How Miami went from nearly forgotten by the NFL to back on top as ‘Super Bowl City’ | Opinion
The idiom of dangling a carrot in front of one’s nose sees its extreme in the NFL dangling the prospect of hosting Super Bowls in front of wide-eyed cities.
The perfume is powerful enough to move mountains, to see local governments genuflect, to get new stadiums built.
In Miami, it was powerful enough to convince Stephen Ross to part with $350 million. And the result is South Florida’s transformation to “Super Bowl City” — a place at the center of the NFL universe.
If he hadn’t, the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers would not be headed to Miami, where the eyes of the world will be fixed on the biggest sporting event in America on Feb. 2.
Miami and his Hard Rock Stadium are only hosting the city’s record-setting 11th Super Bowl this season because Ross made that commitment. The NFL had made that clear.
“Our stadium wasn’t modern and up to date and it really wasn’t a showcase,” as Ross put it. “The league said they weren’t coming back to Miami unless we did upgrade the stadium.”
Ross, the Miami Dolphins owner, spent more than a third of a billion dollars in a privately funded 2015-16 facelift of the stadium Joe Robbie had built (also privately funded) in 1987. That is why Miami ended its 10-year drought, after previously last hosting a Super Bowl following the 2009 season, and earned the distinction of hosting the Super Bowl 54 game that will crown and cap the league’s 100th season.
A new record
With this 11th Super Bowl — five in the old Orange Bowl and this will be the sixth time in what is now Hard Rock, in the suburb of Miami Gardens — Greater Miami breaks a tie and surpasses New Orleans’ 10 for the most ever, with Pasadena a distant third place with five Super Bowls hosted.
Add this to Miami’s claim to the title “Super Bowl City”: The Dolphins’ five Super Bowl team appearances mean 16 of the first 54 SBs (or 30 percent) will have involved Miami as host or participant, comfortably the most of any city or region.
But Miami as a Super Bowl destination had dried up after the 2010 game, perhaps permanently.
“Until Ross decided to write the big check,” said Rodney Barreto, chairman of the Miami Super Bowl Host Committee since 1988. “That got us back in the game.”
The massive makeover featured giant video boards in the four inside corners of the stadium, additional suites, and an open-air canopy over the main seating areas. In the redesign capacity was reduced by around 10,000, to roughly 65,500, but the higher percentage of premium seating meant overall revenue increases for Ross (and for the NFL putting Super Bowls here) even with the lower maximum attendance.
Ross funded the 20-month renovation for a number of reasons.
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It would benefit his Dolphins and other main tenant, Hurricanes football. It would attract the major annual Miami Open tennis tournament. It would bring the College Football Playoff (HRS hosts the 2020 season national championship game). It would attract major music concerts like the Rolling Stones. It would lure one-off big events like Wrestlemania. And it would create a destination for major international soccer including, Ross expects, 2026 World Cup matches here.
Mostly, though, Ross’ financial investment was made with Super Bowls in mind. With getting Miami back in the rotation.
“That weighed a lot,” he says. “I’m hoping we’ll have a Super Bowl at least once every five years. The cities in the rotation all the time should be Miami and Los Angeles.”
The perfect weather
Miami hosted three of the first five Super Bowls, so South Florida and the promise of postcard weather were appealing to the NFL from the start.
But the league’s interest in Miami began to sag as the aging Orange Bowl did the same, and it took Robbie building his brand new stadium to rekindle the league’s interest — just as decades later it would take Ross’ massive makeover of the The House That Joe Built to get the NFL’s attention back.
Every Super Bowl is history making, and the 10 in Miami have not fallen short. In the briefest chronology, we have hosted:
The triumph that would end the Vince Lombardi/Packers dynasty (1968); the Jets stunningly fulfilling Joe Namath’s “guarantee” (1969); the Colts winning it all the first season after Don Shula had left for Miami (1971); the Steelers winning their second for four Super Bowls within six years (1976); Terry Bradshaw back for Pittsburgh’s third of four titles (1979); the 49ers reigning on two Joe Montana fourth-quarter touchdowns (1989); the Niners on top again, this time with Steve Young (1995); Denver and John Elway going back-to-back (1999); Peyton Manning leading the Colts to his first championship (2007); and New Orleans winning its first Super Bowl to lift a city still recovering from Hurricane Katrina (2010).
