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ILLUSTRATION BY DEMETRI BURKE | THE SIGNAL
Super Bowl effect on Atlanta not as big as advertised Revenue leaves Atlanta along with the Super Bowl CHRISTIAN CRITTENDEN Staff Reporter
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his year’s Super Bowl brought less fans than normal to the new Mercedes Benz Stadium, potentially because both cities represented in the game are more than 1,000 miles from Atlanta. Georgia State economics professor Bruce Seaman has estimated the impact that the Super Bowl had on the city. Before the Super Bowl, Seaman estimated that the game would have a $33 million impact on the hotel industry. “While the economic benefits trickle through the economy via many different sectors, and for longer than just 7-10 days,” Seaman said. “There is no doubt that hotel occupancy rates increased notably as did business throughout the hospitality sector (restaurants, local transport, B&B’s), which is always the ‘front line’ sector being affected.” Despite the influx of people into the region, Seaman and other economists are skeptical that the actual impact of the Super Bowl may be overstated, especially when it comes to hotels in the entire region. When Atlanta was named the host city for Super Bowl LIII a few years back, the Atlanta Metro Chamber projected a $400 million impact. “Huge hotel price increases do [not] help the local economy; they are sent as high profits to the non-local corporations who own the hotel’s chains,” Seaman said. No team has ever played at its home stadium for the Super Bowl, and there was a reasonable chance going into the season that the Atlanta Falcons would be the first. After a disappointing season, they failed to reach it, and the Los Angeles Rams, who moved from St. Louis two years ago, represented Atlanta’s conference. The New England Patriots were the other participant, and they have an established fan base that travels far to watch their team play. The Rams are growing a new fan base, and they were far outnumbered in Atlanta during Super Bowl week and at the game by Patriots fans. The number of fans who come from out of town to attend the Super Bowl may have been smaller than usual. This made way for a lot of local fans to attend the game. “Many people in the big crowds downtown visiting the
NFL Experience, concerts, or just walking around [are locals] – at least from the metro area if not from the city of Atlanta,” Seaman said. “Also, people are often counted multiple times when they visit more than one event and on more than one day. This changes where local money is spent and which parts of the local economy grow, but it does not that local economy larger overall. It shifts activity, rather than increasing activity. “ Seaman estimated that around 150,000 people who were around the large crowds were from the metro Atlanta area. Even with the large local population, the game was still able to leave a large mark on the local economy, “However, my estimated shorter-term spending economic impact done for the Super Bowl Host Committee [after making] all needed adjustments was between $187.46 million and $197.59 million to the Atlanta metro area and between $189.47 million and $204.73 million if measured at the state of Georgia level,” Seaman said. His projections sit in the middle of many of the polar opposite estimations. “Note that this is not trivial, but is only about 0.05% of the region’s annual gross domestic product (so far less than 1% of annual economic activity),” Seaman said. “It is definitely not as high as some other claims, like [$400$600 million], which I believe are [not] justified. But some economists who are especially skeptical claim it is closer to $50 million or less. I consider both those higher and lower opinions to be misguided.” One area of with massive economic impacts is transportation, both public like MARTA and private such as ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft. MARTA has faced scrutiny for its performance during large events, so the Super Bowl was their time to prove cynics wrong. “The first few days it was about average, basically the daily commuters,” MARTA Security Supervisor Antonio Wortherly said. “But on Friday and Saturday night leading up to the Super Bowl I would say we had maybe at the very least 40 to 50 thousand people riding MARTA. And it was probably more than that.” Wortherly worked directly with the revenue officers during the busiest days, and he said that there was more of an emphasis placed to make sure that people purchased round trip passes to make for more efficent trips and rides. Additionally there was an influx of law enforcement officers added to help with safety concerns. Worthley
himself and his partners helped the revenue agents to guide some of the first time riders around and be on “crime control,” as he called it. “To be honest, I would say that all of the measures that we put into place were successful,” Wortherly said. “The City of Atlanta has received a lot of praise for the way things were handled from the security side of it. A lot of the patrons and people who came from out of state were really pleased with the security. There weren’t any real incidents and issues with the security.” Atlanta had pressure to ensure that transportation ran smoothly – especially because not all hotels are walking distance from the stadium and downtown area. This could be a selling point to host future Super Bowls and large events.
SUPER BOWL BY THE NUMBERS
• This was the first Super Bowl Atlanta has hosted since 2000. • Dr. Seaman projects between $187200 million impact on the city of Atlanta. • MARTA estimates at least 50,000 people used its services during its busiest days. • Over 70,000 fans were in attendance for Super Bowl LIII.