49ers Levi's Stadium vies for 2017 college football championship
- Lauren Hepler
- Economic Development Reporter- Silicon Valley Business Journal
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Levi's Stadium, the new Santa
Clara home of the San Francisco 49ers, is gunning to host the 2017
college football national championship after having bagged the
2016 Super Bowl for 2016.
The team recently submitted a
Bay Area regional bid to
game organizer the College Football Playoff, according to a press release
from that organization. Minneapolis, San Antonio, Jacksonville, Tampa Bay and
South Florida (which the Bay Area beat for the Super Bowl earlier this year) are
also vying for the event.
The host of the college
championship won't be announced until later this year. Landing the game would be
a coup for Silicon Valley tourism officials hoping
to establish the region as a major events destination for weekend crowds to
bolster hotel and tourism revenue.
Tech and other business
conferences already bolster hotel occupancy and nightly rates during the
workweek, but weekend business remains
more challenging to book.
Some economists question
cities relying on professional sports venues — especially when sports
leagues tend
to ask potential host cities for free hotel rooms and impose other limits that
curtail local revenue. That hasn't prevented cities like New Orleans from
deploying this type of "mega-event hospitality" strategy.
“Some cities are trying to use
sports tourism as a way to brand themselves, and also a way to manage occupancy
and revenue coming into their cities,” Robert Boland, academic
chair of New York University’s Tisch Center for Hospitality,
Tourism and Sports Management, told
me. “Every city that takes on a mega-events strategy — and some have had
great success — need stadium and events infrastructure.”
Lauren Hepler covers economic development, sports, and hospitality for the Silicon Valley Business Journal. She can be reached at 408.299.1820
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