how do you sell that to voter-taxpayers? Dangle the possibility of a Super Bowl in Charlotte as a result.

Now how realistic is that? Odds against certainly — and so still considerably better than the completely made up numbers used to justify the NASCAR HOF, the Charlotte Convention Center, or CATS’ Red Line. A Charlotte Super Bowl bid would have one thing going for it though: Jerry Richardson is hugely respected in the league. Having the event here in a remodel stadium, especially a remodeled stadium with a roof, could be a one-time recognition of Richardson’s contributions to the league. Richardson is 76, which creates a limited window of opportunity.

Is that potential worth the costs of a stadium upgrade? Probably not, but we’ll have to see what the upgrade study comes up with.

Bonus silliness: “It is part of the DNA of those of us in Charlotte to continually aspire to be more than what we are.” — Charlotte Rent Seekers Guide boss Bob Morgan