Luxury yachts testify to game’s economic impact
The economic impact of the Super Bowl is expected to be more than $200 million, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. By land, sea, and air, spending will come in many forms.
Some arrived by plane. Others have chartered boats. If they’ve got the money, they might even have done both.
And no matter how they’re getting to the Miami area for Super Bowl week, the high-rollers coming to bask in this week’s festivities are going to spend. How much? PricewaterhouseCoopers, which now calls itself PwC, has released an initial estimate putting total spending for Super
Bowl week at $218 million. After adjusting for inflation, that is a 20% gain from 2010, when the game was previously played here.
PwC says the Miami area’s sky-high hotel-room rates will help rank it among the largestimpact Super Bowls of the past decade.
“The event has brought transformational opportunities to the market and as the game approaches, will attract new and repeat visitors to South Florida and the surrounding area that will undoubtedly provide benefits to the community for years to come,” Crawford Pounds, managing partner for PwC’s Southeast Market, said in a release.
Horacio S. Aguirre, chairman of the Miami River Commission, which is playing host to its share of watercraft, puts it like this:
“They may be rich and wealthy, but they’re good people, and they spend and hire locally.”
With the revival of Miami’s urban core, the Miami River has become a more attractive option
than in years past for yachters who may be used to parking their vessels in other local marinas.
For Aguirre, each yacht represents not just a boat sailing in, but a tiny company.
“Each of these yachts has maybe four officers, plus a captain, plus a chief engineer, and some can have, easily, 10 stewards, which are like flight attendants,” he said.
Just how many vessels will be plying Miami-area waterways? Sam Chavers, regional vice president for Suntex, which operates both the Miami Beach and Bahia Mar marinas, did not have an exact number of how many are currently parked at its slips. But he said that, with the odd exception, every slip in the area has been spoken for — and that the dockage fees have, like hotel rates, gone up with demand. Those fees come with a sales tax that goes directly to state and county coffers.
Island Gardens, another mega yacht marina on Watson Island, is also booked solid, with 44 “super yachts” that are at least 100 feet long currently docked. Completed in 2016 — and at one time the subject of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit lost by the city of Miami — the marina consists of
5,000 linear feet of slips, with depths up to 27 feet. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’ boat, the Bravo Eugenia, which is almost 360 feet long, has dropped anchor there. A Gardens spokesman declined to quote its rate.
Demand for a local slip is so great that a Super Yacht Village has been set up at One Herald Plaza to both handle excess capacity and provide a proprietary luxury experience for yachters.
Technology has added a new wrinkle to the yacht game. Fort Lauderdalebased Boatsetter, now the largest boat-rental platform in the world, says Miamiarea boat owners are flocking to its app this week to offer up their vessels for use. According to general manager Nicholas Moore, the volume of people logging on to the app from the Miami area is 150% above normal. And the boats in demand are larger too: If the size of a typical rental vessel is 30 feet long, ocean-goers currently visiting the site are seeking out vessels that are between 30% and 50% larger. Day rates, coincidentally, are going up as well.
In other words, local boat owners who are willing and able to offer up their boats for the week are going to make a killing, Moore said.
Along with yachts, private planes have begun to swarm, with as many as 1,500 expected to touch down in South Florida this week. At fixed-based operator Fontainebleau Aviation, which is at the countyowned airport in Opa-locka, approximately 400 takeoffs and arrivals are expected.
Robert Moore, general manager of fixed-base operator Signature, which operates at Opa-locka and five other South Florida airports, said he is also expecting to see takeoffs and landings
“in the upper hundreds” for the week — more than for Art Basel.
With the increase in aircraft hosted by these fixedbased operators comes more compensation to Miami-Dade or Broward to pay for the planes’ parking spaces.
“They’re sitting on [the county’s] space for the weekend,” he said. “So you have to cut a check.”
What about wheels? For
Miami-based Ryder System, Inc., the largest truck supplier in the country, demand is already high in Miami this time of year. That’s thanks to flower season, which runs from Valentine’s Day through Mother’s Day. Miami plays a central role as global depot for the floral industry.
With the Super Bowl calling, Ryder’s fleet of 2,500 Florida-based rentals is almost entirely spoken for, the company says. It is also seeking a flurry of activity on its new truck-share platform, COOP. The platform allows local truck owners to lease out their own fleets. Ryder earns a small fee from each transaction; more importantly, truck owners can cash in.
Leonardo d’Agostini, Florida branch manager at Bowman Trailer Leasing, is one of them: He said the company has leased 18 trucks on the platform just for Super Bowl week.
“It’s a good number, no question about it,” he said.
According to PwC, total spending for Super Bowl 54 will still end up trailing Super Bowls played in Santa Clara, California, in 2016; the New York metro area in 2014; and the Dallas metro area in 2011. PwC says the massive investment in renovations undertaken by the Miami Dolphins to its home turf — renovations that officials have said allowed Miami-Dade to capture the game in the first place — is offset by the reduction in overall stadium seating the renovations entailed.
In other words, 10,000 fewer potential game attendees means that many fewer visitors to the area.
PwC did not calculate the costs associated with hosting the game.
Rob Wile: 305-376-3203, rjwile