Let the Good Times Bowl!

by David W. Brown

In February, New Orleans hosts Super Bowl LIX — and it won’t be the first time the city has hosted the biggest sporting event in the country. It is a really big deal, not only from a sports standpoint, but also from an economic one. The last time New Orleans hosted the event, in 2013, its economic impact for the state was about $480 million. This time, officials expect that number to exceed $500 million.

T“he competition to get Super Bowl is obviously very fierce,” says Jay Cicero, the president and CEO of the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation and the New Orleans Super Bowl LIX Host Committee. In the case of Super Bowl LIX, the NFL approached New Orleans in 2017 to bid on the 2024 event. It was a quiet, high-stakes affair. The Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation did not know which other cities, or how many, were invited to make pitches — and likewise didn’t want other cities to know that New Orleans was also making a bid.

“During the bid process, the first thing that you have to do is establish that you are financially competitive,” Cicero says, “meaning that your offer has to match or beat the other cities. That is the first piece of the puzzle. It is extremely important to New Orleans and Louisiana to remain competitive for these types of major events.”

It’s not easy to host a major sporting event. It takes years of planning to fulfill commitments for hotels, practice sites, the sports stadium, the convention center, special events, transportation, security, media, public relations and community engagement, among many other things. Every city wants the Super Bowl, but not every city has the capacity to host it. Sometimes cities make promises they can’t fulfill.

“Hotel rooms alone are a barrier,” Cicero says. “You have to have a lot of things in place.” If there is one thing New Orleans is good at, however, it’s hospitality.

For the next eight months, the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation worked on a presentation explaining how the city could accommodate a Super Bowl. Gayle Benson, the owner of the New Orleans Saints, made the final presentation to the NFL in May 2018.

“The pitch is to the NFL owners which, as a group, make the decision on where a Super Bowl is awarded,” Cicero says.

Benson had rehearsed her 15-minute talk many times, because a lot was on the line. “Mrs. Benson did a fantastic job in the pitch,” Cicero says. After the presentation, the NFL owners voted immediately. The answer was yes, and representatives for the city and the Saints were whisked away to a press event right outside the doors with the national media. New Orleans would get the 2024 Super Bowl.

And the next day, they got to work.

THE PRE-GAME HUDDLE

The host committee established 16 subcommittees, appointing chairs and co-chairs from members of the community who could help satisfy the requirements laid out in the winning bid. The host committee’s theme was: “It’s what we do.” will host the Super Bowl in the way that only New Orleans can.”

“We’ve had that structure in place for the last several years,” says Cicero.

Among the groups organized by the host committee was a separate fundraising committee; a committee for transportation and parking; and a committee for helping hundreds of local, diverse companies from the Greater New Orleans area bid for business contracts with the NFL and Super Bowl LIX.

Barry Kern, president and CEO of Kern Studios and Mardi Gras World, is in charge of hospitality and events, alongside Lisa Alexis, the director of cultural economy for the city of New Orleans.

“As co-chairs of hospitality for Super Bowl LIX, our most important job, I think, is the media event on the Tuesday night before Super Bowl,” Kern tells me. Around 6,000 media personnel will come from all over the world to New Orleans. “We want them to understand what New Orleans is all about. We’re going to do a mini Mardi Gras and a mini Jazz Fest for them when they arrive on Tuesday night. We’re building super-bars so that they don’t have to wait more than two minutes for a drink. We’re going to feed them things from every great restaurant in the city. We want them to experience all this, and tell the world about New Orleans.”

Numerous other committees have worked in preparation for the week of the Super Bowl. It would be an event not only to attract tourism, but hopefully, spark business investment.

“People think about New Orleans for Mardi Gras and as a great place to party, which it is, but we’re open for business — and I want to let people know that,” says Todd Graves, a member of the Super Bowl Host Committee and the the king of the committee’s Super Bowl parade. “In my speech, when I was announced as parade king, I really wanted to call attention to the fact that great businesses can be built and operated here.” He is living the American dream, he adds, with a company that runs nearly 900 restaurants worldwide; his company is on track to achieve $5 billion in sales this year. “That all started here in Louisiana. I’m excited for people to see what we’re all about!”

Calling An Audible

Obviously, a 2024 Super Bowl didn’t happen in New Orleans. The reason is Mardi Gras, whose date is dictated by the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday. In every other city in the country, the Carnival season makes no difference to the NFL or the Super Bowl. But in New Orleans, Mardi Gras is an allconsuming affair.

Given the sheer number of times New Orleans has hosted the Super Bowl, there have been previous conflicts. In 2001, when regular-season games were disrupted by the tragic events of September 11, the Super Bowl, set to be held in the city, was delayed by one week, landing on February 3, 2002. This conflicted with the first weekend of Mardi Gras. New Orleans was able to accommodate the NFL by moving up that week’s scheduled parades one week earlier than normal. This happened again in 2013 — and again, the city moved the first week’s parade schedule up, essentially bisecting festivities.

During the bid process, the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation had anticipated the possibility of the NFL adding additional games to the regular-season schedule. They wrote into their contract with the league that if the number of regular-season games changed and created a direct conflict with Mardi Gras, then New Orleans would be awarded the next available Super Bowl.

