New Orleans Saints officials are hopeful that they'll be able to work out a new Superdome lease agreement with the state of Louisiana quickly enough to get back into the running to bid on the 2031 Super Bowl. However, even if New Orleans gets back on the shortlist, one official says the city will still have an uphill climb to win the right to host the Big Game.
"There are several new stadiums with roofs that are scheduled to be open by 2030," Jay Cicero of the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation said. "Chicago; Washington, D. C.; Denver; Cleveland even is working on a new stadium with a roof on it to open by 2030, and they all want a Super Bowl as a reward for their community."
Although New Orleans has hosted the Super Bowl a record 11 times, Cicero says the city's experience of hosting the Big Game doesn't guarantee that the NFL owners will award the city the 2031 championship game. Cicero notes that history shows the NFL will award the Super Bowl to a brand new stadium before returning to a tried-and-true host city.
"We have bid against new stadium cities before and lost," Cicero said.
Cicero cited Super Bowl 52 as an example.
"The 2018 Super Bowl bid, which was back in 2014, I believe, we lost to Minnesota, and 2018 was the 300th anniversary of New Orleans," Cicero said. "We felt like we had a really strong bid going into it. All of our history was playing into it, but in the end, the new stadium trumped. We learned a hard lesson that when you're bidding against new stadiums for Super Bowls that the other owners are going to lean towards new stadiums."
Saints officials say that if the city doesn't win the bid to host the 2031 Super Bowl, the earliest the city will welcome back the Big Game would be around 2038.
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