San Diego Studies Today’s Game plan as Practice for ’88

It’s 48 hours before Super Bowl kickoff and things are hectic as last-minute preparations for America’s megagame are under way at the Rose Bowl here.

Standing calm amid the high tide of activity is Gus Zemba. He can afford to relax. His attack of anxiety isn’t due until next January, when the Super Bowl comes to San Diego.

Then he will have to worry about the 1,200 buses, 600 limousines, 15,000 rental cars and 500 taxis needed to carry people to San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

“I think we’ll be all right. I don’t foresee any problems we haven’t planned for,” said Zemba, who along with about a dozen members of the San Diego Super Bowl host committee traveled here and to Anaheim this weekend to see firsthand the behind-the-scenes preparations for today’s championship game between the New York Giants and Denver Broncos.

This is the third Super Bowl that Zemba, president of Kopecky Corp. Charter Buses in San Diego, has attended as the committee member responsible for planning how to get everyone to the 1988 game on time.

He already knows that there aren’t enough buses in San Diego to accommodate the demand, so he’ll be importing buses from Orange County.

It’s the same for limousines. “We have a couple of hundred limos locally, so we’ll go to L.A. for more,” Zemba said. “That’s one thing I’ve noticed since I’ve been coming . . . limos have become a bigger, bigger part of the game.”

Zemba’s responsibility is only one of several components the host committee is undertaking as it prepares San Diego for what may be the city’s biggest event ever.

The impact of the Super Bowl on San Diego--both tangible and intangible--is being compared to that of a national political convention.

For several days before the game and on Game Day itself, San Diego will be the recipient of massive publicity, both in this country and abroad.

It is an opportunity, according to Super Bowl host committee members, that San Diego must be prepared to cash in on.

“It’s absolutely a benchmark. No single thing has happened in San Diego that would ever come close to what a Super Bowl can provide to San Diego in terms of exposure,” said Robert Payne, who is host committee chairman, developer of the Doubletree Inn now under construction in Mission Valley and chairman of Grossmont Bank.

“Without question, it’s unprecedented for this community. People don’t know the impact of the Super Bowl, it’s hard to imagine. It’s almost beyond comprehension,” added Payne, who has seen the hoopla firsthand at previous Super Bowls.

One advantage San Diego has over other Super Bowl sites, such as the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, is that the core of the city--where many of the pregame activities will occur--is relatively compact.

“Everything is so spread out,” said Jim Steeg, National Football League director of special events, describing how the Los Angeles-Orange County megalopolis tends to swallow even an event as large as the Super Bowl.

“In L.A., there’s no real feel in the community for the game. It’s just too big . . . you have meetings in Beverly Hills, in Anaheim and the Wilshire District, and Pasadena is an hour away,” Payne said.

In contrast, host committee members believe, the Super Bowl will dominate San Diego, leaving no question that it’s in town.

A survey conducted for the host committee by CIC Research Inc., a San Diego-based economic and market research firm, concluded that the San Diego region could receive as much as $141 million from spending associated with the Super Bowl in the week leading up to the game.

The 75,000 people expected to descend on San Diego to take part in the plethora of pregame parties, dinners and events--the vast majority from out of town--have incomes equivalent to the top 25% of the tourists who usually visit San Diego.

What this means, according to CIC’s research, is that each of these Super Bowl visitors can be expected to spend $152 a day for each of the average of five days they are in San Diego during Super Bowl week.

“We expect well over $100 million in a week. That’s big business. The people who come to this game spend money like it’s going out of style,” said committee member G. E. (Vinny) Vinson, chairman of the board of Buchanan-Vinson Advertising and founding president of the Holiday Bowl.

As much as the money, Vinson said the impact of the Super Bowl is also one of subliminal messages: “Is this a sleepy village near Tijuana or a vital, progressive city . . . a city that is growing?

“There will be more corporate heads (visiting) in that week than have been in San Diego in five years. The big boys from the big corporations.”

For all the public relations and economic benefits that are predicted will be forthcoming to the city--even the lowest projection estimates a windfall of $122 million in a week--the Super Bowl is very much a private party. And the NFL controls distribution of the tickets, which are priced at $75 for today’s contest.

Host committee officials say they expect no more than 5,000 local people to attend the game if the Chargers aren’t in it. Even if the team does make it, tickets for local residents would still be severely limited.

(Should the Chargers play in the game after their 4-12 won-lost record this season, it would qualify as the biggest single-season Super Bowl turnaround in NFL history.)

As with tickets to the game itself, many of the major parties and events--which over the years have grown so popular as to nearly rival the game for attention--are intended for the troika consisting of the NFL, the media and large corporations, many of whom are major NFL advertisers.

Indeed, one of the most important aspects in the evolution of the Super Bowl has been the NFL’s ability to sell the game as a corporate nirvana.

Some large corporations use the Super Bowl as a chance to reward good workers and clients. Ford Motor Co., for example, routinely puts up several hundred top-performing employees at finer hotels in the Super Bowl city.

When the game was played at Stanford University’s stadium two years ago, Nissan Motor Corp. chartered an ocean liner to serve as a hotel for its 350 guests.

There are huge parties planned for the Sports Arena, the Hotel del Coronado and other locations around the city on the nights preceding the game that will be attended by thousands. There is also the corporate bivouac known as Tent City that takes place in the stadium parking lot. But don’t be confused.

Any resemblance between these hospitality tents underwritten by Big Business and the kind you use when camping is in name only. Even a sheik’s desert encampment would pale in comparison.