And that’s exactly what happened. In February 2020, the NFL announced that it would be expanding the regular season from 16 games to 17, which meant the 2024 Super Bowl would conflict with the final weekend before Mardi Gras — a date that obviously cannot be moved. (Mardi Gras day is Mardi Gras day, after all.) The NFL granted New Orleans the 2025 Super Bowl, and the Sports Foundation worked with the hospitality community — especially New Orleans and Company — to accommodate the game’s shift to the following year.

“In 2017, the bid process was a really, really furious amount of work, but it paid off,” says Cicero. “In 2020, when we learned we would have to move the 2024 game, it was pretty furious again. Then there was obviously COVID the following year. The thing about bidding on the Super Bowl is that we had to fulfill our obligations to the NFL given all the possible changes that could happen between 2018 and now 2025. There were a lot.”

But as the host committee’s theme said: “It’s what we do.”

The Offense

The Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation bids upon and manages sporting events for the economic benefit of New Orleans and Louisiana. This is the fourth Super Bowl the Sports Foundation has helped win for the state. (Previous years were 1997, 2002 and 2013.)

“It would be very difficult for anybody else to do what the Sports Foundation does, and we’ve been doing it for 36 years now — since 1988. We have a lot of experience in this,” says Cicero.

The Super Bowl is one of the events the organization handles, but not even close to the only one. Among other recent events the Sports Foundation won for Louisiana are the men’s Final Four in basketball; the women’s Final Four; the annual R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl; and Southeastern Conference Gymnastics Championship.

“We provide the same service for each one of those events; it’s just each event has different demands and different requirements,” Cicero explains. “The experience of our organization, the resources through our board of directors, and our staff and committee folks are something that we take a lot of pride in. There was never a time where we worried that we might not be able to pull off another Super Bowl. This is what we do, and I think we compete with the best in the country in doing it.”

Since 2022, the Sports Foundation and the host committee have worked tirelessly on Super Bowl LIX. “Right now, it’s 120% of my time,” Cicero says, and you can hear the exhaustion in his voice. “The work has ramped up significantly in the last 16 months, and it will get even worse in between now and the ninth of February, when Super Bowl LIX is held.”

The 10 previous Super Bowls hosted by New Orleans gave the host committee an embarrassment of riches to draw from in terms of inspiration, outreach, lessons learned and aesthetics.

“We really leaned into the history of Super Bowls in New Orleans when we began thinking about Super Bowl LIX,” Cicero tells me. “When you think of New Orleans football, you think about the Caesars Superdome. That iconic facility will turn 50 years old next year, which is amazing, and the fact that it is completely renovated since the last time we hosted the Super Bowl is a testament to the city’s dedication to remaining competitive with other venues around the country.” The first Superdome Super Bowl was in 1978.

The host committee is using the game logos from the past 10 New Orleans Super Bowls to celebrate and promote Super Bowl LIX. “As part of our look and feel, we’re using the program covers, the ticket artwork, certain snapshots of scenes from the past.” The unique culture that New Orleans has for entertainment, nightlife, food and music sets the city apart from every other place that’s ever hosted the event, he says. “That is something that we want to celebrate, and there’s no better event to celebrate that with than the Super Bowl.”

Field Goals

The short- and long-term economic benefits of Super Bowl LIX are only part of what the event promises for New Orleans and Louisiana. The influx of tourism has prompted citywide infrastructure upgrades. The host committee isn’t only concerned with the city’s hospitality industry. They have also leaned hard into the science and engineering capabilities of New Orleans as part of its educational outreach for students in grades Kindergarten through 12.

For example, NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility is one of the most advanced rocket centers in the world, helping build the Apollo moon rockets, the Space Shuttle external tanks and the new Artemis moon rocket. The host committee, in collaboration with STEM NOLA (a New Orleans-based educational nonprofit), is using the NASA center and other unique Louisiana institutions as the foundation of a series of learning programs for students.

Meanwhile, the NFL and the host committee are bringing work to businesses through the Super Bowl LIX Source procurement program. Their goal is to provide event-based procurement knowledge and experience to underrepresented businesses in the Greater New Orleans region. The Super Bowl has facilitated networking between business leaders and allows local businesses to compete directly for contracts related to Super Bowl LIX.

Then there’s the fun stuff for the whole family. The entire week leading up to the Super Bowl is packed with free and inexpensive experiences for locals to participate in the event. On the Monday of game week, the host committee is holding Super Bowl Opening Night at the Superdome. The teams and coaches will be on the field that evening, and there will be photo opportunities for families, exclusive merchandise and a view of what the Superdome will look like on game day. “It’ll be a big spectacle, and the tickets will be $20 apiece,” Cicero says.

Wednesday through Saturday of game week at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, the family-friendly Super Bowl Experience will allow locals to get autographs from current NFL players and legends, as well as play interactive games and take photos with the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

The main event, which is free for all, is the first ever Super Bowl host parade in the French Quarter and Central Business District. It will be like an NFL-themed Mardi Gras, complete with floats from NFL partners, local high school and college marching bands, marching krewes, celebrities, and NFLthemed throws and plush footballs.

“It’s something that gives our local community a chance to really engage with game week without spending money,” Cicero says. “We want folks and families to come down and really, really enjoy it, and be a part of Super Bowl LIX.”

The parade rolls on Saturday, February 8 at 10 a.m., and will be livestreamed for the world to enjoy. It’s the sort of thing that only New Orleanians know how to do right, and a way to celebrate the city’s role in making Super Bowl history once again.