ATLANTA -- New Orleans could once again become the home for the Super Bowl on Wednesday afternoon (May 23).
That's when the city's contingent, led by the New Orleans Saints and the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation, will present a proposal to the NFL team owners to host the 2024 Super Bowl (58), Cicero said.
New Orleans will be the only suitor for the 2024 Super Bowl at the league owners meetings, making its chances of landing the NFL's crowning event highly probable. The vote by the 31 other teams is expected to occur shortly after the city's presentation.
It would be the 11th time the city would host the Super Bowl and the eighth time in the Dome. The other three games occurred at the original Tulane Stadium. New Orleans last hosted the game in 2013, when Baltimore defeated San Francisco in Super Bowl 47 on Feb. 3, 2013 in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. The city won that bid May 19, 2009.
The 2024 Super Bowl would take place Feb. 4, falling right in the middle of Mardi Gras season much like the 2013 Super Bowl. The major two weeks of Carnival season will likely split with Fat Tuesday falling on Feb. 13, 2024.
Phoenix/Glendale will be the lone bidder Wednesday for the 2023 Super Bowl (57) to potentially be held at University of Phoenix Stadium.
The league shifted the bidding process late last year to allow the NFL to approach a single city for one particular Super Bowl each. The NFL approached New Orleans and all the participating parties went to work for the past seven months.
But if there's only one city bidding, then New Orleans should be guaranteed the game, as some national news outlets have predicted, right?
Jay Cicero, the president and CEO of the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation, said nothing has been taken for granted with the city's proposal. Especially since the city lost during the last two voting processes for the 2018 and 2019 Super Bowls.
Cicero pointed to a framed front page of The Times-Picayune from May 20, 2009 with the headline reading in all caps, "N.O. SCORES 2013 SUPER BOWL." It's the last time the rest of the NFL owners accepted the city's proposal to host a Super Bowl.
"I hope we get to hang up another one of these real soon," he said, peering out the window of his Bucktown office overlooks Lake Pontchartrain. But, he added several times over the course of the interview, "It's not a done deal."
Saints owner Gayle Benson and president Dennis Lauscha will present the proposal to the rest of the NFL's team owners Wednesday morning at the league meetings. They will only have 10 minutes to present the city's case, which is five minutes less than what was allowed with the old process.
The elaborate bid boxes once shipped out to every NFL owner leading up to the vote is also a thing of the past. New Orleans mastered the art of the bid box, which provided a presentation about one month before a vote.
Now the rest of the league doesn't marinate on any part of the bid until the morning of the vote. The group's bid packet needs to be nearly flawless, and the speakers for the bid need to nail the presentation.
"The challenges are that you're bidding against yourself," Cicero said. "It sounds a little easier than it really is. At first you're thinking, 'We've got this.' And then as you go through the process and you're submitting your offer for each item and each section in the bid, you're getting feedback (from the league) but the owners are the ones to make the ultimate decision."
Cicero said the bid binder that will be handed to the 31 other team owners spans about 200 pages with meticulously detailed proposals curated by Cicero, GNOSF vice president Sam Joffray and a band of others.
"You can kind of gear (the bid) towards New Orleans, and yet it's a give and take," Cicero said. "Knowing the product and knowing what they're looking for and talking with them about the realities of New Orleans vs. other cities helps keep us on top of our game."
Cicero said the group has talked with the NFL just about every week since being presented an opportunity to bid on the 2024 Super Bowl with dialogue from both sides to make the best bid possible.
Cicero sorted out the bid process using, in his words, these parameters: "What are they asking for? Can we deliver it? What's it cost? Is that competitive? If we can't deliver it, can we provide something comparable? If we can't deliver and can't provide something comparable, can we say 'no' and what's the risk associated with that? If we can't say 'no,' where are we making that up somewhere else?"
Cicero and his staff, along with the Saints brass, don't want to leave anything up to chance with the 2024 Super Bowl bid despite being the lone suitor.
But why did the NFL hand select New Orleans for one of the two Super Bowls bids at these owner meetings?
"We've lost two Super Bowl bids in the last four years," Cicero said. "I think the league recognizes that New Orleans is a very valuable and one of the most valuable Super Bowl partners they could have. Our bids were very competitive in those two years. We lost to new stadiums cities.
"The first time was a shock. The second time wasn't so much of one because we knew what the case was going to be. When your best client -- the NFL -- asks you to bid, you don't tell them 'no.' We always hoped going through those processes would lead to a dividend somewhere down the line. This new process of being a single-city invite certainly did that. There are probably 10-15 other cities that want to host.
"So coming back to New Orleans and giving us this opportunity isn't something we take lightly."
New Orleans was once the overwhelming favorite to host any Super Bowl. The city won its first 10 bids for the Super Bowl since the game first kicked off in 1967. Its fortunes changed with the recent introduction of several new stadiums across the league.
Minneapolis upset New Orleans in May 2015 when Minnesota's capital captured the bid for Super Bowl 52 played Feb. 4, 2018 at U.S. Bank Stadium. The loss to Minnesota plainly spelled out the uphill battle for New Orleans to win a Super Bowl bid if it faced off with any city with a new stadium.
New Orleans suffered the same fate in May 2016 league owners meetings when the 2019 Super Bowl (53) went to Atlanta and its new Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Miami's heavily renovated Hard Rock Stadium took the 2020 Super Bowl and Los Angeles won the 2021 game at the same owners meetings.
Los Angeles' stadium construction issues led the league to push the city's Super Bowl to 2022. The league awarded the 2021 game to Tampa's Raymond James Stadium.
The Raiders are scheduled to move into a new stadium in Las Vegas in 2020. But the league likely didn't want to repeat the mistake it made with Los Angeles in awarding a Super Bowl too early.
Cicero said the Sports Foundation and the Saints are "joined at the hip" on this bid. But the contingent jam-packed its efforts with support abound from across the city and state.
"It takes a village to put together a winning Super Bowl bid," Cicero said. "I could go on and on. We worked closely with Mayor (Latoya) Cantrell, former Mayor (Mitch) Landrieu, Governor (John Bel) Edwards, John Alario and the state legislature. Then there's SMG, Louisiana Economic Development, New Orleans and Co., the tourism and marketing corporation, the convention center, the airport.
"Everyone working together to ensure a competitive bid to host one of the largest sporting events in the world."
All of this has seemingly re-opened the door for New Orleans to return to the Super Bowl landscape.
"In the past 10 Super Bowls where you've won the bids, you're bidding against other cities," Cicero said. "You might gear your bid toward the strengths of your city vs. the weaknesses of the other cities. You don't have that now. You're really overcoming any weaknesses that you may have in your own city.
"Fortunately there's not that many here, but you're really trying to convince a staff of professionals who are trying to extract the most out of you.
"And then have a final presentation that Mrs. Benson and Dennis Lauscha are going to make and their passionate plea to come back to New Orleans is heard by the owners. Dennis will probably give a little more the business piece of it. And Mrs. Benson will do the passionate plea.
"And we're hoping the combination of that will land us our record-tying 11th Super Bowl."
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