Businesses around Levi’s Stadium hope to share the wealth.
Hotels around the facility say they will be fully booked for this weekend’s battle
Now that the 49ers are on the brink of a Super Bowl date after several seasons of lackluster play, businesses around Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara are hoping they’ll be able to share the wealth from the team’s newfound success.
And with thousands of rabid Green Bay Packers fans — otherwise known as Cheeseheads —
expected to descend on the Bay Area this weekend for Sunday’s NFC championship, they may get their wish. The team’s first winning season since Levi’s opened in 2014 already has brought a noticeable uptick in weekend business for hotels and restaurants, and the allure of a championship game could be the icing on the cake.
“When it’s a winning season, everyone wants to be part of the hype,” said Mark Salquist, general manager of the 168-room Avatar Hotel in Santa Clara. For Sunday’s game, the attendance should break Levi’s record for football, though top honors goes to WrestleMania 31, which drew 76,976 people in 2015. For football, the stadium’s capacity is 75,000.
“It’s definitely generating significant business where there had not been. You’re inviting 70,000 people to a prime-time event, with media and entertainment,” said Eron Hodges, general manager of the Hyatt Regency in
Santa Clara and chairman of Silicon Valley-Santa Clara Destination Marketing.
“It puts us on the map, and gets people interested in wanting to learn more about Silicon Valley and the South Bay and what there is to offer,” Hodges said. He noted that the team’s first-ever playoff game at Levi’s last weekend — against the Minnesota Vikings — saw 11 of the city’s hotels fully booked.
Sunday’s game is not only bigger but also will draw legions of Packers fans, who are known to
“travel well.”
Althoughe it’s unknown exactly how many fans will be coming from the Green Bay area, Cheeseheads made their strong presence known during a Nov. 24 regular-season game at Levi’s against the 49ers.
“The last time Green Bay played in the regular season, it was our biggest business night for our restaurant and bar, and they are not shy about wearing their colors,” said Alan Mass, general manager of the 150room Hyatt House, which is sold out for Sunday. “We’re full this weekend, and typically weekends in January are not our busiest time, especially before the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.”
Game days this season have been good for business overall, he said, noting hotel patrons from out of town also visit the limited number of restaurants, bars and breakfast spots in and around Levi’s.
Super Bowl 50, which Levi’s hosted in 2016, generated $240.1 million for the Bay Area economy, according to a report by SportsImpacts, with 57% benefiting San Francisco, 12.3% San Jose and 7.2% Santa Clara.
The report estimated that 83% of the fans for that game came from outside the Bay Area.
But Patrick Rishe, CEO of the market research group SportsImpacts and a professor and director of the Sports Business Program at Washington University in St. Louis, said that except for hotels and restaurants close to the stadium, he doubts many other businesses will see much of an economic boon from Sunday’s game.
“This kind of a return to national visibility and credibility I’m sure is reflected in merchandise and ticket sales and corporate partnerships,” Rishe said. “The economic impact of this run is very nice for the team … but for Santa Clara, I would suspect
it’s relatively minimal.”
Rishe says most of the people coming to Sunday’s game likely will be from the Bay Area. “Most people are driving, parking, tailgating and going in and going home,” he added. “If that’s 90% of your fans, that’s not a huge uptick in additional revenue … and that money isn’t going to spread out to the entire Santa Clara community.”
The biggest benefit might be marketing for the community during a national, televised event, said Rishe, although the “beauty shots” during commercial breaks are more likely to be of the Golden Gate Bridge and other San Francisco landmarks than they are of Santa Clara.
Still, there are signs that the South Bay is starting to get on the national radar.
Salquist said though Santa Clara may not be a prime destination for out-of-state football fans, visitors seem to be doing more research and flying into San Jose rather than San Francisco to be closer to the stadium.
“People know Santa Clara and Silicon Valley … and a lot of the big tech companies have brought a newer and bigger fan base compared to the Candlestick Park fans.”
Meanwhile, the 49ers still are engaged in a protracted dispute with the city of Santa Clara, which in September moved to terminate the team’s management of the stadium for non-NFL events.
Tickets from NFL games typically help pay operating and maintenance costs for the stadium, but non-NFL events generate money only for the city if the team meets its profit threshold. Last fiscal year, the city received no revenue from those events.
The 49ers have sued Santa Clara, blaming declining revenue on a 10 p.m. weeknight curfew and 11 p.m. weekend curfew that they say has killed their ability to book high-profile concerts and other events at the venue.
“The weekend business has been great because of the Niners, but outside of football, the entertainment coming to Levi’s is dwindling a bit,” Salquist said.
But he and others hope the 49ers’ fortunes on the field will offset all that.
“I think next year is going to be even better,” Mass said. “There’s a lot of people that are now lifetime 49ers fans, which I’m not sure they were in the last few years.”