There have been 52 Super Bowl Games, the 53rd will be played in Atlanta in 2019, and then 2020 in Miami, 2021 In Tampa, 2022 in Los Angeles, and now 2023 in Glendale and by 2024 there will have been 58 Super Bowl Games. And do you know where the 58th Super Bowl will be played? In the city that will have hosted the world’s biggest single-day sports event 11 times, New Orleans.
The man who’s happiest of all about this news (other than Mercedes Benz Superdome Manager Doug Thornton) talked to Zennie62Media at the 2018 NFL Spring League Meeting, and he’s Stephen Perry, New Orleans Convention And Visitors Bureau CEO.
“It just is exhilerating! You know?,” said Mr. Perry, “11th Super Bowl, number 58. Back in The Big Easy, where frankly Super Bowls are made to be held.” Perry said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told him that “the thing about the Super Bowl (in New Orleans) is the food, our fans love it, our owners love it, the media loves it.” Perry said that what we as fans don’t realize is that with the 27,000 hotel rooms in Downtown New Orleans, “even New York City doesn’t have that within a 16-minute walk.”
Perry also said that for those who’ve never been to New Orleans, like this author, “you need to go because you can just feel that thing that makes up your soul come to life. Because it’s the most sensory city in America. And the great thing? The Super Bowl in (20)13? It was 65 degress and crystal clear blue skies for seven days.”
The last time this author talked to New Orleans representatives it was before the awarding of Super Bowls for 2019, 2020, and 2021. While New Orleans submitted a bid, when the winners were announced at the 2016 NFL Spring League Meeting in Charlotte, the Big Easy, shockingly, landed none of them. That marked the last time the NFL took and reviewed bids, pitting cities in competition for the right to host a Super Bowl Game. And the last time we will see “war rooms” and reactions to the announcement of who wins like this one by the Miami Super Bowl Bid Presenters:
Or NFL Press Conferences like this one:
Or LA Super Bowl Bid Director Casey Wasserman telling this author and his long-time Cal friend NFL Network Reporter Mike Silver how he felt about Cal versus UCLA.
Nope, those days are gone. That includes the period from 1999 to 2000 where this author headed the Oakland Super Bowl XXXIV Bidding Committee. We, and Miami, lost to Jacksonville for the right to host the 2005 Super Bowl. Here’s our bid book:
With the Oakland Raiders moving to Las Vegas, that will mark the only time Oakland submitted a bid to host a Super Bowl game in its history – unless the NFL puts a team in Oakland. But that’s the future; the NFL’s new system is different.
Now, the NFL’s replaced the Super Bowl Bid process with a “single city” selection process. In this, the league determines which city gets its turn to host the Super Bowl, and then works with the representatives of that place behind closed doors. How did Stephen Perry like the new way?
“You know, it’s improved, Perry said, “instead of being across the table from each other, your actually together, at the table. It doesn’t lower what we have to put in the bid from a value and standards perspective. In fact, it elevates it because your not in competition with other cities. I think the owners liked it. We bring a lot of value to the NFL.”
Stay tuned.