By Cameron Arcand | The Center Square
The Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee is touting economic impact numbers after the National Football League championship in Glendale in February.
The committee’s report, which was developed by Arizona State University’s Seidman Research Institute, attributed $1.3 billion in gross output to the game, including tourism and the other events surrounding it.
“We are marking this one as a victory for Arizona,” Jay Parry, President and CEO of the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee, said at a presentation with several leaders, including Gov. Katie Hobbs, Wednesday.
In addition, they said the Super Bowl was the root cause of a $726 million contribution to the Arizona GDP, a $460 million contribution to Arizona’s labor income, and 103,000 out-of-state visitors.
Speakers also mentioned how the CEO forum that went along with the Super Bowl made inroads with targeted companies in hopes of bringing more jobs to the state long term.
“We’ve really created a river of economic benefits,” Arizona Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill said.
According to a news release on the data, researchers analyzed their data from “interviews with visitors” and determined that 102,598 of them were there for the Super Bowl specifically, and 60% had stadium tickets for the game. They said that the visitors spent $221 million, and hotels had a 90% occupancy rate.
However, a looming question over the report was how it accounted for the economic impact of another event that same week: The Waste Management Phoenix Open.
“It’s a specific Super Bowl-related question that the surveyors prompt, so you have to have bought a ticket around the Super Bowl. Timing, admittedly, there’s an overlap, but I think there’s a static number that the Waste Management tracks every year, and so this number is added in for that,” Board Chair of the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee David Rousseau told The Center Square.
Bidwill told The Center Square that although he did not know exactly how the golf tournament was factored into their data, he did say that they benefited from the Super Bowl happening the same week.
“This was specific around the Super Bowl. I do know that the Waste Management Open benefited greatly […] they did a record amount of revenue. They do it every time we have a Super Bowl because Super Bowl visitors also want to attend Waste Management,” Bidwill said.
“Again, this is one of those cases where the Super Bowl really benefits everybody. The amount of direct spending, I don’t think we emphasized it enough. Those are all locally and statewide taxed dollars that get collected. So there’s a huge bump in terms of the collections,” he continued.
Arizona has hosted four Super Bowls, with the last one before 2023 being in 2015, also at State Farm Stadium. An estimate done of Super Bowl XLIX found the game brought in $719 million to the valley.
Republished with the permission of The Center Square.
