That's something that we were talking about doing anyway. This will provide people with something extra to do on either end of the core area of the parade zone.

Out of sensitivity to the people of New Orleans.

Nothing like this has ever happened before. There's no model for it. We could have 10 more people or we could have 10,000 more.

Since the first of the year, people been talking about the possibility of this game. It's exciting. It's been a fun year. We're 12-0, No. 2 in the country, playing for the national championship. It doesn't get any better than this.

Now we get people from New York City, California, Colorado. It's a fun party. In the past, some people thought New Orleans was too big a deal and they didn't want to go through that. We also have a range of different events. Our Mardi Gras has evolved into a lot of very different experiences.

It may be his way of telling the generals to stop talking about drawing down the forces.