Super spending, super hype?

The Super Bowl's economic impact will be huge, promoters say.

By Douglas Hanks, The Miami Herald
Posted: Monday, January 29 2007

For a window into the lavish spending a Super Bowl brings, peer into the glass-walled party house that recently appeared on the sands of South Beach.

Standing 32 feet tall with a pair of elevators running between floors, the 10,000-square-foot "style villa" just steps away from bustling Ocean Drive will serve as a beachside oasis of champagne, food and freebies for visiting celebrities.

Organizers expect fewer than 300 celebrities to walk through its invitation-only doors, but that didn't stop Ocean Drive Magazine and Miami Marketing Group from spending a reported $500,000 to build it.

"You're going to have 30,000 to 50,000 visitors out here," said magazine spokeswoman Lana Bernstein from the well-traveled walkway that runs past the villa's temporary home. "It's going to be spectacular."

With its flood of marketing dollars, corporate junkets, deep-pocketed football fans and pampered celebrities, organizers and industry leaders expect Super Bowl XLI to set new benchmarks for South Florida's tourism and entertainment sectors. Hotels have maxed out room rates, golf courses and party venues are charging top rents and limousine companies expect record demand.

PricewaterhouseCoopers released a report last week predicting Super Bowl visitors would spend a record $195 million in South Florida. Add in related purchases -- from extra gasoline for coach buses to more hours for hotel housekeepers -- and the total economic impact approaches $400 million, author Robert Canton said.

He pointed to South Florida's pricey winter hotel rates, as well as the spending power of the typical Super Bowl visitor.

"Not only are they more affluent, but many -- if not most -- are on a corporate spending account," said Canton. The study was based in part on surveys PWC took in 1998 for an NFL-commissioned report on Tampa's Super Bowl that year.

Dolphin Stadium will hold 75,000 people for the Super Bowl. Official estimates call for 120,000 visitors to flock to South Florida for the festivities, roughly equivalent to the 125,000 estimate from San Diego's 1998 Super Bowl.

The PWC study concluded only about half the visitors -- 60,000 people -- stayed in hotels. That would still make Super Bowl XLI South Florida's largest single source of overnight hotel stays in eight years -- when Super Bowl XXXIII was here, according to Nicki Grossman, president of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau.

PWC REPORTS BOOST

The recent PWC report found the Super Bowl boosts hotel occupancies by an average of five percentage points for the month, and that most hotels perform above average in the weeks before and after the game. A Miami Herald survey last week of 51 hotels found most had rooms available for Super Bowl weekend, but at premium rates.

At the J.W. Marriott in downtown Miami, hotel executives boosted revenue projections for February by more than 20 percent. With a third of its 300 rooms contracted to the National Football League at a discounted rate, the hotel requires a four-day minimum stay on the remaining rooms and boosted the typical rate from $429 to $1,000 a night.

"Unbelievable, right?" General Manager Florencia Tabeni said. By the middle of last week, all but a few suites were booked. The price: $5,000 a night.

A suite at Fort Lauderdale's Atlantic hotel will run fans $1,300 a night during the Super Bowl -- a premium on the $779 rate available the next weekend. At The Setai in South Beach, guests booking for the Super Bowl are required to stay at least seven nights. With rates hovering around $1,000 at the posh beachside resort, that means a $7,000 hotel bill.

"We're almost totally sold out," said spokeswoman Devyani Singh. "That's why we have the seven-day minimum -- because we know we can do that."

Corporate spending drives a large chunk of the high hotel rates. The Super Bowl stands as the top single event for corporations to entertain clients and top executives, according to corporate travel planners, with the Master's golf tournament in Augusta, Ga., holding the No. 2 slot.

The corporate presence is perhaps most noticeable at the game itself.

"The Super Bowl crowd is a lot quieter" than that of a typical football game, said Glen Bynum, owner of Golden Sports Tours in Plano, Texas. "I'd say 70 percent of the people there are fans for neither team."

COSTLY PARTIES

Corporate dollars are helping fuel a network of pricey social events leading up to the Super Bowl. Organizers hope to sell 1,500 tickets at $800 apiece to a Jerry Rice celebrity roast at the Westin Diplomat.

At the razorgator.com travel package site, tickets start at $4,400 for Maxim magazine's Friday night party at the Sagamore in South Beach. John Travolta is throwing a party Saturday night in Miami's Bank of America tower, where the cheapest ticket costs $1,500. For $12,000, fans can have a VIP table at the "Leather and Lace" party in South Beach's crobar nightclub.

Floyd Raglin, whose Miami Beach company represents professional athletes, is charging foursomes $5,000 to play in Wednesday's Jim Brown Celebrity Golf Classic, which benefits the Hall of Famer's foundation. When Raglin held a similar celebrity tournament in Miami last spring, foursomes paid $2,500.

"Anything that goes along with the Super Bowl, believe me -- they're doubling" the prices, Raglin said from the first tee at the Blue Monster golf course in Doral, home of the tournament.

Miami Marketing has run three villas for MTV awards shows in Miami and New York, but this year's 15 sponsors will pay the most for the concept's Super Bowl debut. The 250 celebrities expected to stroll the exclusive beachside bazaar will be offered free Nicky Hilton handbags by Miami Beach, Paris Hilton perfume by Parlux Fragrances, Morgan Miller custom shoes and clothes by Penguin.

"You can't just drop this concept anywhere. There's got to be a high density of talent and media in order for it to be worthwhile [for] the clients," said Miami Marketing president Brian Gordon, who declined to release sponsor fees for the villa. "Super Bowl in Miami, you've got athletes, musicians, film stars, television. When you look back at who came into Miami for the Super Bowl, it will blow your mind."

HIRING BOOM

Executives at Carey, the national limousine company, are looking forward to who's coming into Miami. On Call Staffing spent much of January recruiting an extra 300 drivers for Super Bowl weekend -- to accommodate about $2 million worth of car service. "We've always had big years in Miami," said Paul Barcellos, acting director of the Washington, D.C., company's South Florida office in Davie.

South Florida's climate has helped boost Super Bowl spending this year, particularly after last year's stop in frigid Detroit, according to executives from companies that follow the event from city to city.

According to Wayne Mogel, producer of the Rocking the Gridiron party Thursday at the Miami Seaquarium, "A lot of corporations opted not to go to Detroit, and save their money to really go all out in Miami."

dhanks@MiamiHerald.com