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Carissa Lou and Marc Shimamoto pose for a selfie in front of a Super Bowl 50 sign at Super Bowl City in San Francisco. Charlie Riedel / Associated Press
San Francisco netted nearly $2 million from co-hosting the Super Bowl, with money coming largely from hotel taxes generated by visiting fans.
But the cost analysis released Monday by the controller’s office did little to settle debate over the impact February’s game had on the city.
About 1 million people attended Super Bowl-related events in San Francisco, including a week-long fan festival along the city’s waterfront. The game itself was held in Santa Clara, California, some 50 miles to the south.
Mayor Ed Lee praised the numbers, saying that the game was a major boost for the city. “Hosting Super Bowl 50 exceeded our expectations,” Lee said in a statement.
But several supervisors disagreed, saying that the city barely broke even for a corporate party that clogged city streets and hurt small businesses.
They were livid when they learned in January that police and emergency departments had agreed not to seek reimbursement for costs. Santa Clara officials, on the other hand, negotiated reimbursement for city costs.
“To say we broke even is being generous, and that doesn’t start to address the abysmal process or the impact to neighborhoods and small businesses,” said Supervisor Aaron Peskin.
The report estimated that Super Bowl events cost police about $4 million. Also, the report estimated that the city’s public transit system lost about $2.5 million, because staff ran extra buses and did not write parking tickets.
The hotel tax generated more than $6 million.
Source: skift.com