If you look in USA today -editorial page-- you will see a snapshot of the departures flowing to NY and to Chicago for all the South Florida airports. While many problems, things that did not help was the weather, the number of arrivals to pick up passengers, the decision early on to not have slots or reservations for Monday figuring 40% of the traffic would leave after the game.
ATC made the call on this some time ago. KOPF or any of the other towers got no real say in the process.