'Hosting a Super Bowl in Detroit is hardly a major economic event,' Depken said. Still, spending is rationalized to the public with reports of an expected windfall of a couple hundred million dollars in business. Others in the Detroit car-making industry, Delphi and Visteon, are restructuring after filing for bankruptcy.īecause the NFL provides the city with no money to operate the event, the value of being given the rights to host the Super Bowl is arguable. Both General Motors and Ford reported losses of billions of dollars this year and recently announced plans to cut 30,000 jobs each. Ross Dettman/for Ī city deficit of at least $180 million has shut down schools and curtailed round-the-clock transit schedules.

Super Bowl party favors: a hot meal and plenty of hospitality. No matter how shiny and new some downtown buildings appear, this week could be viewed as the absolute worst time for Detroit to be in the fishbowl. 'It's not like all these CEOs coming off their private planes for the Super Bowl arrive in Detroit, walk down the steps of their Gulfstream V plane and say, 'Well, gosh dang, I've never seen Detroit before let's move our corporate headquarters here,'' said Craig Depken, an associate professor of economics at the University of Texas at Arlington, who has studied the Super Bowl's economic impact. 'I believe that the Super Bowl has been the catalyst for the development and a new focus toward long-term development here,' said Tammy Carnrike, executive vice president of the Detroit Regional Chamber.īut in some ways, that sentiment might be misguided. To many of those in public office here, this is the best time to have the nation's eyes focused on Detroit - a time to use the city's new and improved look to woo major corporations and further investments. While the Detroit Super Bowl Host Committee spent only $18.5 million to attract and stage the game, $3 billion has been invested, both privately and publicly, in projects in the downtown area over the past five years, according to officials with the Detroit Regional Chamber. Ross Dettman/for įor civic leaders in Detroit, where roughly one-third of the more than 900,000 residents live in poverty, the activities surrounding a four-hour football game are great justification for economic revitalization efforts in parts of downtown. A simple bowl of chili goes a long way at this Super Bowl party. League officials and local leaders here have often said that, with 100,000 out-of-towners spending their money in Detroit throughout the week, the Super Bowl will produce an estimated $302 million boost to the economy.īut economists are quick to point out that those sorts of numbers are generally grossly inflated, because the estimates don't factor in the finances of a normal week in the city, the vendors who come from out of town and, perhaps most often forgotten by the public, the cost to ready the city for the festivities. But it isn't clear that hosting a Super Bowl in this town - or in any other town, for that matter - is going to be worth the trouble, at least in big-picture financial terms. The National Football League gave the game to Detroit in part as a reward to taxpayers who fronted $125 million of the building costs for Ford Field, which opened in 2003. DETROIT - When Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick took the oath of office for a second term less than a month ago, he said Detroit's role as host of Super Bowl XL and the revenue the game is expected to generate would key elements in turning around the city's reputation for crime and poverty.

Weekend spent money on super bowl