When Will Atlanta Host the Super Bowl Again

It was 19 years between Super Bowls for Atlanta.

The metropolis hosted Super Bowl XXVIII in 1994, Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000 and and so non once again until Super Bowl LIII this month. For a major metropolitan metropolis with a diverse population, a solid corporate base and a vibrant social scene, that'due south a long time between hosting the NFL's biggest party.

A couple of the real reasons were obvious as to why the game didn't return to Atlanta for about 2 decades. They had snowfall and ice there the week of Super Basin XXXIV, and it was known as the game where Ray Lewis was accused of killing two men in Buckhead.

But back with Super Bowl LIII, Atlanta was the platonic host. The Georgia Congress Center, with The Omni hotel attached, is big enough to land airplanes in, let lone host the media center and the NFL Experience.

And the real reason Atlanta got the Super Bowl dorsum is considering Falcons owner Arthur Bare wanted it there, and they had the new $i.6 billion Mercedes Benz Stadium to show off and host the big game.

And that'due south how it works. If an owner wants their urban center to host the Super Basin, they get behind the local endeavour to put together a plan and lobby the other owners to vote for their bid. The NFL owners in 2000 liked then-Jaguars possessor Wayne Weaver and got behind Jacksonville'south bid for the game

And so will Jacksonville host another Super Bowl? The brusk answer is yes, merely non for a while.

Current Jaguars owner Shad Khan doesn't see the city hosting the game anytime shortly. He said in 2016 that hosting a Super Bowl would "prepare Jacksonville up for failure," noting the current requirements for hotels and infrastructure.

It'southward a popular national narrative that Jacksonville was the worst Super Bowl host urban center ever and that we'll never get another game.

Not true.

In corporate speeches, Hall of Famer and Fob commentator Howie Long bashes Jacksonville equally the worst Super Bowl city, complaining that we ran out of hot dogs at the game. I don't know if Howie fifty-fifty eats hot dogs, but a footling enquiry would allow him know that we had nothing to do with that. The NFL runs the game and makes those kind of decisions. Clearly, the New England-Philadelphia crowd at our game liked hot dogs.

During Super Bowl XXXIX, the NFL owners stayed at the Ritz-Carlton at Amelia and other beachfront resorts.

And they made a lot of money.

The host commission and the city bent over backwards to make things easy for the league. Existence mostly a non-matrimony boondocks in a right-to-work state, the venues and the labor costs were minimal. The Super Basin in Minneapolis last year pumped an estimated $350 million to $400 million into the local economic system.

According to the local host commission, 90 percent of the people coming to the game in 2005 arrived after noon Th. The nor'easter blew out right about then, and the average temperature was 65 degrees.

And sunny.

So they had a great Jacksonville feel. The weather condition was great. We airtight Bay Street and put on a big political party, something we should do for Georgia-Florida and the Gate River Run.

The host commission even treated the visiting media to a try at the 17th green at TPC Sawgrass on Tuesday night, followed by a concert by Hootie and the Blowfish in a huge hospitality tent. The Island Greenish, lake and tee area were lit, and it was fun.

"Yous people in Jacksonville actually know how to blow stuff up," a friend from a national cable network said to me while the postgame fireworks were going off.

My friend was correct: We know how to exercise fireworks.

"You lot needed better transportation," one scribe told me that week.

I don't disagree with that. More cabs, more limos and more shuttles would be on the list side by side fourth dimension. Uber wasn't even a thing in Jacksonville in 2005.

And another luxury hotel is a must to host the game once more. The downtown Hyatt, with more than than 900 rooms, is a great base of operations, just multifariousness makes it meliorate. Indianapolis was lauded for hosting Super Bowl XLVI, mainly because everything was tucked into downtown.

Shad has a plan to build a Four Seasons hotel on the river near where Metropolitan Park is right now, so that'll be the commencement pace to hosting another Super Basin. But he has a lot of things he wants to get done before bankroll another Super Bowl bid by Jacksonville.

The Shipyards, the Lot J entertainment district and stadium improvements, including a possible sunshade, are all on the list. The first league event Shad would like to bring here is the NFL Draft, with Daily's Place interim as the hub. That's more probable than annihilation else in the well-nigh future.

So when volition the Super Bowl come back?

When Shad decides it'due south a expert thought, we'll host the game again. If it was 19 years between games in Atlanta, that puts usa at 2024.

Not by then, but it'll happen.

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Source: https://www.jacksonville.com/story/sports/columns/2019/02/09/sam-kouvaris-shad-will-decide-when-super-bowl-returns-to-city/6042743007/

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