Maybe they should have put a dome on the old stadium after all. That was my conclusion Sunday when I attended the final game at the Meadowlands before the Super Bowl.

A lot of wannabe tough guys like to say football’s a winter sport and that bad weather shouldn’t matter. There weren’t many of them in evidence by the fourth quarter of the Giants’ season-ending game against the Washington Redskins. Most of the crowd had fled by then. The few stragglers were risking hypothermia in the 40-degree downpour.

I’d come to do some research on the train link to the Meadowlands. After I finished that task, I bought a ticket from a scalper — except he was the one who got scalped. The face value of the ticket was $85, but he sold it to me for $10.

I got my 10 bucks worth, but just barely. As the rain pooled on my plastic poncho in the 40-degree weather, I found myself thinking about that bizarre statement by Al Kelly of the NY/NJ Super Bowl Host Committee, that the complex would be so thoroughly sealed off from the surrounding area on game day that only "a Navy SEAL" could get through.

I’ve read that one of the ways they train Navy SEALs is to make them sit in pools of near-freezing water. I’m sure that works for military men, but what sort of person would pay $1,000 or so to risk that or worse at a night game in February?

After I got home and dried out, I put in a call to George Zoffinger, who was the head of the Sports and Exposition Authority back in 2005 when the negotiations over the stadium took place. Zoffinger told me he wanted to keep the old stadium and put a dome on it. That might have made the venue profitable for us taxpayers. Instead, the authority voted to give the stadium complex to the Jets and Giants so they could build a new stadium.

"We could have had a dome and we could have had Super Bowls every five years," he said. "Instead, we got rolled by three New York billionaires."

The billionaires in question are the team owners. And it does indeed look like we got rolled by them. They’re marketing this game as a Manhattan extravaganza complete with a "Super Bowl Boulevard" on Broadway.

But what’s in it for New Jersey? Other than some low-wage jobs peddling beer and pretzels, not much that I can see.

Local business owners complain that the Super Bowl organizers are turning their proximity to the stadium into a liability instead of an asset. Because of the ban on shuttle buses and taxis, the fans staying in local hotels or patronizing local bars are will have to drive over the river to Secaucus to catch a train back over the river to East Rutherford.

The old Giants Stadium: There was no need to knock down a perfectly good stadium when adding a dome would have sufficed.

Mayor Jim Cassella told me the NFL is making it easier to get to the game from Manhattan than from the town in which it’s being played.

"They have these shuttle bus options, but why do they have more stops in New York City than New Jersey?" he asked. "New York City already has all the buses and mass transit you’d ever want."

Another option for those staying locally would be to drive to the game. But that means buying a parking pass. And that in turn means further enriching the New York billionaires — and the scalpers. Most of the $150 passes have been scooped up and they are now selling online for as much as $369. (Check this site where you can see even bus parking passes being sold for almost twice face value. Also check here to see what happens to any fan who misses the NFL's official bus.)

The organizers have been boasting that the game will bring more than $500 million into the local economy. But most of the profit will go to the aforementioned billionaires.

"You think that they care at all about New Jersey?" Zoffinger asked.

Apparently not. But why should they? They’re businessmen and they drive a hard bargain.

As for our side of that bargain, it’s hard to see what our politicians got for us in all the years we’ve had a sports authority. We got a horse track begging for a bailout with slot machines, an obsolete indoor arena, and a football stadium whose owners can’t hide their contempt for the locals.

Oh yeah, we’ve also got the ugliest shopping mall on the planet.

Something tells me we should have quit while we were behind.

ADD: The New York Times recently ran an excellent piece by Charles V. Bagli in which he analyzed the financial loss to New Jersey taxpayers from the stadium deal. An excerpt:



Another point that Zoffinger made was that the old Giants Stadium was a clone of Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, a stadium that to this day is considered an excellent venue for pro football.

Zoffinger said a roof could have been built on the old stadium for a fraction of the cost of building a new one. But as you can see from the Bagli article, the new stadium will make more money for the team owners, with just a token payment to us taxpayers.

Interestingly enough, that stadium was denied a chance to host next year's Super Bowl because it lacks a roof.

COMMENTS: The topic here is the state's bungled dealings with the sports authority. I don't want to hear from wannabe tough guys talking about how they can endure bad weather while watching the Giants. All such comments will be deleted as a distraction. However if you want to communicate them to me, I expect to be out surfing the day after this blizzard blows over, which will probably be Saturday. Please paddle out through the six-foot waves in the 40-degree water and tell me personally of your great talents for enduring foul weather. If you've climbed Everest or something, I will be impressed. But standing around watching tough guys play a game does not make you a tough guy. It makes you a fool, especially when you could be warm and dry watching the game on the big screen TV at the Dragonfly Bar down the river from the stadium. Do that and you'll also be contributing more to the local economy. So stick to the topic, boys and girls.

ALSO: That "goof without a roof" headline is a homage to "the mistake by the lake," which was the old Cleveland stadium.

For the life of me I never understood why the state wanted to develop in a swamp when there is plenty of nice, high ground just a mile to the west. As for Xanadu, I need not even weigh in.