THE MORNING AFTER

Tampa proved a great host for Super Bowl XLIII — and provided a valuable road map for future host cities

By Steve Pate

Thursday, July 29, 2010 - 11:17am

BIG NIGHT: Big Ben and the Steelers hoisted the Lombardi Trophy, while the Big Man and the Boss provided halftime entertainment.

LEAVING A GOOD TASTE: The myriad events, including Taste of the NFL (shown here), were hits with many Tampa residents who couldn’t score a ticket to the actual game.

It's been over two weeks since the final gun sounded on the Tampa Super Bowl, yet Reid Sigmon and staff are still at work. In fact, the offices of the Tampa Bay Super Bowl Host Committee will likely remain open as late as April. What took two years to build — and some four hours to play — must now be slowly dismantled.

Sigmon, Executive Director of Tampa’s Super Bowl efforts, offered the following insights exclusively for XLV Insider.

Q: Still two years out, what is imperative for the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee to understand?
“I think the North Texas group has done a really good job of gathering as much information as possible. Traveling to the Super Bowls prior to the one in North Texas is crucial.

“You can make reports, and read reports, but to actually go to a Super Bowl and see how preparations are carried out, from what happens at the airport, what happens at the stadium, how events affect traffic, it’s all crucial. The North Texas group has done a great job of researching how a Super Bowl really affects all phases of your community, from volunteers to public safety, from corporate sponsors to local governments to state governments, all the different parts of putting on the game.”

Q: What do you know now that you wish you had known just two weeks before kickoff?
“Really, from the time the game is awarded to the time of the Super Bowl, you’ve been putting all the plans together. Then you spend the month of January and the days leading up to the game executing the plan.

“Construction happens. Your corps of volunteers get their uniforms and actually start to work, at airports, at hotels. It’s a transition that occurs, from putting your plans together to actually executing them.”

Q: Do you have a favorite moment of the entire Super Bowl experience?
“This is the third Super Bowl that I’ve worked on directly as a member of a host committee. It may be trite, but the kickoff is still very special. You’ve put years of work into a game that ultimately is about determining an NFL championship, and when that ball kicks off, and the stadium lights up with everybody’s cameras flashing, it’s definitely a special moment.”

Q: What about the week leading up to the game?
“It was a great week for the Tampa Bay community. We had great weather. We had great volunteers. Our events went really well. All the components we’d been working on really came to fruition.

“When the media arrive, and then the two teams arrive, it’s very special. It becomes very real at that point.”

Q: In the days leading up to the game, a reporter asked you if the current economic conditions besetting the country had dampened your enthusiasm. You replied, “A lot of cities around the U.S. would love this kind of boost right now.” You still believe that?
“Absolutely. Our job, and the job of any host committee, is to put the best face forward on your community. The goal of hosting a Super Bowl is not only for that moment but for future business. You have 4,500 members of the media and people from all over the world in your community. If somebody has a great time, they may return on a family vacation, or a business could relocate or expand there.

“From an incremental standpoint, we feel this Super Bowl had MORE of an effect because of the economy. Any community in the country would love to have had what we had, from hotels to restaurants to all the attractions. It was the highest rated TV show of all time. Members of the media came from 28 countries. You can’t buy that type of exposure.”

Q: Do you have any breakdown yet on how many visitors were from out of state?
“We’ll start to get hotel occupancy numbers and numbers on how many people used the airport any day now, and that’ll give us an idea. It’s generally figured that only 5 percent of the tickets go to the host team, and the rest of the seats go to the NFL and the other 31 teams. So you know that the vast, vast majority attending a Super Bowl is from out of state.”

Q: Is there any advice you would give North Texas?
“Again, I think they’ve done a great job. The best preparation is to go to Super Bowls before yours. But I also think the North Texas committee has looked at what makes their area unique. That’s another part of the equation that they will do a great job of highlighting.”

Q: Do you have a job after you close your Tampa offices?
“No, all of us are free agents. But you understand that’s a part of the process going in.”