NEW ORLEANS – The city’s hoteliers, currently struggling with low occupancy rates, are no doubt cheering the news that New Orleans is confirmed to host the 2025 Super Bowl after NFL owners voted this week to approve the plan.
New Orleans was originally scheduled to host the big game in 2024, but then the league decided to lengthen its season by one additional game starting next year. This change effectively pushed the New Orleans Super Bowl date back one week and created an overlap with the second weekend of Mardi Gras.
“We all know that it’s logistically impossible to host a Mardi Gras and anything else at the same time, but Mardi Gras and the Super Bowl was definitely impossible,” said Jay Cicero of the New Orleans Sports Foundation, the nonprofit that attracts and manages mega events like this.
This unresolvable conflict forced organizers to go to a contractual plan B, which in this case means New Orleans will host the 2025 championship game instead.
Cicero said it took a coordinated effort to make the change.
“We were able to work with the Saints, New Orleans & Company, ASM Global (managers of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome), the Morial Convention Center, the city, the state, the airport and all area hotels to basically take their commitments from 2024 and amend all those agreements for 2025,” he said. “We’ve been working on this for several months now.”
Cicero said the logistics of re-scheduling with hotels would be the trickiest part of the process even in normal circumstances.
“It was even more complicated now because of COVID and the shutdown of hotels back in April and May and then hotel personnel being on furlough or laid off,” he said. “It was a difficult thing to accomplish but our hoteliers and New Orleans & Company really stepped up and made it happen. All of our partners did a great job of hustling to retain the Super Bowl in New Orleans.”
Now, 2025 will mark the 11th time New Orleans has hosted the Super Bowl and the eighth time the game has been in the Dome. No other city except Miami has hosted as many. The NFL hasn’t announced where the 2024 game will be.
It’s all good news for the city because of the game’s expected economic impact. The 2013 Super Bowl in New Orleans, for instance, is estimated to have created an impact of roughly $480 million.
Even better news for hotels: the NCAA Men’s Final Four is scheduled to arrive in New Orleans in 2022. The last time it came through town, in 2012, it had an impact of about $175 million.
“That’s the one that’s really going to help us get back on the map,” said Cicero.
