The Faustian bargain that is the Super Bowl has been covered here plenty in the past. As we get closer to the 49th version of the game in Phoenix Glendale, I’ll go into more of the events and activities surrounding the game. Santa Clara, which more or less knew that it was going to be the gameday venue and little more, has rounded up its own slate of events for Super Bowl week, after the official NFL list was already divvied up and given mostly to San Francisco.
Unfortunately, those events will cost $2 million and aren’t part of the $40 million fundraising budget. The big showstopper is a $1.2 million parade down Great America Parkway, set for January 31, the same day as the Pro Bowl. In Arizona the upcoming Pro Bowl will be held in the same venue as the Super Bowl. Sadly for Santa Clara, the corresponding Pro Bowl will be held in its most frequent locale, Honolulu’s Aloha Stadium.
Keep in mind that Santa Clara is waiving all sorts of taxes and fees in order to host the game. They may be able to make up the revenue through increased sales taxes and hotel bookings throughout the city. Chances are that like many other cities that “win” the event, they’ll be lucky to break even. Sure they’ll tout economic activity figures. Excuse me while I throw up.
Then join me in celebrating Santa Clara’s inclusion into a group of illustrious cities such as Glendale, East Rutherford, Pontiac, and Arlington. To paraphrase Drake, the NFL’s gotta have sidepieces all over the country too.
And to think there are some in Oakland who quixotically hang onto the dream of hosting a Super Bowl. Crazy.
newballpark.org 
“Sadly for Santa Clara, the corresponding Pro Bowl will be held in its most frequent locale, Honolulu’s Aloha Stadium.”
Why is this sad? The Pro Bowl is an utter and absolute waste of time. Santa Clara’s lucky none of its stench is going to rub off on the burg.
@Brian – The Pro Bowl – yes, the Pro Bowl – gets better TV ratings than most nationally televised baseball games, even playoff games. Santa Clara would love to have another event to “showcase” its city. No dice for them.
Not to mention that it’s another week of people hanging out and spending their money.
How many shots of the golden gate bridge, bay bridge, downtown SF, etc. are we going to see during the Super Bowl
how many shots of the empire state building, brooklyn bridge, statue of liberty and other nyc landmarks did we see last feb when the sb was in nj?
Man, that’s just the way that it goes. Oakland and San Jose will always be second class cities to San Francisco, farm a national and international perspective.
I fill a little worse for San Jose, because no matter how many camera shots of the Bay Bridge you see facing San Francisco (away from Oakland), during Raiders, A’s, Warriors, and some Cal football games, the two cities are linked by the Bay Bridge, San Jose is over 40 miles away from the city, and you still get some of the same shots?
True, although the NFL tv networks appear to have done a good job of avoiding doing that so far. – the other sports – not so much.
Sorry:
Oakland and San Jose will always be second class cities to San Francisco, “from” a national and international perspective.
This just came across twitter:
The NFL is just special.
Arlington (and Tarrant County as a whole) didn’t fare half this bad. The event was branded as a North Texas (not Dallas) event, and Ft. Worth hosted both the AFC champion and ESPNs week-long coverage, while Dallas got the NFC champ and Arlington had the game. It’s weird, the one “Dallas” thing people in Ft Worth embrace is the Cowboys, but if they’d tried calling it a Dallas Super Bowl everybody would’ve been up in arms. As it was, they split the baby pretty well and made it feel like a regional thing.
I guess the Raiders will have to try hard to get into the AFC championship game in 2015….hahahaha
Lots of shots of the GG Bride, downtown Frisco, the Bay Bridge, Palace of Fine Arts, etc, during last night’s game. At least Al Michaels was kind enough to note that all that stuff was 48 miles away and he even signed off “from Santa Clara, California,” at the end of the night. For their next game in Oakland, the 49ers actually will be playing as close to those Frisco landmarks as they will get. “If we can’t get a new stadium in Frisco, we’ll move south and just pretend we’re still in Frisco! No one will notice!”
For an internationally televised game, which Santa Clara landmarks would you rather they feature on the broadcast?
Who gives a #%€&@! about landmarks! This is football, not some show on the Travel Channel! Quite frankly, SF doesn’t need the Niners to market them worldwide and the Niners don’t need SF in order to be a succesful NFL franchise (save for last night). See NFL teams in Jacksonville, Cleveland, Kansas City or Green Bay if you think it takes an Alpha World City to make a football team. Happy Black Friday all!
@pjk
That’s a good question, how about the Winchester mystery house for one.
Sorry, that was Briggs question.
That’s why after Super Bowl 50 local pols and business leaders need to go all out to make the Niners a TRUE local team; enough of this SF outpost crap! “SV” (Silicon Valley) or “SJ” (San Jose of Santa Clara) would look awesome on the Niners helmuts.
SF interests trying hard to keep baseball out of Silicon Valley? Fine!…WE’LL JUST TAKE YOUR DAMN FOOTBALL TEAM!
@pjk
Yes, I really appreciated Michaels making those comments.
Santa Clara really has no landmarks, where as not showing stuff like Lake Merritt, Jack London Square, Oakland City Hall, Oakland Mormon Temple, Christ The Light Cathedral, Tribune Building, Kaiser Center, Cathedral Building, Oakland Rose Garden, Fox Theater, Paramount Theater, etc, when the Raiders, A’s, Warriors play in Oakland, is just a sign of ignorance and a SF centric attitude on the part of the networks.
Oakland is not Santa Clara, East Rutheford or Arlington TX.