On Game Day, these tents--provided by such top corporations as Ford, Oldsmobile, Merrill Lynch, and Coca Cola--are transformed into a fantasyland. Some of the tents in Pasadena have tropical settings, others have beach scenes complete with trucked-in sand. Some have fountains spewing from tables. Inside, people are provided lavish meals, before and after the game, along with live bands and dancing. Among the tent performers at the Rose Bowl this year, for example, are the Beach Boys.

San Diego city officials estimate that $200 will be spent on each person who attends hospitality tent festivities this year in Pasadena, and that as many as 10,000 people will attend.

Jack McGrory, San Diego deputy city manager, said the city is preparing for a Super Bowl XXII Tent City of about 250,000 square feet to accommodate several thousand people. He’s hopeful that some of the tents, including perhaps one for the public, will be open a few days before Super Bowl Sunday. In a few weeks, the city will select a company to provide the tents and line up the amenities.

As part of the contract, the city will receive a percentage of gross rents, against a guarantee of $75,000, according to a city report issued in October.

The money will help offset the $1 million the city is committed to spending for the Super Bowl, primarily to expand the stadium by adding about 15,000 temporary seats, which will increase capacity to 75,000.

The challenge, according to Peg Nugent, the host committee’s associate executive director, is to make the NFL’s and corporate America’s visit so comfortable that representatives will want to come back to San Diego again.

While one of the host committee’s objectives is to put San Diego in the pecking order for future Super Bowls, it also wants to promote the city as a tourist destination and a place to hold company meetings and conventions.

“More than anything else, our job is to do such a darn good job they will want to come back. We want them to say, ‘Man, that was a hell of deal, let’s go back again,’ ” said Vinson, the committee member in charge of marketing.

The committee itself, officially called the San Diego Super Bowl Task Force Inc., has 27 members, representing the major organizations responsible for funding and executing the plans for the Super Bowl: the Chargers, Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce, San Diego Economic Development Corp., San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau, Greater San Diego Sports Assn., the city and the county.

Individual members include Chargers owner Alex Spanos; Mayor Maureen O’Connor; Copley Newspapers editor-in-chief Herb Klein; county Supervisor Brian Bilbray; Leon Parma, head of Coast Distributing, and John K. Reid, executive director of the Holiday Bowl.

The nonprofit corporation, which began serious preparation for the 1988 event last year, has a budget of about $1.7 million, three full-time paid staff members and more part-time workers and volunteers. Most of its budget is for construction of the stadium’s temporary seats. The rest is for items like media kits and promotional brochures ($150,000); parties, receptions and buffets for the NFL, media and corporate officials ($265,000), and salaries and office expenses ($343,000).

While agencies such as the city, ConVis, the Chamber of Commerce and others are making large donations, the committee is also relying on the sale of Super Bowl-related merchandise to raise funds.

Starting this month, service groups, such as the Rotary Club, and retail stores will begin selling baseball caps, T-shirts, sweat shirts, key rings, glass mugs, sports bags, bumper stickers and banners with the San Diego Super Bowl host committee logo. The committee will receive a percentage from each item sold.

(In a few weeks, the city expects to select a vendor to sell novelties on Game Day and provide the city with a flat fee, against a guarantee of $150,000, according to the city report.)

Some companies, like Gannett Outdoor Co. Inc., have agreed to donations instead of money. Gannett will provide a score of billboards to advertise San Diego as Super Bowl host and to urge residents to be hospitable, according to Vinson.

Hotels throughout the region--and as distant as Orange County and Palm Springs--have agreed to reserve 11,000 rooms for the National Football League the week before the Super Bowl. Well-known San Diego restaurants already have booked dinner reservations for the weekend of the Jan. 31 game.

The Hotel del Coronado and other Coronado merchants are paying for the Super Bowl press party, which is expected to attract more than 1,000 people, said Sharon Considine, owner of the Mexican Village restaurant in Coronado and a member of the host committee involved in preparing for the media bash and NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle’s party.

The traditional party, at which 3,000 people are expected and where the scramble for tickets is greater than for the Super Bowl itself, is tentatively set for either the Del Mar Fairgrounds or the B Street Pier cruise ship terminal the Friday before the game. The next night, the Sports Arena will be used for a special event that will include big-name entertainers.

The NFL has yet to select its headquarters hotel, although the Hotel Inter-Continental and the Town and Country appear to have the inside track.

One of the biggest obstacles facing the city is the size of the stadium. With a capacity of about 60,000, San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium is far short of the NFL’s desired minimum of about 75,000 for the Super Bowl.

The 14,000 to 15,000 temporary seats that will be constructed for the game will include mainly field-level bleachers and stands on both sides of the scoreboard, according to Marty Breslauer, assistant property director for the city. In addition, some of the permanent, individual seats near the field will be removed and replaced by long benches.

The exact configuration of the temporary seating is under review by the city and Ronald Labinski, a Kansas City architect who advises the NFL on stadium expansions and who has been involved in the design of Giants Stadium in New Jersey, the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis and the Silverdome in Detroit, among others.

One problem with the temporary seats is that they will have the worst views in the stadium, being either too close or too far from the field.

Even though the city and the NFL are attempting to improve the views, “I think you’ll still have some (sight line) problems,” Breslauer said. “The people around the scoreboard will be pretty far away. They’ll (the seats) not be the best . . . but people will all be able to see.”

There is also another potential problem, one so onerous that committee members don’t like to think about it much: a possible players’ strike next fall that could lead to cancellation of the season and the Super Bowl.

“I’m not going to worry about things I can’t control,” said Les Land, host committee executive director. “We’re proceeding full steam ahead. There’s no other way to treat it.”