How the Super Bowl Can Sell Your City

The Super Bowl is built to sell products—including the host cities themselves. Super Bowl 56 host Los Angeles missed an opportunity to hold the Big Game in 2021 due to stadium construction delays, but its understudy in Tampa, Fla., provided a valuable lesson on the event’s value to a city. Last year’s installment was limited to fewer than 25,000 fans at Raymond James Stadium due to Covid-19, but the Big Game drew 96.4 million viewers across all platforms, 35,000 attendees to the Lowe’s Super Bowl Experience interactive theme park and enough guests to raise the city’s occupancy 92.1% on Super Bowl weekend during a pandemic. “For me, Super Bowls are twofold: the direct impact that you get while the game is going on, the visitation and the spending,” said Santiago Corrada, president and CEO of regional tourism group Visit Tampa Bay, “but also, the future economic impact of hosting a Super Bowl and making sure that you can leverage that for years to come." Tampa hosted the Super Bowl five times and used doing so to draw corporate meetings, conventions, a college football championship, WrestleMania and the Republican National Convention to various venues throughout the city. Los Angeles, meanwhile, is using Super Bowl 56 as the centerpiece of a decade’s worth of large-scale sporting events. In the words of Don Skeoch, CMO of the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board, the Super Bowl is “essentially a four-hour commercial for us.” Tampa’s tactics Tampa has hosted three Super Bowls during Corrada’s time in the region, with one consistent benefit: “this amazing opportunity for exposure.” Media descends on the city for the game itself, plus more than a week ahead and a few days afterward. Last year, for example, Corrada’s public relations team showed network morning shows, news teams and anyone else with a camera “the history, the cuisine, the lifestyle of Tampa.” They set up a media site at the city’s convention center and let people know Tampa was open for business as a safe pandemic destination. “We've gone beyond just tourism and travel marketing to more tours. It's economic development marketing,” Corrada said. “If you can show off a great community, you're going to get some visitors, but you may have some relocations as well.” After Super Bowl 55, Tampa laid claim to WrestleMania 37, which was also affected by Los Angeles’ stadium construction delays. It also took the American Academy of Dermatology Association’s convention from New York and the Connect Travel Marketplace tourism and hospitality convention from Puerto Rico. In total, Tampa added 2,500 more hotel rooms during the pandemic, with Visit Tampa Bay booking events into 2026. “You can't rest on your laurels,” Corrada said. “You have to be willing to make changes.” Numbers game Los Angeles’ last Super Bowl was in 1993. Today, it’s in the middle of a run of sports super-events that began with the NHL All-Star Game in 2017 and continued with both the NBA's (2018) and MLS' (2020) all-star events. Within two years, it will host a Super Bowl, the World Rugby Sevens Series, baseball’s all-star game, the college football championship, WrestleMania 38 and golf’s U.S. Open. It’s part of the North American World Cup bid for 2026 and will end its run with the 2028 Summer Olympics. Accordingly, the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board sees merit in Tampa’s exposure-based Super Bowl approach. A City Within a City There are 300 total acres, 2,500 homes, 25 acres of parks, a performance venue, shops, restaurants, movie theaters, offices and a man-made lake at the Super Bowl 56 host site in Los Angeles. SoFi Stadium is there, too. The stadium’s surrounding mixed-use development, Hollywood Park, is a playground for any brand looking to leave its mark. The privately funded facility’s costs—estimated between $5 billion and $6 billion—were offset by partners including Anheuser-Busch InBev, Cisco, PepsiCo, Deloitte, Google, Live Nation and Verizon. SoFi paid $625 million for naming rights but was far from alone. YouTube sponsors Hollywood Park’s 6,000-seat theater. American Airlines bought rights to SoFi Stadium’s 2.5-acre entrance. Samsung sprung for the 70,000-square-foot screen above the playing field. Even nonprofit hospital Cedars-Sinai chipped in for signage and vaccination drives. Skeoch and his crew are making sure the media gets images of the Hollywood sign, Santa Monica, Venice Beach and year-round sunshine. They’re also leveraging 5 million social media followers to spread the word about Covid-19 testing at the Super Bowl Experience, providing free tickets for those with a negative test or vaccine card. Both the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board and Visit Tampa Bay have enlisted Publicis Groupe’s data-driven marketing firm Epsilon for destination marketing campaigns. In Tampa, Corrada said, his team could show how much Super Bowl hotel guests spent compared to every other Sunday of the year and how much Big Game spending reduced the tax burden on surrounding residents. In August 2019, for instance, the lodging tax in Tampa's Hillsborough County that funds tourism development jumped from 5% to 6%. As a result of that increase, the county brought in $1.5 million more during fiscal year 2021 than it did during pre-pandemic fiscal 2019. David Chastain, Epsilon’s vice president of travel and tourism, noted that cities’ Super Bowl data goes beyond demographics to find individuals who might return with their money or events. “Understanding that not everybody is the best person [to provide a destination with additional business], we can now identify those that will come back again,” he said. “The ability to see that actual person is what's been a game-changer for these destinations." For all the latest Super Bowl advertising news—who’s in, who’s out, teasers, full ads and more—check out Adweek’s Super Bowl 2022 Ad Tracker and the rest of our stories about the Big Game. And join us on the evening of Feb. 13 for the best in-game coverage of the commercials anywhere.

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Interested in Selling Your City? The Super Bowl Is Buying

The Big Game can draw similarly big events and development even after the cameras and crowds leave

Jason Notte

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Jason Notte