Museum Park in Downtown Miami via instagram/pavel_prokhorov
It's no secret Stephen Ross and the Miami Dolphins are salivating at the chance to host a Super Bowl as early as 2019. The Dolphins' owner wouldn't be funding a $450-million renovation at Sun Life Stadium if he didn't think there was a surefire opportunity to bring the big one to South Florida.
With Super Bowl 50 just days away, the South Florida Super Bowl Bid Committee heads to San Francisco to learn more about the secondary events surrounding the massive undertaking. One of the challenges in hosting the most-watched sporting event in the world is the fact Sun Life Stadium is up in Miami Gardens with nonexistent walkability. As we learn via the South Florida Business Journal, the committee proposed Downtown Miami as a potential "gathering place" for the days leading up to the game.
But a virtually brand new stadium won't be enough to score the Super Bowl. Garfinkel said the NFL wants gathering places for fans outside of the stadium around Miami-Dade County. The bid committee has proposed that downtown Miami, specifically between Bayfront Park and Museum Park, would become a "Super Bowl Park" with live music and comedy performances, reserved VIP zones to host sponsors and 3D mapping that would splash Super Bowl-themed images on high rises. While the plan sounds cool in theory, a potential issue with the idea is it would be invasive for locals who work and/or live in Brickell or Downtown. Then again, there's no perfect location for this sort of thing to please all parties and maybe, just maybe, there will be an improved mass public transportation system in place by that time.
Competing with Atlanta, New Orleans, and Tampa for the Super Bowl in 2019 or 2020, it would be a shocking and devastating blow to Ross if his group failed to lock up a bid.
As for the economical effects of hosting a Super Bowl, San Francisco taxpayers are expected to be on the hook for almost $5 million this year. This is despite the game actually being held in Santa Clara. As for the influx of cash, the NFL typically tells host cities they can expect about $500 million in revenue but some think that number is drastically overblown and closer to between $30 million and $90 million. When you consider South Florida is already in peak tourism season by early February, hosting the Super Bowl and all the secondary chaos that comes with it may not be as beneficial as one would initially assume.
We'd love to hear your thoughts on whether Miami should host a Super Bowl in 2019 or 2020.
· Bid for Super Bowl 2019, 2020 goes beyond the stadium [SFBJ]
· San Francisco's Super Bowl 50 Costs [Time]
· Super Bowl's economic impact may be way overblown [PBJ]
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