Las Vegas adds NFL jewel with Super Bowl to cap 2023 season
IRVING, Texas — Las Vegas is adding the NFL’s crown jewel with the Super Bowl coming to cap the 2023 season.
The league’s biggest event will follow the Pro Bowl this season and the NFL draft next year, all within five years of the Raiders’ move to the gambling mecca in the Nevada desert.
The 2024 Super Bowl was supposed to be in New Orleans, but a later date brought on by the new 17-game regular season created a conflict with that city’s annual Mardi Gras celebration.
While Las Vegas has always been a destination for fans over Super Bowl weekend, officials believe the economic impact will be an additional $500 million with the game in the city.
“It’s a big day for the Raiders,” club owner Mark Davis said. “It’s a big day for the city of Las Vegas. I think it’s a marriage made in heaven, I’ll say. Some others may use a different word.”
The Super Bowl will be at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles for the first time this season. State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, will host its third Super Bowl after the 2022 season.
The NFL also announced marketing agreements for 18 teams with countries around the world, including Germany, China, Spain, Australia and Brazil. They join countries with longer ties to the NFL: the United Kingdom, Mexico and Canada.
The Los Angeles Rams were the only team granted access to China, and league officials said they were monitoring developments with contentious issues between the Communist country and other pro sports organizations. The U.S. is planning a diplomatic boycott of February’s Winter Olympics in Beijing. The Rams also have access to Mexico and Australia.
Carolina, Kansas City, New England and Tampa Bay were granted marketing agreements in Germany, where the league hopes to play a regular-season game for the first time. An announcement could come at the Super Bowl.
The marketing deals are for at least five years and give clubs the ability to pursue in-person and digital marketing, merchandise sales and corporate sponsorships among other things.
Mexico has the most agreements with nine. That list is headlined by the Dallas Cowboys, who have played preseason games in Mexico City and are wildly popular in the country. The others are Arizona, Denver, Houston, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and the Rams.
Miami has access to Brazil and is one of two teams, along with Chicago, that can pursue agreements with Spain. Minnesota and Seattle are linked to Canada. The teams on the UK list are Jacksonville, Chicago, Miami, Minnesota, the New York Jets and San Francisco.
The league is expanding the Rooney Rule requirement of at least two interviews with external minority candidates to general manager-level jobs along with the coordinators for offense, defense and special teams.
The two-candidate rule already applies to openings for head coaches. The window for virtual interviews will now open after Week 16 for clubs that have either fired their coach or informed him that he won’t return.
While the longer access for interviews isn’t limited to minority coaches, the NFL hopes it will allow more minority candidates to interview rather than wait for their current team’s playoff run to end.