The 2007 game was Miami’s only Super Bowl bothered by bad weather, but even that was sort of a win. I mean, who can ever forget the late, great Prince singing “Purple Rain” in a driving deluge — for many perhaps the most memorable halftime show of them all.
The next four Super Bowls after this one already are committed — to Tampa, to Inglewood, California (the new Los Angeles Stadium at Hollywood Park), to Glendale, Arizona, then back to New Orleans.
Will Miami bid for the next available SB in February 2025?
“We’re signed up for any game in ‘25, ‘26, ‘27, ‘28, ‘29 and ‘30,” said Barreto. In other words, Miami wants as many SBs as it can get.
The NFL has changed its bidding process. It had gotten out of hand. Barreto recalls his first bid proposal in 1989 was 36 pages long. The one that won this season’s game was 565 pages.
Cities no longer make elaborate presentations to the league in a dog-and-pony show. Now, cities that can meet benchmark standards for facilities, hotel rooms and so forth simply add their name to a list and the NFL decides. Miami’s track record would seem to a plus moving forward.
“We’ve done this before,” as Barreto puts it.
The politically connected host committee chairman is a born and raised Miamian. The committee consists of Baretto, seven board members and 12 employees. That’s it. Well, for starters. Under what Barreto calls that “lean fighting machine” is an array of corporate sponsors, partners in Broward and Palm Beach, and volunteers.
“Ten thousand volunteers? We’ll check that box,” says Barreto.
Halftime performers for the 2020 Miami game will be Latina singing sensations Shakira and Jennifer Lopez, a.k.s J. Lo. Baretto initially suggested to the league a Miami-centric bill featuring J. Lo, Flo-Rida and Pitbull and found the NFL receptive.
The NFL owners party is set for the Perez Art Museum and the NFL Honors awards show for the Arsht Center. The two teams will practice at the Dolphins and Hurricanes facilities. The teams will stay at the Marriott Marquis and Turnberry Isle hotels and the league at the Intercontinental. Demi Lovato will sing the national anthem.
Super Bowl Live will be a weeklong series of free entertainment at Bayfront Park. The Super Bowl Experience interactive theme park will be at the Miami Beach Convention Center, as will media headquarters. The Taste of the NFL “Party With a Purpose” fundraiser will be at the Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood.
A massive effort
Super Bowl Week unofficially kicks off on Jan. 27 with Super Bowl Opening Night, when both teams appear for interviews before hundreds of gathered media at Marlins Park.
It is a massive undertaking that Barreto notes is “so much more than a game” and will generate a local economic impact “north of $400 million.” It culminates with the biggest annual sporting event in America, by a lot, perhaps joining the Fourth of July as the country’s biggest holiday.
This Super Bowl will draw to South Florida an estimated 150,000 visitors and the eyes of the world. The week will be priceless in terms of helping attract tourists year-round.
The previous 10 Miami Super Bowls have been seen by just under 1 billion TV viewers in the U.S. (about 990, 900). This next SB figures to add at least another 150 million to that total.
The host committee’s hype video for this Super Bowl is funky and urban, emphasizing the area’s diversity, and referring to “the 3-0-5” and “the Magic City.” Notes the narrator: “We let the whole world in.”
Super Bowls weren’t always this big, of course.
Tickets were $6 to the very first one, and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum wasn’t nearly sold out.
Barreto, 62, was barely a teenager when Miami’s Orange Bowl hosted three of the first five.
“I think I remember sneaking into one of those games, by the way,” he says with a smile.
This story was originally published January 19, 2020 at 6:14 PM.
