Glendale poised to be named as host of Super Bowl in 2023

NFL owners to vote on 2023 game Wednesday

“I think it’s far from a done deal, but we’re really confident.” David Rousseau

Chairman of the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee

Barring a last-minute surprise, Arizona will host its fourth Super Bowl in 2023.

Arizona officials, including Gov. Doug Ducey and Cardinals President Michael Bidwill, will make a presentation to NFL owners Wednesday at the NFL meetings in Atlanta. Owners are expected to approve the proposal, although the Arizona contingent isn’t congratulating itself just yet.

“I think it’s far from a done deal,” said David Rousseau, chairman of the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee, “but we’re really confident. We obviously have the experience of hosting the mega events successfully.”

The owners also will vote on New Orleans hosting the Super Bowl in 2024.

They would be the first Super Bowls awarded through a new process in which the NFL identifies and negotiates with specific host sites rather than using a bidding process that includes multiple cities vying for a Super Bowl.

“The negotiations have been straightforward with the league,” Rousseau said. “A lot of hard work has gone into this the last couple months. We’re not competing against another market, per se, and if we’re not successful, it will be because we didn’t live up to expectations.”

Being selected to host a Super Bowl has always been a competitive process, especially in the past decade or so. With the new selection process, the level of interest from cities is more difficult to quantify, but it likely was considerable for the 2023 and 2024 games.

Warm-weather venues such as New

Orleans; South Florida; Arizona; Houston; Tampa, Fla.; and Los Angeles have been attractive Super Bowl sites for years. But the NFL also has used the game to reward cities for building new stadiums, including Minneapolis, Atlanta and Indianapolis. The league also awarded a Super Bowl to New York/New Jersey, which prompted other non-traditional Super Bowl cities to show interest.

Starting in 2009, when the Cardinals made their only Super Bowl appearance, 11 cities have hosted those 11 games. In the first 20 years of the Super Bowl, the game was rotated among seven cities.

This would be the third time the game will be played at University of Phoenix Stadium. The previous times were in 2008 and 2015. The Super Bowl was played at Sun Devil Stadium in 1996.

A study commissioned by the host committee found the last Super Bowl generated an economic impact of $720 million to the local economy. The impact of a game in 2023 could exceed $1 billion, according to Rousseau.

Rousseau said upgrades to University of Phoenix Stadium and the addition of at least 20 new hotels in the Valley helped Arizona’s attempt to land a fourth Super Bowl.

Major upgrades, facts, impact

❚ By Super Bowl 57, University of Phoenix Stadium will have undergone $100 million in improvements including parking infrastructure, state-ofthe-art wifi, video boards and sound system upgrades, as well as club-area enhancements.

❚ The Valley has added 22 new hotels since 2015, with plans for another 30 hotels to be built by 2023. In all, more than 7,000 hotel rooms will have been added between 2015 and 2023

❚ In a span of just over 26 months in 2015-17, University of Phoenix Stadium hosted a Pro Bowl, Super Bowl, College Football National Championship Game and the Final Four. It generated $1.3 billion for Arizona.

❚ An estimated 121,775 visitors came to Arizona for Super Bowl XLIX and/or the 2015 Pro Bowl; those visitors stayed an average of 3.99 nights (WP Carey Economic Impact Study).

❚ An estimated 5,033 out-of-town media members came to Arizona and stayed an average of 7.1 nights (up from 4.1 nights for Super Bowl XLII ). (WP Carey Economic Impact Study.)

The next four Super Bowls are scheduled for Atlanta, South Florida, Tampa Bay and Los Angeles.