South Florida Super Bowl Committee Divided Over Boat Show Date Conflict

The Miami Int'l Boat Show is a “hassle” for South Florida Super Bowl organizers trying to host the ’16 game and the scheduling conflict “now seems to be something of a dividing line among local leaders charged with pursuing the country’s largest sporting event,” according to Douglas Hanks of the MIAMI HERALD. A recent planning meeting at Sun Life Stadium for the ‘16 Super Bowl bid “reportedly got heated" when Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau President William Talbert "repeated his position that Miami can’t play host to the Super Bowl and the boat show on the same weekend.” Though the boat show has “complicated South Florida’s past Super Bowl bids, the pursuit of the anniversary game in 2016 has brought more challenges and intrigue than ever.” The NFL in ’10 “began asking cities to reserve President’s Day Weekend as one of three potential slots for the Super Bowl in case it ever extended the championship schedule into the middle of February.” But South Florida’s “two main tourism bureaus previously have declined to pursue hosting the game if the NFL opted to hold it on the same weekend as the boat show.” Greater Ft. Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau President Nicki Grossman said that Broward County is “ready to step in and be the Super Bowl hub if Miami-Dade can’t because of the boat show.” That is in part “what happened during the Super Bowl’s last trip to South Florida, in 2010, when most of the NFL’s official events and facilities were housed in and around Fort Lauderdale.” But such a scenario “could complicate matters for the Miami Dolphins as the team considers a pitch to use Miami-Dade hotel taxes to fund improvements to the team’s stadium in Miami Gardens.”

SAVE THE DATE: South Florida Super Bowl Host Committee Chair Rodney Barreto said that he is “in talks with boat show organizers about moving to another weekend for 2016.” But if those negotiations "fail, Barreto is also floating aggressive moves to let Miami accommodate the Super Bowl while the boat show takes place on Miami Beach.” Amid the “tension, the Dolphins and Barreto have established a vetting process for the 2016 Super Bowl that in some ways pits Miami against Fort Lauderdale.” Dolphins CEO Mike Dee said that while past Super Bowls have “purposely straddled the county line to justify receiving upward of $6 million from Broward and Miami-Dade governments, the NFL wants a smaller footprint for 2016.” Hanks noted that “helps explain why, for the first time, Broward and Miami-Dade’s tourism bureaus made separate proposals to the Super Bowl host committee this year, rather than collaborating on a single plan” (MIAMI HERALD, 12/15).