Las Vegas’ 2024 Super Bowl ‘generating a lot of buzz’ at this year’s spectacle

By Case Keefer (contact)

Thursday, Feb. 9, 2023 | 2 a.m.

The Las Vegas Super Bowl Host Committee hadn’t even fully settled into its booth on the bottom floor of Super Bowl 57’s Media Center, and people were already drawn toward the lights.

A replica ‘Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas’ sign and cardboard wall picturing the Strip caught mass attention among credentialed media and workers starting Sunday, a week before the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles square off in this year’s big game. And most who then stopped by the display shared similar thoughts.

“We’ve had the, ‘Oh yeah, I forgot Vegas is next year. Awesome, I can’t wait’” said Sam Joffray, the executive director of the Las Vegas Super Bowl Host Committee. “We’re definitely generating a lot of buzz about next year.”

There’s perhaps more buzz about the next year’s Super Bowl at the current year’s event than ever before, and it all has to do with Las Vegas’ long-awaited debut. The preeminent city in America for events finally gets to host America’s biggest event on Feb. 11, 2024, when Super Bowl 58 kicks off at Allegiant Stadium.

Expectations are high, and meeting the challenge is a big reason why Joffray jumped at the chance to head the efforts in a new city. Before joining the Las Vegas Super Bowl Host Committee in 2022, Joffray had spent 25 years working on Super Bowls and other major events in New Orleans.

“If I was going to do it in any other city, it was going to be (Vegas),” Joffray said. “It’s not a copy-paste Super Bowl. We don’t have transportation plans from the past. We don’t have anything. We’re authoring this whole plan to success and hopefully going to leave the blueprint for many more Super Bowls in Las Vegas but we’ll always be able to say we were the first.”

Joffray is thrilled with the progress his team, which was only recently filled out, has made especially considering it's dealing with “the shortest runway in modern Super Bowl history. Las Vegas stepped up to take the assignment on just more than two year’s notice when the NFL’s switch to a new 17-game regular season necessitated Super Bowl 58’s conflict with Mardi Gras.

New Orleans was initially awarded the game but pushed it back a year to bump up Las Vegas’ Super Bowl premiere from its expected, though never official, 2025 slot.

“It’s the tentpole event that all other events look at,” Joffray said. “If you can host a Super Bowl, you can host a College Football (Playoff) championship game, a Final Four. It’s all happening right now. We’re seeing it unfold. The sports economy in Vegas in the long haul is going to be robust.”

The prestige of hosting a Super Bowl might be every bit as valuable as the economic benefits, but the latter is also momentous. The Super Bowl Host Committee initially estimated a $500 million economic impact for Super Bowl 58, but has since upped the projection to $600 million.

Roughly 70,000 fans will attend the actual game, but past host sites (including Los Angeles in 2022) report more than double that amount of people visiting the area around the event. The game is always merely the headliner after a week full of media events, meetings, concerts and more.

Las Vegas is unique in that it already draws hundreds of thousands of visitors for the Super Bowl on an annual basis. Stack the ultimate capper in the form of the game and it’s going to be a sight to behold.

“I have it visualized on my vision board,” said Raiders fullback Jakob Johnson, who’s attending his second Super Bowl this week. “I think it’s going to fit great in the city. I was there last weekend for the Pro Bowl and I think even that event was way bigger, brighter than I expected it to be for a flag football game. There was a whole lot of energy in town, and I think (the Super Bowl) will be even bigger and wilder.”

The host committee is doing its job drumming up anticipation, but that’s not its sole focus for the week in Arizona. They’re monitoring everything from the Media Center downtown at the Phoenix Convention Center to the game day experience 20 miles northwest in Glendale, Ariz., at State Farm Stadium

Jofrray listed transportation and security as two of the top areas where the Las Vegas contingent is trying to learn from its Phoenix counterparts. The team is also keeping a close eye on volunteer and community efforts as it firms up plans for its own efforts.

Joffray said to expect announcements on those fronts imminently post-Super Bowl 57, and after Las Vegas gets the ceremonial handoff from the Phoenix staff in a news conference Monday.

“It was always our job in New Orleans to make sure we maintained that popular public sentiment as a favorite Super Bowl host city,” Joffray said. “It will always be one of the favorites, but I think our job should be very easy to put Las Vegas on that list as well.”

And as long as Las Vegas secures its place on that list, the Super Bowl should keep coming. But there’s nothing like the first, and many already can’t wait for it — even when there’s another Super Bowl to be played first.z

“We’re certainly hoping to raise the bar and not raise the bar to make it difficult on everybody else but just to raise the bar out of civic pride,” Joffray said. “We want to make sure we position ourselves as a favorite host and we’re in the conversation for hosting the Super Bowl just as often as cities like Miami and New Orleans who hosted 10 or more. I’m hoping by the time I die we’re pushing that double-digit number and saying Vegas is a regular host.”

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or