Super Bowl Brings Super Windfall to Miami...Maybe
NFL claims big game brings $400 million to South Florida, economist questions figure
By ARI ODZER
Updated 8:15 AM EDT, Fri, Jan 29, 2010
The football events have already started throughout Miami, the Super Bowl will be here next week and local hotels, restaurants and community boosters are salivating over the expected windfall.
The NFL estimates the Super Bowl pumps more than $400 million into South Florida's economy, but some local economists say not so fast.
"I'm gonna say show me the facts," said University of South Florida Professor Phil Porter, who studies the economic impact of big events. "What essentially seems to happen in these events is that business goes on as ordinary."
Dr. Porter points out that our local hotels are usually pretty full every February anyway -- it's the height of the tourist season -- and claims the NFL wildly inflates the game's effect on local businesses.
His biggest example: strip clubs.
Though they're packed with high rollers during Super Bowl weekend, many of the dirty dancers come in from around the country and dilute the impact on the economy.
"[The dancers] make a huge amount of money and they take it home with them, so the money that's spent in your community might have been spent there but it's not deposited there and doesn't have an economic impact there," Porter said.
Porter offered stats from the Florida Department of Revenue from the last time Miami held the Super Bowl, which seem to support his theory. In February of 2006, taxable sales for Miami-Dade County were about $3,318,000,000. The next February, in 2007 when the Colts beat the Bears in the Super Bowl here, the taxable sales actually went down, to about $3,307,000,000.
The chairman of the South Florida Super Bowl host committee, Rodney Barreto, said no one in football buys that.
"Every major city that has an NFL team wants to take the game away from us," Barreto said, adding that the $400 million figure is solid. "That's all extra money, this business would not be there if it wasn't for what's going on here in the next ten days."
Barreto also said that with reporters from around the world converging here, there's tons of free advertising for South Florida as a tourist destination.
"That alone is probably worth $40 to $50 million if you have to buy it, all that great PR," Barreto said.
Either way, there's no denying that it's fun to have the game in town, and perhaps money isn't everything.
First Published: Jan 29, 2010 8:01 AM EDT
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