The billion dollar show: How much does it cost to host a Super Bowl?
A spectacle as grandiose as the Super Bowl takes years of planning and preparation. But at what cost?
Well, if recently released reports are accurate, the total cost for hosting the most recent iteration of the event in Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium, will total an eye watering $7 billion!
Back in 2021 the NFL, along with the host city of Tampa, Florida, did their best to make Super Bowl LV feel like the showpiece event that it usually is. However, thanks to the blight of Covid-19, the entire NFL season felt slightly underwhelming. And a half full Raymond James Stadium did little to change that.
This most recent season though, with more normality being allowed at the back end of the year and into 2022, Super Bowl LVI saw a return to form of extravagance. It certainly did not disappoint, both on and off the field.
It had long been the assumption that the NFL set an excruciating number of demands of its host cities. In 2014, thanks to the Minnesota Star-Tribune, those concerns were found to be true when a leaked copy of the NFL’s requirements was published in relation to their bid to host in 2018.
The document was an eye watering 153 pages long and outlined, through 16 sections and further subsections, the minimum criteria that must be met for any city to be accepted.
The list of stipulations that must be adhered to is as ridiculous as it is frivolous and includes:
1. Mod Cons & Perks
There must be a 1,000 room hotel for the use of NFL staff that includes freebies such as snacks and beer as well as internet, meeting rooms and free parking. If the reception for mobile phones is too weak then boosters must be installed at no charge to the league. Obviously.
2. Game Coverage
Any hotels that will be in use during the week of the Super Bowl must agree to broadcast the NFL Network for the year leading up to the event. Again, at no charge to the league.
3. Park My Ride
On the day of the Super Bowl, the NFL must have 15,000 free of charge parking spaces near the stadium. On top of which, the league will be entitled to all parking revenue made from the remaining spaces at the stadium. Of course! Who else should reap the benefits?!
4. Free Advertising
The host will provide the NFL with at least 20 billboards to promote the Super Bowl. Free of… oh, you know by now.
5. Bowl Me Over
The city must have at least three, high quality golf courses as well as two bowling alleys, all of which will be free of charge for the league to use to host tournaments during Super Bowl week. Are you seeing a theme here?
6. Brand Loyalty
Vendors within the stadium must only serve products that sponsor the league such as Pepsi. If the stadium is usually endorsed by Coca-Cola, not only does the product itself need to change. But so does all of the branding, including on cups.
7. Access To Cash
The league reserves the right to cover or remove any ATMs at the stadium that do not accept NFL preferred cards and replace them with ones that do. We bet they don’t do it themselves though…
8. Turf’s Up
Once the game is over, the stadium must replace the field at their own cost and should the league request it, the turf will be sent to the NFL for them to sell on as a “licensed product”. Mindboggling!
9. Ice Ice Baby
A cool 800 pounds of ice must be provided to each team’s practice facility every day. (That’s a whole lotta beer buckets, but we can relate.)
10. The Eyes of the Law
Local law enforcement must provide a dedicated anti-counterfeit taskforce at no additional cost. God forbid the mighty NFL loses a few bucks.
11. Snow Days
It’s no surprise that balmy Miami has hosted more times than any other city! But if a location is chosen where snow could be an issue, the Super Bowl must be given priority when it comes to road clearance. Duvet day anyone?
Is it worth it?
The theme threaded through those select points was glaringly obvious but let’s spell it out just to be clear. The league pays for hardly anything yet reaps the majority of the financial benefits. The NFL even gets to control 100 percent of ticket revenue which includes any and all suites within the stadium.
Minnesota still agreed to host by the way. These and any other additional investments will have racked up additionally to the newly constructed US Bank Stadium, which finished completion in 2017 and is estimated to have cost a mere $1.1 billion.
A brand new, state of the art stadium is not listed within the requirements. But between 2006 and 2020 a total of nine new stadiums have been built. All of which will have hosted a Super Bowl when the showcase event culminates in Las Vegas’ new Allegiant Stadium in 2024.
It has only been in recent years that the NFL has seen a return on investment in the International Series. It would be stunning if any of the Super Bowl host cities see a positive financial return from that one game. Investing in a Super Bowl is about playing the long game, as is with the London fixtures.
Showcasing a city to an audience of close to 100 million viewers at once is obviously expensive. But the increased volume of tourists that it might attract over the next few years should be well worth it.
With the data being so difficult to collate accurately, economists are often at loggerheads as to whether the investment in a Super Bowl has positive or negative connotations for any region.
The Super Bowls own host committee and the commissioners of Miami Beach recently released a report that detailed the economic impact of having hosted the game in 2020. It stated that doing so had resulted in creating 4,597 new jobs. And had a financial impact to the tune of $580 million.
Miami has hosted more than any other city at a total of 11 times, the previous time being back in 2010. So it is likely that the infrastructural requirements were already in place.
Author of The Economics of the Super Bowl: Players, Performers and Cities, Victor Matheson, 46 of Sturbridge, Massachusetts points out “so much money makes its way back into the NFL’s bank account, from there it does get shared out but with the 32 teams on the payroll, none of it goes back into the host city.”
He goes on to state “with what we know about what professional sports means to people, hosting an event like the Super Bowl or an Olympics will be great for bringing together a community. If the NFL says to the respective bidding committee, we’ll bring the Super Bowl to you to make your people happy, then great, just don’t lie about making the city rich too.”
It appears as though saying yes to the NFL can be a double edge sword. And it’s no wonder that some of the most famously football dominated cities, until now at least, steer clear of offering up their services to the Commissioner.
Places such as Green Bay and Pittsburgh for example. However, even within this current economic time of uncertainty. With costs likely to continue to rise, the Big Game will never be short of a home. There will always be an attention grabbing city to foot the huge bill and pander to the strict demands of the NFL.
