As the National Football League awards Super Bowl LXIII to Las Vegas for its 2029 championship game, count on Southern Nevada being even better prepared to host the event than it was in 2024.
The big reason: Las Vegas was a late pinch-hitter for New Orleans in 2024 for that game, won by the Kansas City Chiefs in a thrilling 25-22 overtime win over the San Francisco 49ers. This time, the city will have just under three years to prepare for the event instead of one.
New Orleans bowed out in 2024 because the game date was too close to Mardi Gras, the annual Crescent City celebration kicking off the season of Lent. Las Vegas grasped the responsibility of coordinating every aspect of the Super Bowl and the NFL admired the way the city perfected every detail of planning leading up to game time.
330,000 visitors
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Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority President and CEO Steve Hill is a big fan of NFL football and bringing the game back to Las Vegas.
“We’re proud the NFL has selected Las Vegas to host Super Bowl LXIII,” said Hill. “Our first Super Bowl showcased the unique energy and scale only this destination can offer, bringing together world-class sports, entertainment and hospitality in one place. Las Vegas was built for moments like this, and we look forward to delivering another exceptional experience for fans in 2029.”
Getting into the Super Bowl rotation of host sites is a major accomplishment for Las Vegas, even as former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who as chairman of the LVCVA board of directors once suggested that Las Vegas become the permanent home of the Super Bowl. It was a bold statement at the time since it was before the Raiders relocated to Southern Nevada and the city had no NFL presence.
Tourism leaders estimated the 2024 Super Bowl drew 330,000 people to the city. That’s around 10 percent of the total number of visitors that came for the whole month of February.
Investment analyst Emily Thompson of Seeking Alpha said those visitors generated $606 million in net visitor spending resulting in nearly $1 billion in total economic impact.
The 9.5 percent increase in the number of monthly visitors to Las Vegas over the previous year was the largest in all of 2024.
A large inflow of visitors over the days surrounding the Super Bowl translates into high demand and that’s easily measurable in average daily room rates. For the month of February 2024, the average rate soared to $248.35 ($269.37 on the Strip), easily the highest monthly rate paid that year, exceeding February 2023 by 40.6 percent.
Big change from NFL
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The NFL has come a long way since those days when it had no appetite for anything resembling gambling and wouldn’t even permit Las Vegas to advertise on the Super Bowl broadcast. Today, the NFL tolerates gambling and has three official betting partners, Caesars Entertainment Inc., DraftKings and FanDuel, which are authorized to use official NFL data on wagers.
Even before Las Vegas hosted its first Super Bowl game it was a popular alternative destination for watching the game with local resorts hosting “Big Game” watch parties where visitors were free to gamble on the outcome and local sportsbooks assembled huge menus of proposition bets.
Now, Las Vegas is on the verge of forming its second Super Bowl Host Committee.
Last time, Hill and other tourism experts were key players on the Host Committee, a private nonprofit led by Sam Joffray. Now that the NFL has confirmed Las Vegas as the host, a new committee would be formed.
The committee oversees all aspects of bringing the game to the city and had 11 subcommittees that addressed safety and security, logistics and transportation, community affairs and volunteer programs, business connect and supplier diversity and marketing and communications.
As part of the lead-up to Super Bowl LXIII, Las Vegas will host a lineup of affiliated special events, including NFL Honors, Super Bowl Experience presented by Jersey Mike’s, Super Bowl Opening Night Fueled by Gatorade, and expansive community initiatives, such as NFL Source, the league’s procurement program for local and underrepresented businesses. Spanning the Las Vegas metropolitan area, the events will offer countless opportunities for both residents and visitors to enjoy memorable, family-friendly experiences.
“Bringing the Super Bowl back to Southern Nevada is a powerful testament to the success of the 2024 game,” said Michael Naft, chair of the Clark County Commission. “Super Bowl LVIII was more than a world-class sporting event. It created meaningful opportunities for independent business owners, generated significant economic impact for our local economy and supported nonprofit partners through the NFL’s Legacy Grant program. Clark County is proud to build on that momentum, and I am eager to ensure that the benefits of hosting the big game are felt by all Nevadans.”
After the 2024 Super Bowl, Amanda Belarmino, an assistant professor at UNLV’s William F. Harrah College of Hospitality, said the Super Bowl had a greater economic impact on Las Vegas than Formula One or just about any other event and that the wealth generated was well spread around the city.
“I think that the overall impact of hosting the Super Bowl may have had a greater economic impact, even though we may not be able to directly attribute that impact to the event,” Belarmino said. “While the Super Bowl is always a profitable time of year for us, this year we were able to stretch that economic impact into a week instead of a weekend. I also think that we may find that the economic impact of the Super Bowl went into other parts of the city rather than just the Strip.”
Another Las Vegas attribute that will take every minute of preparation time for the 2029 event will be the Clark County Department of Aviation. At the previous Super Bowl and Formula One Grand Prix events, Harry Reid International, Henderson Executive Airport and North Las Vegas Airport prepared for the arrival of hundreds of general aviation aircraft to park at the three aviation facilities.
Contact Richard N. Velotta at [rvelotta@reviewjournal.com](mailto:rvelotta@reviewjournal.com) or 702-477-3893. Follow [@RickVelotta](https://x.com/RickVelotta) on X.