NFL Severs Relationship With Super Bowl Security Firm

NFL Ends Super Bowl Security Relationship With CSC After 29 Years

The NFL has cut ties with Contemporary Services Corporation (CSC), the security firm it has used for the last 29 Super Bowls, and has hired three “smaller, less experienced companies to handle security for Super Bowl XL,” according to Paul Domowitch of the PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS. Detroit-based S.A.F.E Management and Guardian Corp., as well as North Carolina-based Alpha Protection Group, will handle security. NFL sources said that the league felt CSC “had become too pricey” and “challenged nearly $500,000 of its billing from CSC for last year’s Super Bowl.” CSC President & CEO Damon Zumwalt: “They just wanted to save money and go in a different direction. ... They feel they can hire local companies and try to cut back on some of the costs.” But NFL VP/Security Milt Ahlerich said, “Frankly, we would have been very pleased to go with CSC, but we just couldn’t get together on it with them. We negotiated all summer and never could get a contract with them. ... They were certainly competitive moneywise. That wasn’t the issue.” Ahlerich added that the “biggest reason for the switch had to do with ‘operational philosophy as to how we wanted this thing run’” (PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS, 1/27). NFL Dir of Corporate Communications Brian McCarthy told THE DAILY, “Security remains a priority and we will have even more people on the ground than ever with federal, state and local resources” (THE DAILY).

MORE SECURITY: In Pittsburgh, Joyce Gannon reports robots built by Kuchera Defense Systems will be available to patrol the area around Ford Field, the idea of which came from FirstLink Dir James Rooney, who is the son of Steelers Chair Dan Rooney. The half-dozen four-inch-high robots “will be deployed if police or military agents notice suspicious vehicles around the stadium and want to take a closer look” (PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, 1/27)....NFL Associate Counsel Anastasia Danias said that tickets to this year’s game feature a black-on-black hologram that “shows red or green colors depending on the angle of view,” as well as the Super Bowl logo, the word Detroit and the game date (AP, 1/27).