Now That the Party’s Over, Where Does City Stand?

The big top came down Monday on the National Football League’s traveling road show called the Super Bowl, accompanied by resounding cheers for the city’s efforts in staging a near-flawless event.

The city, which was host to the game for the first time, received smashing reviews for its organization, as the entire event--from the stadium to traffic--was devoid of any major problems and hummed along like a fine-tuned engine.

San Diego reaped an unprecedented public relations coup. Most of the Super Bowl news emanating from the city was overwhelmingly favorable, from national newspaper stories to network snapshots of scenic spots taken from a blimp.

The only blemish was disappointment by restaurateurs about suffering a lack of business, a trend that showed up early last week and continued to the very end. The loss of business, eased by a late infusion of fans into the city starting Friday, has made the restaurant industry lukewarm about the idea of whether San Diego should go after another Super Bowl.

Though not nearly as affected as restaurants, hotels were left with about 2,000 vacant rooms, a surprising development because full houses were expected. Even with the empty rooms, however, the hotels experienced about a 93% occupancy level, which is considered good business.

“Yesterday put us on the list,” an unabashed Leon Parma said Monday. Parma, owner of Coast Distributing Co. and a member of the San Diego Super Bowl Task Force, believes it’s a virtual certainty that San Diego will join the list of cities that regularly hold the Super Bowl.

He said he has been told by several NFL team owners that San Diego will be selected for a Super Bowl again, the only question is when. Locations for the game have been chosen through 1991. The next open date is 1992, but Parma said it’s his understanding that NFL owners want to award that year’s game to a “northern tier” city--one with a dome such as Seattle, Indianapolis or Detroit.

If that’s the case, Parma said, San Diego’s next chance would be to host the 1993 Super Bowl. Also, he said, the team owners aren’t expected to make a decision this year, holding off their choice for 1992 and beyond until 1989.

“The smoothness of every activity yesterday was the result of excellent planning,” Parma said. “People were able to move to and from the game with ease and without congestion. I think the city did a great job, we should all be proud.”

‘Very Happy’

Not as effusive but equally satisfied was Jim Steeg, the NFL’s director of special events, who spent the last two weeks in San Diego making sure the city and stadium were prepared for the game. While acknowledging that it’s natural for those involved to be “in a euphoric state” in the days immediately after the game, Steeg nonetheless said San Diego is “absolutely” in the running for future Super Bowls.

“Everyone seems very, very happy,” said Steeg, speaking about those NFL team owners and officials he had talked to. “Sure, there were some problems, but nothing of any consequence. We had a little confusion in the parking lot at 8, and by 8:15 it was fixed.”

He said he had spoken to Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman, who heads the owner’s site selection committee, and that Braman was extremely laudatory of San Diego and its Super Bowl production.

“The weather helped . . . and the mood of the people was so good,” Steeg said. “People felt so comfortable coming in.”

Dampened Enthusiasm

Despite the praise, some businesses that expected to reap a Super Bowl financial bonanza are less than enthusiastic about having the game back in San Diego soon.

Paul McIntyre, executive director of the San Diego Restaurant Assn., said that even the influx of visitors that began on Friday wasn’t enough to make up for the very weak business the rest of the week.

“It looks like (there was) a good Friday and Saturday, but in most cases not spectacular, and a poor Sunday. Certainly not the kind of crowds that were projected,” he said. Although business picked up considerably during the weekend, McIntyre said restaurants in San Diego are traditionally very busy on Friday and Saturday nights.

Overall, he said, 98% of the restaurants in his association--which number about 350--were either “flat or down all of January and for Super Bowl week itself.”

He thinks there are several reasons for this. Many locals apparently stayed away from their favorite restaurants out of fear the eateries would be swamped with people, which wasn’t the case, thus eroding the restaurants’ traditional base, McIntyre said. He also believes the countless parties, hospitality suites and other food and beverage freebies cut deeply into business.

“We gave away dinners instead of selling them,” he said. “ . . . There was too much free food . . . for the press and others. It was pretty common.”

‘We’re Paranoid’

Would the association support having another Super Bowl in San Diego? McIntyre replied candidly: “We’re paranoid.”

“There’s no doubt we probably wouldn’t be as enthusiastic or push as hard. We certainly would be a little more cautious. We thought this was going to be a sure thing and it definitely was negative,” he said. At the same time, said McIntyre, the event provided the city with a big public relations boost that “let people know about us.”

“I suppose in the long run that might bring in more tourists, and that’s good.”

Al Reese, spokesman for the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau, said it “looks like (there was) a couple of thousand rooms” left vacant during the weekend. In most cases, he said, the vacancies occurred because of no-shows and the last-minute cancellation of room-blocks held in reserve by corporations. The rooms reserved by corporations weren’t a total loss, though, because the companies had to put down a non-refundable deposit, Reese said.

Overall, he said, “we had about a 93% capacity . . . and that’s as close to capacity as you are going to get.”

In an effort to get a more definitive idea of the Super Bowl’s financial impact on San Diego--which had been projected to reach as high as $141 million--the NFL, ConVis and the San Diego Super Bowl Task Force are paying CIC Research to evaluate the event, not only in terms of economics but also to better identify “who was here,” said Max Schetter, the Chamber of Commerce’s director of research. The study should be ready for public release sometime after mid-March.

At San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium on Monday, crews were busy cleaning the facility and picking up about 40 tons of trash. “At a regular Raiders-Chargers sellout we have about 16 tons of garbage,” said stadium manager Bill Wilson.

While it will take six weeks to fully dismantle the 21,000 temporary seats installed for the Super Bowl, Wilson said most of the work of transforming the stadium back to its previous configuration will take place in the next two days. The next event scheduled at the stadium is Feb. 13, when the place will be abuzz with racing off-road vehicles.

Wilson said the city and the Super Bowl Task Force did a fine job of preparing for the game.

“It was better than we expected, much, much better,” he said. For example, he said, so many fans used buses, taxis and limousines that 600 empty spaces were left on the parking lot.

“People here did their homework. Up in L.A. they could care less,” said Wilson, who previously was stadium manager at the Rose Bowl. “People here care, and it shows.”