‘Hospitable’ San Diego Pulls in $136.2 Million From Super Bowl
Visitors and businesses involved in San Diego’s first Super Bowl spent $65.6 million on the big game, according to an economic analysis released Monday.
An additional $70.6 million in so-called indirect spending also was measured, bringing the Super Bowl’s total financial impact to $136.2 million.
The report, commissioned by the National Football League, the San Diego Super Bowl Task Force and the city’s Convention & Visitors Bureau, is the official verdict of the Super Bowl’s impact on San Diego County. It was presented in Phoenix, where the NFL owners are meeting.
A November, 1986, financial forecast predicted that the Super Bowl would bring San Diego anywhere from $120 million to $141 million. That report and the one released Monday were done by CIC Research Inc.
Visitors’ Impact
Of the $65.6 million in direct spending, $52.3 million came from the 77,500 out-of-town Super Bowl visitors who descended on the county in the days leading to the Jan. 31 game. An added $13.3 million of direct spending came from businesses, the two teams--the Washington Redskins and the Denver Broncos--and the NFL, according to the report.
The report’s statistics were based on 912 interviews, representing 2,858 people. It included about 500 interviews on game day with fans at the stadium. Along with face-to-face interviews with fans--which were held at a variety of places such as hotels and the zoo--CIC relied on telephone interviews and a mail survey to poll businesses that had some involvement with the Super Bowl, said Skip Hull, CIC’s director of economic analysis.
Not mentioned in a synopsis of the report that was released in San Diego was criticism leveled by many restaurant owners, who said that the Super Bowl was not a financial windfall and in some cases cost them money. The prospect of thousands of fans arriving in San Diego and crowding restaurants did not happen, except at the more expensive and exclusive eateries, and also scared away many local patrons during the week before the game, they said.
Les Land, Super Bowl Task Force executive director, who lauded the amount of money the game brought to the county, said that “early publicity” about an influx of out-of-town fans amounted to “overkill” that hurt restaurants, noting that it is an area the city will work to improve if San Diego is again awarded the game.
The task force also didn’t clearly understand how most of the large out-of-town groups and organizations connected to the NFL were catered to--with their own private parties and dinners--thereby further hurting the restaurants, he added.
The report painted a varied statistical profile that included the following:
- The median household income of Super Bowl visitors was $64,400, or about double that of the typical tourist in San Diego; 22% of Super Bowl fans had annual household incomes of more than $100,000.
- Super Bowl visitors spent an average of $141 a day, or more than three times the $41-a-day average of the usual tourist.
- Only 1% of out-of-town fans arrived by private or company planes, and only 2% traveled on a chartered plane. Most visitors, 64%, flew to town on commercial airlines.
- The state of California collected $2 million in sales tax revenues, of which about $300,000 should be returned to San Diego.
- The average stay of fans was five days and four nights, and 89% of all Super Bowl visitors rated San Diego as “very hospitable.”
