PREPARING FOR XLV

Super Bowl XLIV is a business trip for the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee

By Mickey Spagnola

Friday, September 3, 2010 - 4:23am

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The clock is ticking.

Super Bowl XLV is now one year, three days away from being played at Cowboys Stadium, the first time the NFL’s grand event will come to the North Texas area.

This is the 10th Super Bowl here in South Florida. It’s been to New Orleans nine times. It’s been played repeatedly in Tampa, Fla., San Diego and Southern California. The Super Bowl has been played in Detroit and Minneapolis, and in two years Indianapolis. But never before in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

So when you do something for the first time, you certainly want to do it right, so right that this game being played Feb. 6, 2011, in Arlington, Texas, won’t be the last in North Texas.

That is why the members of the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee have landed here in South Florida, conducting one of the biggest reconnaissance missions imaginable the majority of this week to make doubly sure they have seen everything they need to see while preparing for their first-time event.

“Our idea was to divide and conquer,” said Tara Green, the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee’s Vice President and COO.

All totaled, Green estimates nearly 70-75 people either on or connected with the Super Bowl XLV Host Committee are descending upon South Florida to see how these experienced hands are putting on a Super Bowl. We’re talking President and CEO Bill Lively, Executive Committee Chairman Roger Staubach, Vice-Chair Troy Aikman, Executive Committee member Emmitt Smith, Board of Directors member Daryl Johnston, Vice President of Special Events Kit Sawers, Vice President of Communications Tony Fay, Director of Operations Glenn Menard and Arlington Police Chief Theron Bowman, just to mention a few.

And we’re also talking mayors on the executive committee, which includes Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck, Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert, Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief and Irving Mayor Herbert Gears.

“So we really do have an army of people to come down from North Texas deploying across South Florida, looking at all of their areas of influence,” Green said. “People just think it’s the Super Bowl, and you’re going down there to watch a game, but we’re all here to figure out how we do our jobs to make Super Bowl XLV the best ever.”

The running from pillar to post actually began last week when members of the Host Committee arrived to begin surveying the area, along with taking in the Pro Bowl events and game. They also were here to oversee the setup of the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee’s “booth” right off radio row at the NFL’s Media Center, which includes a small-scale replica design of Cowboys Stadium and of course the center-hung video board designed especially for this event.

Host Committee members took in Tuesday’s Media Day and the South Florida Super Bowl XLIV Host Committee’s Tuesday night Media Party on South Beach, where they took notes — seriously — while planning for their future event.

Wednesday, for example, next year’s Host Committee sent Menard to Sun Life Stadium to examine the NFL’s “Play 60” Youth Football Festival, wanting him to get a feel for this yearly event. Normally taking place at the NFL Experience, this event might be moved into some of the different North Texas communities, a clinic maybe in Denton, Texas or football camp in Richardson, Texas.

Thursday, while first unveiling the North Texas Super Bowl XLV logo here at the Media Center, Host Committee members will be off to inspect the AFC practice facility (Miami Dolphins Facility in Davie, Fla.) and the AFC Hotel (Marriott Harbor Beach Resort in Fort Lauderdale), just to see the setup and needs.

Then on Friday, it’s off to meetings with the Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale International Airport officials, all set up by Jeff Fegan, Executive Director of DFW International Airport. That’s right, the Host Committee needs to be briefed on airport issues, wanting to make sure DFW and Love Field are prepared to handle such a large influx of visitors the week of Super Bowl XLV.

Plus there is an issue likely never considered.

“One of the unique things about the Super Bowl is that immediately after the game several thousand people will go from the stadium directly to the airport to catch their early morning flight,” Green said. “People try to get out of town as quickly as possible to get to work on Monday. So there is a phenomenon the airports are going to go out there and check out themselves.

“How many people really come? We’ve heard numbers as many as 5,000. What do they do with them? Where do they stage these people? Do they provide them coffee, breakfast foods? Are they still continuing to enjoy their Super Bowl fun? Do the bars need to stay open? What TV’s can you show? Do you want to run some football movies? And how do you secure them in a closed airport?”

This airport research doesn’t just stop with the two biggies, either. There is the regional airport traffic to consider since many of the private planes will land in places other than DFW and Love.

And Green realizes this will be a huge consideration for visitors, saying, “How does the general aviation passenger get into town? What goes on? How do (the regional airports) make themselves ready to receive all these Super Bowl guests in their multi-million dollar planes?

“DFW has done a forecasting report trying to estimate what the loads might be at our regional airports. How many private planes can we expect? When do we expect them to come in? We are fortunate that several of our regional aviation airport directors are coming in to look at that very thing.”

And you thought all you needed for a Super Bowl was a city with great weather or one with a roof over a stadium; practice facilities for the two teams; necessary hotel space; and good times.

There are tons of other considerations the Host Committee must concern itself with, not limited to, checking out how much space is needed for the bus staging areas and just where and how much room is needed for the Super Bowl management staff spending a good month at the site preparing for Super Bowl week.

For Green, who actually wrote the Host Committee’s Super Bowl bid, this is her fourth Super Bowl. So she has seen a lot and can make true comparisons, picking the best of several Super Bowl sites. For other members of the Host Committee, it’s probably their second, having conducted some of the same inspections last year in Tampa, Fla.

“If you’ve only seen one Super Bowl, then that’s your mindset of how it should be set up,” Green said. “When you see it in multiple cities you see how flexible the event is. They really have the event fit into the space they’re given.

“As Frank Supovitz (NFL Events Director) says, ‘The Super Bowl grows into the size of the container in which it lives — it kind of morphs depending on the host community.”

So as you can see, this trip isn’t all fun and game. Especially since the mission of the Host Committee isn’t solely to successfully stage next year’s Super Bowl, the very first in the North Texas region, but to make such a good impression on the NFL and visitors that the NFL owners will place North Texas and Cowboys Stadium into the regular Super Bowl rotation.

That’s the goal.

And this week’s goal for Tara Green?

“For me personally I want to come away with a sense of confidence that we’re on the right track,” she says. “I want to come away with a sense that our staff as a whole understands our role and responsibility as a Host Committee . . . where do we fit in to the overall planning puzzle.

“We have a lot of new staff that’s jumped on board since we were in Tampa, so for some of our staff it’s their second Super Bowl and they are getting a different perspective, and for others it’s their first Super Bowl and they can be overwhelmed. They need to know what their job responsibility is for Super Bowl XLV. And I hope it’s a successful sponsor fulfillment trip for our ($1 million Founding Sponsors). This is their first event with us and we want to reassure them they made a great investment with the host committee.”

All this packed into a little more than a week’s work, knowing that once Super Bowl XLV and all the work that comes with it is suddenly but a year away.

Indeed the clock is ticking.