SUPER BOWL SPECIAL : $28.7 Million in Extra Wages : Sure Winners on Super Sunday Are Thousands of Added Workers

The Denver Broncos and Washington Redskins won’t be the only people earning a day’s wage at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium on Super Bowl Sunday.

Super checks will also be in the mail to thousands of San Diegans--and possibly hundreds of out-of-towners--who will spend Sunday collecting tickets, directing traffic, serving food, cleaning rest rooms, parking cars and performing dozens of other bit roles that will help make Sunday super for an estimated 74,000 fans.

The Super Bowl will increase the county’s wages and salaries by an estimated $28.7 million, according to the San Diego Super Bowl Task Force.

Thousands of New Jobs

That rough estimate was based on the thousands of temporary jobs that have been created at restaurants, hotels, bars, tourist attractions and other enterprises that are sharing in the influx of Super Bowl visitors. It also includes the thousands of overtime paychecks that employees with full-time jobs will earn.

“The busboy who normally works 20 hours will be working 40 hours and the waitress who works 40 hours will be working 60 hours,” according to Philip Blair, co-owner of the Manpower Temporary Services franchise in San Diego and a member of the San Diego Super Bowl Task Force. “Hotels will have every housekeeper on the payroll at work for the week.”

Some department stores have kept part-time Christmas season employees on the payroll to meet this Super Bowl week’s anticipated demand, according to Vickie Anderson, a job-placement supervisor with the state’s Employment Development Department.

For several months, the department has had a special Super Bowl operation to steer qualified workers to employers who need temporary help, Anderson said.

But the National Football League’s unique ability to generate jobs will be most obvious at the stadium come game day.

Help Aplenty

On Sunday, an army of nearly 3,500 temporary and full-time employees--not including the thousands of unpaid volunteers who will be pregame and half-time entertainers--will work at the stadium while the fans enjoy the game and accompanying festivities.

More than 800 waiters, waitresses, bartenders, cooks, meat carvers, porters, bus boys and buffet servers will be rushing to sate the appetites--and thirsts--of nearly 7,000 guests at the hospitality tents that surround the stadium. All but a handful of these jobs have been filled by temporaries.

The NFL has hired more than 1,000 people to take tickets, escort fans to their seats and to provide security during the game. Again, the bulk of these jobs have been filled by temporaries.

Philadelphia-based ARA Leisure Services has hired about 500 temporaries to sell authorized NFL merchandise at the stadium on game day.

Service America Corp. will add as many as 1,000 temporaries to the 1,000 food and drink vendors who normally man booths during a sold-out Chargers game at the stadium. That increased sales force will include 350 program vendors--seven times the normal contingent that works Charger games.

Besides temporary jobs, the game will generate paychecks--and some overtime--for regular employees at the stadium.

Ace Parking’s regular stadium crew of 80 attendants will be at the stadium Sunday even though 8,000 of the stadium’s 18,000 parking spaces have been eliminated to accommodate corporate hospitality tents, ABC-TV’s production equipment, increased bus parking and permit-only parking.

“We still have to assist motorists with special parking passes and direct motorists who enter through the wrong gates,” an Ace spokesman said.

Regulars Going Full Tilt

The stadium won’t add temporaries to spruce up the stadium, but the facility’s regular crew of plumbers, electricians, carpenters and maintenance people has been “working all week to make sure things are up to snuff,” Stadium Manager Bill Wilson said.

Maintenance crews have spent the last week giving the stadium a “final wash-down, rubdown and scrape-down,” Wilson said. A crew will continue to buff and polish the stadium on game day, Wilson said.

Down on the field, the grounds crew, including chief groundskeeper Brian Bossard, has spent the past several weeks working with George Toma, a Kansas City groundskeeper who, by NFL decree, handles field preparations for all Super Bowl games.

The 800 temporaries who will work at the corporate hospitality tents Sunday will spend “an average 15-hour workday,” according to James Bonn, president of Temp Force of San Diego, which also is providing temporary workers who will clean up after the game and take down the tents.

Unskilled laborers who work for Temp Force on game day will receive about $4.50 per hour. Skilled employees and supervisors will receive even more, Bonn said, adding that base wages will be increased for those who work overtime.

ARA Leisure’s souvenir sales force will “be totally on commission so what they earn will depend upon the volume,” a company spokesman said.

If past Super Bowls are any guide, those vendors will be in for a profitable day, even though San Diego’s stadium is the smallest structure ever to present the event. That’s because Super Bowl fans generally spend $7 to $10 on officially sanctioned NFL merchandise, according to a retail expert who has tracked sales at past games.

Special Logistical Problem

Service America has added its extra help “because the Super Bowl presents a logistical problem,” Vice President Jerry Long explained. “We’ll have 12,000 more people at the stadium than at a regular sell-out, and most of them will be from out of town and unfamiliar with the stadium.”

Those added vendors will make it easier for fans to spend money.

Service America, for example, has contracted with the San Diego State University Boosters Club to sell souvenir programs on game day. The club could earn as much as $25,000 from program sales, a Service America spokesman said.

Service America also has contracted with 300 students, teachers and parents associated with Patrick Henry High School to work at the nearly 50 additional food and beverage stands that will be installed at the stadium Sunday.

ARA Leisure Services will erect 70 booths, tents, stands and tables to give fans easy access to the 150 official NFL products that will be available game day.