Brian Ramos / Staff
Super Bowl LVIII signage and displays are projected onto Caesars Palace, Bellagio fountain and all around the Las Vegas strip, Wednesday, February 3, 2024.
Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024 | 2 a.m.
Super Bowl Sunday is here, and all eyes are on first-time host Las Vegas.
Millions of people worldwide are likely to tune into the big game — whether that’s to cheer on their team, catch a glimpse of Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce’s girlfriend, pop icon Taylor Swift, or just enjoy a watch party and some game-day grub with friends.
The matchup between the Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers will be broadcast in nearly 200 countries, bringing unprecedented attention to Las Vegas, said Steve Hill, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. The broadcast is expected to surpass last year’s record of 115 million viewers in the United States, NFL officials said.
“We couldn’t come close to affording that kind of exposure if we had to buy it,” Hill said. “So it’s a remarkable opportunity for the city. And being able to bring the brand of Las Vegas together with the brand of the NFL and the Super Bowl is unmatched.”
Unlike so many brands that have to shell out millions for a 30-second advertising spot during the Super Bowl broadcast, Las Vegas’ marketing will be built into the game.
Sam Joffray, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Super Bowl Host Committee, said exposure for a Super Bowl host city went beyond just the game’s broadcast — it also includes all the “road to the Super Bowl” coverage that takes place throughout the NFL season, and the overall impact for the host city is “incalculable.”
“We talk a lot about direct economic impact, how much money has been brought into the destination, how much has been spent, what we’re going to earn from hosting this event, but the (public relations) value delivered by the Super Bowl is immeasurable,” Joffray told the Sun. “When you’ve got 6,000 members of the media here, and you’ve got social media influencers and you’ve got celebrities and you’re showing what Vegas is like on Super Bowl weekend, that’s invaluable exposure for a destination and should pay off in dividends next year.”
Reaching a hard-to-reach audience
The Super Bowl will garner attention for Las Vegas from a few different markets that may otherwise be tough to reach, Hill said.
For example, despite Las Vegas top ranking for hosting meetings and conventions, he said it was often hard to reach the “decision-makers” in the corporate world, those who could choose to bring their company’s events to the city.
When the corporate world sees what is possible in Las Vegas around the Super Bowl, however, they will easily be able to imagine hosting their event in the entertainment capital of the world, Hill said. The same can be said for the organizers of other major sporting events, he added.
“It allows us to show both the individual aspects of Las Vegas … but it also allows us to show the scale at which Las Vegas can operate,” said Hill, pointing to the hundreds of events happening all over the city over Super Bowl weekend. “Because no city has that number of venues to even try and do all of that at the same time.”
Las Vegas also struggles to reach to reach parts of the international market. The LVCVA, Hill said, doesn’t really have the money to “penetrate … effectively.”
Though Las Vegas tourism officials spend money internationally, he said, it’s nowhere near the same value as the level of global exposure that comes with hosting the Super Bowl.
“There’s going to be a lot of people who watch the Super Bowl who have never been to Las Vegas, when they’re watching internationally,” Hill said. “And that’s just invaluable to us.”
And finally, the Super Bowl will continue to show off Las Vegas’ potential as a destination for leisure travelers. The LVCVA’s job when it comes to the latter is to keep Las Vegas “top of mind” for viewers who may consider it for their next vacation, Hill said.
“When they think about, ‘Oh, I’d like to take a trip in the next six months. I ought to think about going to Vegas’ — there’s no better way to do that than the Super Bowl, because it’s omnipresent,” he said. “It is on the television all week leading up to the game. Every household in America has the Super Bowl on, on Sunday.”
People head into Allegiant Stadium for Super Bowl LVIII Opening Night Monday, Feb. 5, 2024.
Name on stadium brings Allegiant Air publicity
With all the shots of Las Vegas guaranteed to be broadcast leading up to, during and after the Super Bowl, the company perhaps best poised to benefit is Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air, the naming-rights partner for Allegiant Stadium, where the much-anticipated game will take place.
Scott DeAngelo, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Allegiant Air, said the budget airline has already seen a huge surge in online searches, thanks to media coverage of the Super Bowl.
“All of these things are just creating this fever pitch for Allegiant,” said DeAngelo, who noted that “Sunday Night Football” or “Monday Night Football” games played at Allegiant Stadium typically have led to a 20% increase in searches to the Allegiant site, as people watch the Raiders face off with any given team at its namesake stadium.
The airline anticipates it will come away from the week of Super Bowl 58 with the equivalent of approximately $50 million in what otherwise would have been paid advertising to achieve the same amount of publicity, DeAngelo said.
That’s bigger than Allegiant’s entire advertising budget, he said.
“We always believed that Las Vegas and Allegiant Stadium would make for an amazing Super Bowl experience,” DeAngelo said. “And, obviously, the investment that we make for being a naming-rights partner is for that awareness, and this stands to be the biggest return that we’ll have had to date on that investment.”
Sports capital of the world
DeAngelo believes Allegiant Stadium has been a catalyst of the “sports renaissance” now overtaking Las Vegas. Sports have grown exponentially in Las Vegas, he said, and the biggest sporting event in the U.S. being contested here only further cements it as even more than the entertainment capital of the world.
There’s more than a million visitors to Las Vegas who would not have come if not for Allegiant Stadium, he said.
“It has really grown the Las Vegas pie by adding in a completely new slice — professional sports and major professional sporting events, of which there’s nothing bigger than the Super Bowl,” DeAngelo said. “So I think Las Vegas should be proud. And we should see this as that crowning moment of becoming the sports capital of the world.”
Hill echoed the sentiment, noting that less than a decade ago, hosting the Super Bowl in Las Vegas would have seemed “unthinkable.” Now, however, the “sports capital of the world” title is undeniable, he said.
“That story is being told by every major publication that I can think of, and that has become an accepted fact,” Hill said. “The Super Bowl being here and Formula One being here, those two events seal that. And this week is the pinnacle of that effort.”
Sports have elevated Las Vegas’ brand, its image and its future, he said, and the city’s first Super Bowl is a chance to make history.
“There just aren’t many cities in the world who can say, ‘We’re a Super Bowl city,’ ” Hill said. “When we get done with this game, our goal is to be able to say, ‘This is the place that the Super Bowl should be every year.’ ”
