UPDATE (5/23/18 at 11:35am): After a unanimous vote on Wednesday morning, May 23, it has been decided that New Orleans will host Super Bowl 58 in 2024.
It will fall on February 4, right in the middle of the Mardi Gras season, and will follow the College Football Playoff National Championship in 2020, the NCAA Women’s Final Four in 2020, and the NCAA Men’s Final Four in 2022 - all to be hosted right here in New Orleans.
On Wednesday, May 23rd, the New Orleans Saints and the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation will present a proposal to the NFL team owners to host Super Bowl 58 in 2024.
New Orleans will be the only city making the request on the day, making our chances of once again hosting the event more than probable. The vote by the other 31 teams will take place shortly after New Orleans’s presentation.
If chosen, Super Bowl 58 would be the 11th held in New Orleans, and the 8th held in the Superdome. The other 3 were held at Tulane’s original stadium.
Similar to the 2013 Super Bowl, the 2024 Super Bowl would take place on February 4th, in the middle of the Mardi Gras season.
The presentation will take place following the recent changes to the bidding process, allowing the NFL to approach a single city for one Super Bowl each.
Although New Orleans is the lone bidder, nothing is being taken for granted, as the city’s proposals for the 2018 and 2019 Super Bowls were both rejected.
Saints owner Gayle Benson and president Dennis Lauscha will only have 10 minutes to present on Wednesday, 5 minutes less than what was allotted in the old bidding process.
This new bidding process means less competition versus other cities, but it means more pressure on proving the city itself. Rather than comparing itself to other cities to prove its strengths, New Orleans will have to overcome its weaknesses to get the bid.
Jay Cicero, president and CEO of the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation, maintains that even though there aren’t very many weaknesses in the case of New Orleans, nothing is set in stone even though New Orleans is the only team bidding to host the event.
New Orleans was once the top pick for the Super Bowl since its inception in 1967, but with the construction and unveiling of new stadiums in other cities, we experienced a lull.
Hopefully, this period of will end with Benson and Lauscha’s presentation on Wednesday.
