Super Bowl festivities are officially under way in New Orleans.
National Football League officials joined city and state leaders to officially open Super Bowl festivities Monday at the Morial Convention Center. The NFL's leaders say they are excited to bring its championship game back to the Crescent City.
"We are ready to roll, and we could not be more excited," NFL Vice President Peter O'Reilly said during Monday's host committee welcome event. "We are so grateful, and we want to do right by this city and this state in this record-tying 11th Super Bowl."
O'Reilly said "doing right" by the city includes the various community service projects in which NFL players will partake, leaving the city better off than it was when they arrived. According to O'Reilly, the NFL wants to leave a legacy beyond the Super Bowl game itself.
"What goes and lives on well beyond the final whistle on Sunday, and the partners behind us have come together with the NFL to make sure the impact goes well beyond," O'Reilly said.
Sunday's game and the week long celebration surrounding it are the culmination of a plan that's been six years in the making. Fifteen committees and more than 4,000 thousand volunteers will help ensure that the city's Super Bowl plan is executed without any hitches.
"When we compete together, we win together, and as a city, we are all champions," New Orleans and Company CEO Walt Leger said.
"Six years of lead up to this point (and) a lot of work in the last two years, of course, now it's time to go and get it done," Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation CEO Jay Cicero said. "It's our theme. It's what we do, so now let's just do it."
Leger says Super Bowl planning will continue even after Sunday night's game is played.
"Right after that, we can get ready for the next one."
