NEW ORLEANS —When New Orleans hosts its record-tying 11th Super Bowl on Feb. 9, 2025, it will be roughly 50 years after the Caesars Superdome opened to the public — and 20 years after Hurricane Katrina briefly turned the Dome into a makeshift emergency shelter.
The big event, one of the sports world’s most-watched each year, will showcase the resilience of the city’s second-most iconic building and of New Orleans itself.
To mark the one-year countdown to Super Bowl LIX, Gov. Jeff Landry joined New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, New Orleans Saints owner Gayle Benson and members of the city’s business community at a Feb. 21 press conference at Champions Square next to the Dome.
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At the event, the New Orleans Super Bowl LIX Host Committee, led by the New Orleans Saints and the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation, recognized its committee chairs, announced sponsors, provided a Superdome renovation update, and announced details of a supplier diversity program.
The size of the crowd and number of speakers at the presser demonstrated just how big of an undertaking hosting a modern Super Bowl has become.
“Things like this just don’t happen,” said Cantrell. “It takes special ingredients to make the magic happen, like a big bowl of Leah Chase’s gumbo.”
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Even though Super Bowl LIX is still almost a year away, members of the Host Committee no doubt feel like they’re in the fourth quarter of an NFL game. Planning for the massive event more or less began on Feb. 4, 2013, the day after New Orleans hosted its last Super Bowl and when the city’s salespeople began jockeying for another one.
In 2018, New Orleans won a bid to host the 2024 Super Bowl, but the expansion of the NFL season to include a 17th regular season game created a conflict with the Mardi Gras parade schedule that year and forced organizers to push plans back.
For 2025, the host committee ultimately will have raised more than $25 million to meet all of the NFL’s bid requirements. It’s a far cry from the way things were when the city hosted its first Super Bowl IV in 1970 at Tulane Stadium. Back then, only a few locations — notably, greater Los Angeles, Miami and New Orleans — traded hosting duties, but now a slew of fancy new NFL stadiums have made hosting Super Bowls a highly competitive sport of its own.
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But New Orleans boosters say all the effort is worth it, considering the event attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors to the city, and the live broadcast of the game reaches roughly 200 million people worldwide. The visitors spend money in town, and the TV exposure helps raise brand awareness.
The Super Bowl also is a chance to show off the city’s unique advantages. Unlike most stadiums, the Superdome is located close to downtown, with easy access to 25,000 hotel rooms and the French Quarter. NFL fans can walk — with an alcoholic beverage in their hand — from their accommodations directly to the game.
Not only does the Super Bowl fill hotel rooms and restaurant tables, it provides jobs for a slew of businesses, from caterers to rental companies.
At the Feb. 21 press conference, Phelps Dunbar attorney Kim Boyle led a presentation about the Super Bowl LIX Supplier Diversity Program, which is designed to channel contracts to businesses owned by minority-, woman-, disabled-, LGBTQ+- and veteran-owned businesses.
“We want to ensure that our local and diverse businesses have an active role in everything that is going to occur next February in the city of New Orleans,” she said.
An application portal for local businesses will go live on Feb. 26.
Another facet of preparing to host Super Bowl LIX is keeping up with the Joneses — the Jerry Joneses, in this case. The Dallas Cowboys owner spearheaded a $1.3 billion AT&T Stadium in 2009, and that’s nothing compared with Sofi Stadium in Inglewood, California, which cost nearly $5 billion when it opened in 2020.
All these expensive and high-tech new buildings motivated the caretakers of the Superdome to launch another round of renovations. Halfway complete before the last Saints season, the nearly half billion dollar makeover is scheduled to be wrapped up in time for this Saints season (and Taylor Swift’s October concerts).
The Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District, a state agency, is overseeing the project along with ASM Global (the Superdome’s manager) and the New Orleans Saints.
At the Feb. 21 press conference, ASM’s Doug Thornton joined Saints and Pelicans President Dennis Lauscha and Jay Cicero of the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation to give an update on the renovations, which Thornton said have created more “wide open spaces” in the concourses and public areas. Architects and engineers freed up approximately 80,000 square feet of space by removing some of the Dome’s old exit ramps and replacing them with new stairs. As visitors discovered during the 2023-24 Saints season, the changes mean upgraded clubs and suites, new escalators, new restrooms, light-filled atriums and many new ways to buy food and drink.
“We have expanded the concourses at every level,” said Thornton. “We have reimagined some of the spaces. We have increased the throughput on our concessions, and we have more diverse offerings than we’ve ever had before.”
“This renovation was really focused on how we can create a much better fan experience,” said Lauscha. “A lot of new stadiums only focus on how to generate revenue, which is important, of course, but ultimately our focus was the fan experience.”
Cicero said the improvements, especially the bigger concourses, will help the Sports Foundation pitch the Dome as a home base for future big events, including NCAA tournaments and professional wrestling. But those pitches no doubt will be on the back burner for the next 12 months, as the Host Committee, Sports Foundation and all stakeholders go all in on preparing for the big game on Feb. 9.
It’s a lot of work, but also dream scenario that could only be improved by one bit of good fortune:
“I’d like to see the Saints in the Super Bowl,” Lauscha told the crowd to great applause … and a few laughs.
