So just how much money does Dallas Arlington North Texas hope to rake in from Super Bowl XL? Opinions differ. Yeah, I’m shocked, too.
A larger stadium, an improving economy and die-hard fan bases for the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers will lead to record spending for Super Bowl XLV, according to projections by accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The firm estimates that visitors to North Texas will shell out $202 million for everything from hotel rooms to stadium snacks to corporate parties. That does not include the Super Bowl tickets; that revenue goes to the league.
The estimate is higher than the $195 million attributed to the 2007 Super Bowl in the Miami area, which was the previous record.
PricewaterhouseCoopers attributed a slowdown in Super Bowl spending at the past three games to the recession.[…]
The PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates are much lower than projections made by a firm hired by the local Super Bowl XLV host committee. Research from Marketing Information Masters estimated $612 million in direct spending.
The company’s founder, Michael Casinelli, said in an e-mail that he was out of the office and could not discuss the study.
He said he also disagreed with an earlier story in The Dallas Morning News that said that one of his past studies appeared to overstate the economic benefit of the NBA All-Star Game.
[…]
Todd Jewell, acting chairman of the economics department at the University of North Texas in Denton, said he’s skeptical of even the lower number.
He said many academic economists estimate Super Bowl spending at $40 million or $50 million instead. Those numbers factor in regular spending that’s crowded out by Super Bowl spending or “displacement.”
“It just isn’t the boon people think it is,” he said.
Pick a number, any number – you have as much chance of being right as the experts do. And since no one checks the figures after the fact, who can say you’ll be wrong?
You need to keep these stadium predictions and do a “claim chowder” feature on them the way Daring Fireball does for Apple-related predictions.
As a Cheesehead, I can assure you, the amount of beer purchased by visiting Green Bay fans will equal ONE BILLION DOLLARS