SOUTH FLORIDA BOUND

North Texas Super Bowl Host Committee President & CEO Bill Lively heads to South Florida for Super Bowl XLIV

By Hy Cotten

Friday, September 3, 2010 - 4:27am

Bill Lively has been waiting for this moment for so long now. Very soon, the NFL’s greatest game and North Texas will become synonymous.

On Wednesday night he boards a flight for South Florida to celebrate with other North Texans who ponied up the big bucks at a time the U.S. economy was flailing.

Lively and those $1 million sponsors of North Texas’ first-ever Super Bowl will spend four full days in South Florida, attending the many functions that accompany a Super Bowl. And then all eyes will fall on Texas.

Lively, President & CEO of the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee, will be joined by Roger Staubach, Host Committee Chair, nine of North Texas’ $1 million dollar donors thus far, four mayors and several other staff members and associates.

Once this Super Bowl has ended Sunday night Feb. 7, the next will be played in Cowboys Stadium in Arlington. And for a year leading up to that, the eyes of the world will be upon the Texas.

The immediacy of that fact should shake the consciousness of North Texans in the coming weeks and months. This is the time that Lively and his entire Host Committee have anxiously awaited.

“To be honest with you,” Lively said, “it will be good to see this Super Bowl and get it behind us, so that there’s nothing between us and XLV. We’ve lacked a sense of immediacy and urgency about our game because it hasn’t been close enough to us.

“Well, it’s getting close now. When we come back from Florida, the clock will be ever so loud because then it’s our time.”

Lively added, “I’ve already discerned with meetings with corporations that there’s a keener interest in our Super Bowl now than there has been. The urgency is building. I’m expecting we’ll build that intensity from the time we get back from Florida, up to about June. And then it will probably slack off because of summer. And then in late August it will kick in and crescendo all the way to the game.”  

Lively has attended the last two Super Bowls while preparing for North Texas’ first, but this time he said, “This is a sponsor fulfillment trip, so we’re making sure we escort our people to see as much of the Super Bowl experience as they can while we’re in Florida.”

Lively will be on a reasonably tight itinerary, with some flexibility thrown in for the unknown. He’s not only entertaining nine $1 million dollar sponsors but the mayors of Arlington, Dallas, Fort Worth and Irving.

“One of the benefits of being $1 million dollar sponsor is a trip to this game and the experience that accompanies it,” Lively said. “And so our job is to make sure that experience is as meaningful and enjoyable as possible.

“We’ll go to the Taste of the NFL and many other events. We’ll also introduce the official NFL logo for our Super Bowl, in a media event at our North Texas booth at the NFL Headquarters. And then we’ll be doing all kinds of stuff this week.”

The official contingent of North Texans will attend a wide range of activities, from an NFL flag football game to a gospel choir concert to a number of more specialized functions.

“We spent most of the time at the last two Super Bowls going to meetings to understand how they developed their aviation plan, or their transportation plan, or how they handled security coordination with local authorities,” Lively said. “We studied everything from controlling ambush marketing to renting barriers. It was a wide range.

“This time, we have meetings with the executives and staffs of the Miami and Fort Lauderdale airports. Our mayors will meet with the mayor of Miami. We’ll see behind the scenes what they struggled with and how they coordinated their efforts.

“But we promised our people who gave $1 million dollars a hospitality experience to this game, and that’s what this is all about for me.”