Green Bay got the NFL draft, but it will never host a Super Bowl, and here's why

Green Bay got the NFL draft, but it will never host a Super Bowl, and here’s why

Posted by author February 7, 2025 NFL

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GREEN BAY – Green Bay will never host a Super Bowl.

The reason is simple: The event is too big and Green Bay is too small.

Fortunately, that’s not the case for the NFL’s second most important event, the NFL draft, which Green Bay will host on April 24-26. But the Super Bowl, that’s another matter.

For the 2018 Super Bowl in Minneapolis, the league had a 154-page demand/wish list of things it would like, most of them for free, and any one of which would be a deal breaker for Green Bay. To be clear, not all of them are requirements, but a few select categories give a hint of the enormity of the event. More may have been added since then, but you get the idea.

So, here are 10 reasons Green Bay will never host a Super Bowl:

NFL wants many hotel rooms, and we don’t have them

The headline says 10 reasons, but I can give you 30,000, as in hotel rooms, or 35,000, as in the NFL’s exclusive use of free parking spaces.

The NFL requires hotel rooms equal to 35% of stadium capacity — which in our case is 28,504.3 — within an hour’s drive of Lambeau Field. The NFL might forgive us the one-third of a room, but if you aren’t particular (and when is the NFL not particular?) we could probably come up with 8,000 rooms.

As to the parking: “Hi. I’m Roger Goodell. Can I park in your yard?”

Super Bowls are expensive, but not so much for the NFL

Full tax exemption from city, state and local taxes. In fact, the words “at no cost to the NFL” come up a lot, as do “will control and receive 100% of the revenues from” whatever will be sold. You’re getting the picture, right?

Lambeau’s seats can accommodate fans, but oh those benches

Imagine, if you will, a Super Bowl fan paying $4,000 to sit on an aluminum bench in the snow in, at best, 25-degree cold.

Yeah, the NFL can’t imagine it either.

Among its minimum requirements are seats at least 19 inches wide with seat backs and arm rests. And a dome if you’ve got one.

Check between couch cushions, because hosting is expensive

Communities reportedly pay between $50 million and $60 million to host the Super Bowl. Green Bay’s entire proposed city budget for 2025 is $139 million. Good luck getting those potholes filled, though that’s probably an NFL requirement, too. OK, this one could go both ways.

It would have to be ‘The NFL Super Bowl Presented by Dick Resch’

Minneapolis raised $53 million in private fundraising to help cover the costs to the city, but unless they name it the Super Bowl Presented by Dick Resch, Green Bay could not come up with that bankroll.

Pregame events could be held in the KI Convention Center in downtown Green Bay, named after Resch’s company, at the Resch Center and Resch Expo in the shadow of Lambeau Field, and maybe even at the Resch Miracle Field in Allouez.

Maybe we could get the Richard J. Resch School of Engineering at University of Wisconsin-Green Bay to design a way to stack 35,000 cars in 3,000 parking spaces.

We could do bowling, but golf balls would have to be orange

The league wants exclusive access to two first-class bowling centers and three golf courses. This is Wisconsin. We can do bowling. That the best-available golf courses in February might be 900 miles distant could be a sticking point.

If the Super Bowl was here this weekend …

This:

The weather here can be, shall we say, variable, although just plain bad is more likely.

Take this Super Bowl weekend, for example. The forecast is for 4-6 inches of snow on Saturday, with a high of 19 degrees and a low of zero on Sunday. Snow would have to be removed by game time from in and around Lambeau, and, again, metal benches and freezing temps.

Green Bay is small, but not skip-the-public-transportation small

The Host Community must be able to provide a minimum of the following types of rental and for-hire vehicles: 750 buses, 500 limousines. 1,000 taxis and 10,000 rental cars.

We are only short by about 720 buses, 480 limousines, 960 taxis and 9,700 rental cars. For reasons beyond understanding, pedicabs aren’t included.

Sorry NFL, this is all the free media you’re getting on this subject

This one makes me laugh. The NFL requires written proposals from local newspapers, television and radio stations, and outdoor advertising (billboard) companies to provide significant advertising and promotional time and/or space for the NFL Experience during the month leading up to the Super Bowl game at no cost to the NFL.

So, there you have it. There’ll be no Super Bowl game in Green Bay.

All in all, my guess is Green Bay fans would much rather attend a Super Bowl than host one. And the sooner the better.