📋 Uncovering the NFL’s (Secret) Rules for Hosting a Super Bowl

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As someone who has gotten press credentials to the Super Bowl (sick brag), it has officially gotten too easy to get press credentials to the Super Bowl.

In today’s newsletter:

🗞 The Big Story: How Kendrick Lamar Can Turn $1,000 into $208M at the Super Bowl

📉 Biggest Loser: Uncovering the NFL’s (Secret) Rules for Hosting a Super Bowl

🏆 Winner’s Circle: New Orleans’ Invisible $4M Super Bowl Fix

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🗞 The Big Story

Kendrick Lamar is only getting paid $1,000 to perform at the Super Bowl, but it’s actually one of the best deals in the entire industry.

Background: Before 1991, musical acts for the Super Bowl halftime show didn’t even get paid. In fact, in 2014, the NFL even suggested to Rihanna, Katy Perry, and Coldplay that they should have to pay the league “a portion of their post-Super Bowl tour income” for the right to play during the game.

But crazy as it sounds, even that might have been worth it.

An Expensive Concert: The NFL regularly shells out millions of dollars to put on one of the most visually impressive shows possible. As recently as 2020, it was reported that Jennifer Lopez and Shakira spent $1M per minute for their 13-minute performance — all of which was paid for by the NFL and the show’s sponsor, Pepsi.

Artists also get access to an estimated 3,000 staffers involved in the production, as well as an all-expense paid trip to the biggest sporting event of the year.

These days, artists are paid the minimum wage guaranteed by a union contract, which is reported to be around $1,000 per day, but if they’re smart, they can flip that $1,000 into hundreds of millions more.

Leveraging the Moment: Even though all three artists turned down the NFL’s request to pay the league to perform in 2014, Katy Perry still accepted the gig for the standard rate and became the highest-earning female musician of the year, earning a reported $135 million.

This was largely driven by the massive increase in streams several of her top songs received in the days following her performance:

• Teenage Dream – 139%

• Firework – 107%

• California Gurls – 98%

• I Kissed A Girl – 94%

• Dark Horse – 69%

• Roar – 56%

In fact, really smart artists like Rhianna will use the time to promote not only her music but also their own products.

Just by applying powder to her face during her 2023 performance, she generated an estimated $5.6 million in earned media for her makeup line, Fenty Beauty.

Kendrick’s Opportunity: But perhaps the most significant opportunity for artists like Kendrick Lamar to take advantage of this year is with ticket sales; I mean, just think about it:

The halftime show is essentially a 13-minute, uninterrupted commercial for what it’s like to see him perform live, and if he were to buy that much ad space this year, it would cost him $208 million.

Talk about a good ROI.

📉 Biggest Loser

The most ridiculous rule in the NFL actually has nothing to do with football. Let’s break it down.

Picking the Host City: Every couple of years, the league will announce where it’ll host the Super Bowl in the next 3-5 years. As of right now, the NFL has decided where it’ll host the big game through 2028:

• 2025 – New Orleans, LA – Super Bowl LIX

• 2026 – Santa Clara, CA – Super Bowl LX

• 2027 – Inglewood, CA – Super Bowl LXI

• 2028 – Atlanta, GA – Super Bowl LXII

Typically, the league will choose from the same rotation of cities that fit the same general criteria:

• Indoor stadium or an average game-day temperature of 50°F

• At least 35,000 hotel rooms within an hour of the stadium

And on the surface, those aren’t so unreasonable, but the NFL has some additional, secret rules that make hosting a Super Bowl not as appealing for a city as you might think.

Secret Requirements: First, we know about these rules because Minneapolis’ proposal was leaked to the local paper in 2014 when the city submitted its bid to host the 2018 Super Bowl.

In it, we learned that the league requests things like free police escorts to and from the stadium and events for team owners to bypass local traffic, as well as free security for NFL executives, VIPs, and sponsors.

The league also requires presidential-level luxury suites at no cost in top-tier hotels for the commissioner and high-ranking executives and additional free rooms for referees, staff, and any other personnel the NFL decides to bring along.

Demands also included:

• Three top-quality golf courses to be reserved at no charge during the summer or fall before the event

• Two premium bowling venues that can be used for free

• At least 20 free billboards in prime areas for the league to use for at least a year leading up to the Super Bowl

No Tax League: The NFL also requires exemptions from sales tax, hotel taxes, and government fees, and the league itself says it shouldn’t be required to pay any taxes on the revenue it generates from ticket sales and sponsorships in the city.

That’s on top of the league already earning 100% of ticket revenue, including thousands of free tickets it keeps for its staff and sponsors.

But the real kicker is that if a city agrees to all of this, they also agree to offer these same terms or better the next time the Super Bowl returns to their city.

Maybe hosting the Super Bowl isn’t as good a deal as the league wants you to think…

🏆 Winner’s Circle

The New Orleans Saints finally solved a 50-year-old problem just in time for the Super Bowl, and they could start making millions of dollars more because of it.

Due for an Upgrade: The Caesars Superdome, which was completed in 1975, is the oldest stadium to regularly host a Super Bowl, which is why it got a $560 million facelift that was completed before this NFL season.

Most of these renovations involved replacing hundreds of thousands of square feet of concrete ramps with high-speed escalators, but the much more impactful part of this renovation is something that most fans will never see.

Elevating Efficiency: Before removing the ramps, it took one food or beverage employee 15 minutes to trek from the stadium’s ground floor to the top level. However, now, that trip is just a 2-minute elevator ride.

This is just one of many ways the Saints cut down time at the concession stands for both workers and fans because they also built brand new:

• Self-checkout markets

• 12,000-square-foot kitchen

• 20,000-square-foot storage warehouse

This new kitchen is double the size of its predecessor and features some of the $17 million in new equipment found across the stadium, all of which allows staff to make better food even quicker.

And the immediate impact of these upgraded facilities has been nothing short of impressive.

Instant Success: During this past Saints season, the average transaction times for fans dropped from 1 minute and 20 seconds to between 20 and 25 seconds. This helped increase per-cap sending by 24% to around $34 per fan.

For reference, that kind of increase equates to an estimated almost $4 million in additional revenue for the team year over year.

And just in time for the biggest game of the year.

⏱️ In Other News

• The NFL’s Most Viral Offensive Lineman

• Pat Riley is playing the long game

• Sports betting meets stock trading

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👋🏻 Happy Friday!

My official Super Bowl prediction:

• Chiefs: 31

• Eagles: 27

But more importantly, we’ll all be sick of AI by the end of the game (the same way we got sick of crypto in 2021.)