Phoenix police arrested 36-year-old George Rodriguez on Thursday. The man, say the authorities, is the alleged thief of loot valued at about 100,000 dollars, about 97,000 euros, made up of production material such as lights and generators. The thief had carried out the robbery at the city convention center. Since last Sunday, the Super Bowl Experience has been held there, where you can find $200 jerseys, hats, helmets and even cosmetic products from Rihanna’s line, the person in charge of the halftime show. This is where American football fans come to live with past stars of the league and buy products from the game that will face the Kansas City Chiefs against the Philadelphia Eagles this Sunday in Super Bowl LVII. The place is these days the main magnet in Phoenix thanks to the sports and business circus that the NFL, the American football league, has launched.
The NFL final will be played in the city of Glendale, a town that is part of the Phoenix metropolitan area. The host stadium, home of the Cardinals, has a capacity for almost 70,000 people. There will be a full house to follow the clash between the Chiefs and Eagles, which is the sixth final in 20 years in which the teams that dominated the regular season in each of their leagues, the American and the National, face each other.
The city authorities estimate that between 90,000 and 110,000 fans will also arrive to experience the final of the most popular league in the United States. 80% of them travel from other parts of the country or the world. Some 35,000 do not have a ticket for the final, whose cost was in a range between 4,000 euros and 20,000 euros (although Ticketmaster offered some that were close to 100,000). The public seems willing to pay the price increase that the Super Bowl provokes in the host cities. Among these, the doubling of hotel rates and the sharp rise in bars and restaurants. It will not be an event within the reach of many. Although inflation has decreased for six months in a row, it is still at 6.5%, one of the highest in decades, causing a general increase in prices.
“Some economists talk about displacement and the idea that some people will not come to the city because of a rise in prices. There is some truth to that,” says Anthony Evans, a researcher at the William Seidman Institute at the University of Arizona. The academic defends “the significant benefit” in the long term that the Super Bowl leaves in the communities, although he admits that this year it will be interesting to see if the macroeconomic conditions that Americans experience have an impact on the colossal numbers that the party generates.
About eight years ago, the last time Arizona hosted a Super Bowl, there was an economic impact of $719 million in nine days, according to the same institute. Back then, the proceeds added up to the Pro Bowl, the league’s all-star game, but the NFL later changed the championship weekend format.
This is the fourth time that Arizona will be the host state. And as if it were a casino, the local organizing committee bets more and more money and gets more in returns. The organizers spent five million dollars to keep the final game of the NFL in 1996, Super Bowl LVII, played in Tempe and where the Dallas Cowboys defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers 27-17.
The big game returned to the Desert State in 2008. It took an investment of $18 million to get it done. That final is remembered for the disgust that Eli Manning’s Giants caused Tom Brady’s Patriots to keep the trophy (17-14). That edition generated an economic impact of 500 million dollars, according to an analysis by the local business school WP Carey.
Seven years later, the Super Bowl returned. The XLIX edition generated $719 million in profits, according to the Seidman Institute. It was a big deal considering that only $30 million was spent to secure what was the great rematch of Tom Brady, who defeated the Seattle Seahawks 28-24. But the analysts of the University of Arizona do not get wet with the number that can reach this year. The most conservative estimates place the figure between 500 and 600 million.
The most onerous expense for host cities is the stadium. This must meet the requirements of the NFL, which can lead to multi-million dollar reforms. In the case of Arizona this is not a problem. Sunday’s will be the third Super Bowl to be played at the colossus of the University of Phoenix (named State Farm in 2018). “Other cities have not been so lucky. So the short-term benefits of injecting new dollars into the local economy may not be as attractive if you’re one of those cities that has invested millions or billions of dollars in building a stadium,” Evans says.
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