The marketing for Super Bowl XLIII (that's 43 for the non-Romans in our readership) has already started with the release two weeks ago of the game's logo, and it certainly won't abate until well after the 6 p.m. kickoff time set for Feb. 1, 2009.
You can almost see the 70,000-plus high rollers sitting in the stands, hear the expensive 30-second TV ads and smell the spilled beer. Beamed to more than 1 billion viewers worldwide.
Quite a party, and given that it will be our fourth Super Bowl, quite a feather in Tampa Bay's cap, right?
Not if you are into the economics of such games. Hillsborough and Pinellas counties and the city of Tampa will spend millions in tourism taxes to host the shindig, and it will cost taxpayers untold millions in extra policing and other government services. But the game won't give us anything in return, economic studies are showing.
University of South Florida professor Philip Porter said his years of research, as well as that of a host of other economists, shows that short-term sporting events, no matter how large, don't have an economic benefit for the host city for a variety of reasons, some simple to understand, others tougher to grasp. Here's one: Super Bowl spending simply displaces other tourism spending that takes place here in the winters, visits that go elsewhere when all the hotels are booked for Super Bowl.
"All of these kinds of things are such short-term events that they can't have the impact that they say they have," Porter said.
The Tampa Bay Super Bowl Host Committee, the nonprofit company that puts together all the Super hoopla, puts the economic benefit at $350 million. Reid Sigmon, the executive director of the group, said economists can cast doubt on any numbers he or anyone else could produce. But the fact is that more than 400 corporate jets will likely be lined up on Tampa International Runways by game time, and hotels will be filled, and restaurants will serve visitors many, many meals, he said.
"There definitely is economic impact," Sigmon said last week. "There's a lot of different parts to it." He cited the media attention generated during the weeks-long buildup to the game and the ability to showcase the area to CEOs and meeting planners.
But Porter said the proof should be data, not in promises or anecdotes.
"When we show them there is no impact, then they say, 'Well it's because we bring these CEOs here, and they could move or create new jobs for us.' It's just disingenuous," Porter said. Elected officials and tourism leaders "who are here just want to throw a big party with your money."
For the past decade, Porter has studied the impact of sporting events by looking at sales tax revenues, as reported in detail by the state of Florida. If hundreds of millions of new dollars were spent in Jacksonville, Tampa or Miami during their Super Bowls in the past 10 years, for instance, wouldn't that show up in sales taxes spiking during those years?
A new study using his sales tax data methodology says the spikes aren't there. In the dry language of academia, three economist authors writing in the January Southern Economics Journal concluded: "New stadiums, arenas, and franchises, as well as mega-events, appear to be as likely to reduce taxable sales as increase them."
Because it is tough to see the effect of even such mega-events on sales taxes in any one case, the new study looked at 15 sports events, new stadiums and player strikes in Florida over nearly two decades. The methodology is far beyond our space in print to explain, but the conclusion is inescapable: You can't project or promise an economic benefit for a Super Bowl.
And worse, Porter said, is the fact that since prices for hotels and other amenities are simply jacked up for that week without creating new jobs (the existing staffs, for the most part, just work harder or longer hours), the real profit from the Super Bowl goes to far-flung corporate offices.
"You swipe your credit card here, and the same amount goes to pay for the employees [as always]," Porter said, "and the rest of it is deposited in Paris Hilton's account."
This article appears in Feb 20-26, 2008.
