The Best Eleven Cities to Host Super Bowls

Los Angeles instantly shoots to the top of the list.

I am currently at the airport preparing to leave Los Angeles after Super Bowl week. It is a massive endeavor for any city to host a Super Bowl, which, for all its bombast, is essentially the largest, most all-encompassing annual event this country holds. A mammoth, state-of-the-art stadium like Sofi Stadium — which NFL commissioner Roger Goodell called “the best stadium in the world” as he handed the Vince Lombardi to (loathsome) Rams owner Stan Kroenke on Sunday night — is a must, but the bigger issue is one of logistics. Hundreds of thousands of people come into town for a Super Bowl, and you have to figure out how to get them in, around and out of your area. You have to host conventions and parties and tailgates and media centers and if you do a poor job of it, the NFL gets angry with you and everyone goes back to their home cities complaining about you. It’s a big job.

This was the first time Los Angeles had hosted in Super Bowl in nearly 30 years, and by all accounts, they did a bang up job. As someone who has attended, wow, 10 Super Bowls now, I’ve gotten a pretty good sense of what works and what doesn’t at these events. As Goodell noted this week, Los Angeles is now expected to be in “the regular rotation” for the Super Bowl, and for good reason. But…