GREENFIELD — This week, the Indianapolis Capital Improvement Board estimated the economic impact of this year’s Super Bowl on the host city would be $200 million.
What hasn’t been determined, and likely won’t be until all is said and done, is how much of that impact will be spread out among nearby towns, cities and Super Celebration Sites.
Just 25 miles from the epicenter of all Super Bowl activities, organizers of Greenfield’s preparations are expecting at the very least sold-out hotel rooms and full buses between Greenfield and downtown Indianapolis.
Whether Greenfield will get anything else out of its involvement in the festivities is hard to say, but if history repeats itself, the city could be in a good spot to grab a sizable piece of the pie.
The Daily Reporter surveyed secondary cities similar in Greenfield’s size, location and proximity to previous Super Bowl host cities like Indianapolis. Ease of access and planned events seemed to make a big difference.
Take, for example the 2005 Super Bowl, which was in Jacksonville, Fla., a city similar in size to Indianapolis.
“They encouraged activities in every area, because of the need for (Jacksonville) to have lots and lots of hotel rooms,” said Marilyn Matejcek, assistant to Jacksonville Beach’s city manager.
Jacksonville Beach is a small, oceanside community about 20 miles outside of Jacksonville. When Jacksonville was chosen as the host city, Matejcek said, the host committee encouraged nearby communities to plan events and attract visitors to help draw some of the overflow out of the host city itself – much like how the 2012 host committee has chosen Super Celebration Sites to accommodate the nearly 150,000 expected visitors.
“So they invited other counties that bordered (Jacksonville) to come up with events to pull people to their area, too,” she said.
Matejcek said Jacksonville Beach did not plan many events, because Sports Illustrated magazine was already playing host to a party on the beach.
Other than that, Matejcek said the best thing Jacksonville Beach did to capitalize on the captive audience was pass out maps so tourists were aware of what the area had to offer.
“Any place that had people stopping to ask questions had those maps,” she said. “So people weren’t just aware of the area in front of their hotels.”
Jacksonville Beach also offered bus service on game day, to and from EverBank Field.
What resulted from the events, planning and preparation was a boon for Jacksonville Beach businesses.
“The whole idea was to share the wealth, and it did,” Matejcek said. “It put us on the map.”
Other cities though, were not so lucky.
Both Birmingham, Mich., and Murphy, Texas, are also located within 25 miles of recent Super Bowl host cities. While officials from both cities said they were expecting an influx of visitors and the economic impact to go with it, they were let down.
Aimee Nemer, city secretary in Murphy, said the city’s mayor attended several Super Bowl planning meetings leading up to last year’s at Cowboys Stadium outside Dallas, but didn’t get a lot out of it.
“We really didn’t see any impact,” she said.
Nemer’s story was similar to that of Doreen Martin, deputy city clerk in Birmingham.
Birmingham scheduled bus service from local hotels into Detroit for visitors during the 2006 Super Bowl at Ford Field in Detroit, but instead of attracting tourism dollars from visitors staying in town, Martin said, visitors simply got on the buses and spent their money elsewhere.
“We did have shuttles, buses, banners and advertising,” Martin said. “We expected more of an impact, but we didn’t see it.”
What Birmingham didn’t have, though, was support from the host committee pushing tourists to outlying communities or events to pull them there.
Those two are two things local organizers are hoping will make a difference in the results to be seen in Greenfield, but Super Celebration committee member Jean Howell said local organizers are remaining realistic about the possibilities.
“The (Super Bowl) host committee has said to us from very beginning that it was important that we Super Celebration Site communities manage our expectations about this,” Howell said.
As a Super Celebration Site, communities were expected to pay for bus service and provide a website and a welcome center near hotels. Because Greenfield is so close, Howell said, she expects that hotels would have filled up either way.
So why bother with the events, or being a Super Celebration Site at all?
Howell said that whether or not tourists attend local celebrations – which are meant more to get Hancock County residents in the spirit – the designation of being a Super Celebration Site will bring Greenfield hard-to-come-by exposure.
“The potential for exposure, economic exposure, is present because we’re a Super Celebration Site,” she said. “We are on the bus route; we are in all the Super Bowl websites and publications. Greenfield now has exposure, which is hard to put a value on.”
Howell and other local organizers have worked hard to make the most of this opportunity. The city has planned several events, and many local restaurants and shops are doing their part by running specials, completing extra training and beefing up staff the days visitors are expected in town. Howell said the host committee’s desire to push visitors outside of downtown, with ploys like the NFL-themed Indycars at each site, should also help Greenfield avoid some of the pitfalls of Murphy, Birmingham and countless other host city suburbs.
“It’s been nice that Indianapolis allowed this opportunity for all of us,” Howell said.