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Story by Alan Snel Photos by Jeff Goulding
PHOENIX, Arizona — The NFL oversees football games played by men.
The New York City-based league also functions as an entertainment company, putting on live events like the Draft and Pro Bowl Games to amplify and grow the NFL brand.
It’s working.
Forty-seven of the 50 highest-rated TV shows were NFL games and local elected officials — both Democrats and Republicans, it doesn’t matter — are easily persuaded to enact public policy that commits millions of dollars to help stage NFL events.
Dozens of tourism officials, Metro police and host committee officials from Las Vegas are here in Phoenix to take notes on security, transportation and logistics.
But the Super Bowl here in Arizona has very different issues than the one in Las Vegas.
First off, there’s geography. The NFL media center for Super Bowl 57 where all the announcements and press conferences are held during Super Bowl week is based in downtown Phoenix at the convention center.
But the championship game between the Philadelphia Chiefs and the Kansas City Chiefs is at the Arizona Cardinals’ State Farm Stadium, which is set in a suburban sports facility community at least 30 minutes northwest of downtown. And ESPN, the sports network that partners with the NFL, has set up shop in Scottsdale, an affluent suburb about 20 miles from Glendale.
The NFL used the NBA Phoenix Suns’ arena, called Footprint Center and a block from the convention center, for Super Bowl-related events like Monday’s opening night event. The NFL is also using the NHL Arizona Coyotes’ old arena, the Desert Diamond Arena next to the Cardinals’ stadium, as a support facility for the Super Bowl.
The Las Vegas setting is completely different.
Allegiant Stadium is the Super Bowl 58 host venue, located within walking distance of the Strip’s hotels via the Hacienda Avenue bridge spanning Interstate 15.
The Mandalay Bay Convention Center, with its vast open space and work/display rooms on upper levels, can be working distance from the stadium on the west side of the interstate.
With the Super Bowl being staged in Glendale, the NFL is deploying 45 buses from a downtown hotel across the street from the media center to help move some of the more than 5,000 credentialed members from downtown Phoenix to the suburban venue site.
The Las Vegas geography for Super Bowl 58 will allow for a much more concentrated NFL setting for game at stadium, press conferences at a convention center and the airport only a few miles to the east — plus the Strip within easy access.
Las Vegas still has a weak transportation infrastructure system, so expect Ubers and your own two legs to get where you need to go a year from now for the NFL’s next Super Bowl.