How Does The Super Bowl Impact Business?

How does the Super Bowl affect business? 

It’s not like March Madness, where we see productivity fall by massive amounts. The Super Bowl spans just one day, and it’s on a Sunday, so is there any impact on businesses? 

The answer to this question is simple. Yes. 

In previous years, the Super Bowl helps the civic economy of the hosting city significantly. How much, you might ask. Well, it’s to the tune of 300 to 400 million dollars. That’s nearly half a billion bucks, so it’s nothing to shake a stick at. 

Most of this money comes from tourism dollars. Now, we know that the influx of people helps small, medium, and large businesses alike, but just how many people come in each year for the Super Bowl? 

Some say 125,000 people; other estimates push closer to 1 million. It’s tough to say exactly how many people travel for the big event. Yes, you can tally up the out of town ticket sales but there are other Super-Bowl-related festivities as well. This is why, even though expectations for Minneapolis holding the event in 2018 were around 125K people, some estimates say that around a million would be around the city for the event. Obviously, many of these people were from Minnesota and nearby surrounding areas. However, many of those were not from the Twin Cities. I should also mention that there are thousands that come in from out of town as support staff as well. In 2017, Houston, Texas, saw roughly 30,000 Super Bowl staff members come in from outside the city and state. This equates to roughly a week’s worth of stays at hotels and rentals, plus food and everything else a person needs to survive and be comfortable for 30,000 people. That alone adds up quickly and is a huge boon for the local economy. 

We have to assume that 1 million visitors is an exaggeration on the NFL’s part to get large metro areas in a bidding war to host. Still, cities must see a massive rapid increase in revenue, or else they wouldn’t still bid on it over and over. 

Tampa Bay provides a unique opportunity. It’s relatively warm, even in the winter months. During any other year, I would think that Tampa Bay would have massive amounts of people flying and driving in to take part in the events. That said, 2020-2021 still has the ominous shadow of COVID-SARS-2 looming over everyone’s shoulders. 

Instead of nearly 100,000 screaming fans during the game, Raymond James Stadium will only allow 22,000 fans and 7,500 vaccinated health care workers in for the game. This will likely break records as the lowest attendance in Super Bowl history, which is a crying shame considering that this is the first time in history that a team from the hosting city will play in the Super Bowl. 

As of Monday, January 25th, the home-team, Tampa Bay Buccaneers are +3 underdogs to the reigning champion, Kansas City Chiefs at the best online sportsbooks this comes with no surprise for everyone since it is facing the current champion. Despite being an underdog, Tom Brady has once again proved that he is the man. Whether your a fan of him or not, leading a team that has struggled for the better part of two decades to the Super Bowl in his first year with the franchise cements him as one of the greatest QBs ever to play. No longer can people argue that he’s just executing Bill’s plan. 

We have to wonder how many Brady fans from New England are going to make the trip down to Tampa Just to be present during Super Bowl Weekend. That said, it’s hard to say how much of an economic impact Super Bowl LV will have on the greater Tampa area, given the attendance limitations. That said, the State of Florida has the loosest Social Distancing regulations, so it will depend on how many people are willing to risk public place exposure. 

The bottom line is every year, the Super Bowl significantly impacts the local economy, but with the X-factors currently involved, we won’t know how much Super Bowl LV will affect businesses in Tampa until it’s all said and done.