A GRAND PLAN

After attending South Florida’s Emerging Business Seminar last week, the North Texas Host Committee is busy putting the final touches on its plan

Steve Pate

Thursday, July 29, 2010 - 11:36am

DRAWING CROWDS: Participation is exceptional at the NFL's Emerging Business Seminars and Vendor Showcase.

Robbie Douglas attended a South Florida workshop last week that left her even more enthused about just how many minority and women-owned businesses participate in staging a Super Bowl.

“It was an incredible event,” she said. “I would say from 500 to 600 small, minority or women’s-owned businesses were there.”

Douglas is the North Texas Host Committee’s Director of Sponsorship Development & Marketing. Under that umbrella, she will get local women’s and minority-owned businesses involved with Super Bowl XLV.

The South Florida Super Bowl XLIV Host Committee put on last week’s workshop at the West Palm Beach Convention Center — the last of three Emerging Business Workshops for the Super Bowl that follows this upcoming NFL season.

And the Super Bowl after that one will be played in North Texas.

Miami is hosting its 10th Super Bowl, the 44th overall in NFL history. In other words, they’ve been around the block a few times. But that host committee is taking great strides to involve the entire South Florida region, much like Super Bowl XLV will include far more than one Texas city.

That means the inclusion of so many small businesses from all over an entire region. Douglas knew the possibilities were grand, but the South Florida workshop was still an eye-opener.

“Just the enormity of it, getting so many businesses involved,” Douglas said. “I knew it would be big, but I’m very, very enthusiastic thinking about the impact that we will be able to have in North Texas.”

Representatives of the NFL attended and so did three of their contractors, including Party Planners West. One of the NFL’s biggest contractors, Party Planners West puts on NFL Tailgating. In the company’s early years of Super Bowl participation, minority and women-owned businesses amounted to roughly one-third of its work force. Party Planners West now uses 100 percent emerging businesses to conduct their Super Bowl business.

Douglas envisions a large number of North Texas businesses getting involved in the coming months.

“What we will do is have one workshop in Dallas, one in Fort Worth and one in Arlington,” she said. “From each of those workshops, we will draw from that surrounding community.

The workshops enlighten businesses on the many ways they can get involved; and, secondly, workshops show businesses how to actually get the most out of that involvement.

In West Palm Beach, Douglas said, “There were break-out sessions on insurance and bonding, on requesting loans from the banks, on how to submit an RFP – a request for proposal.

“It was also a networking opportunity for businesses to talk with each other. There may be ways they can partner and work together to become a bigger business for purposes of engaging the Super Bowl and securing contracts from the NFL.”

Dates for the three North Texas workshops have not been set. But the wheels are in motion to include huge numbers of North Texans.