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Host markets target ways for event to leave lasting legacy

When the owners of the New York Giants and Jets landed Super Bowl XLVIII in the spring of 2010 — nearly four years before the game was played in February 2014 — they wanted to leave a mark beyond having the Vince Lombardi Trophy hoisted at MetLife Stadium.

Because of the sheer size of the region, and the fact that the New York teams share a stadium across the state line in New Jersey, each aspect of the first Northeastern Super Bowl needed to reflect the uniqueness of the event. Including philanthropy.

Beginning in the early 1990s, the NFL made legacy programs a formal part of hosting the championship game. The goal is to create programs and to tackle projects that will continue to assist and benefit the host community for years beyond the game.

To jump-start those efforts, the league typically donates $1 million to the local organizing committee on the condition that the Super Bowl city generates at least as much for charitable campaigns. The NFL designates its portion for youth-related programs and, usually, so does the host committee.

Jets owner Woody Johnson said Super Bowl XLVIII took a broad approach on philanthropy.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
Jets owner Woody Johnson said that he and others involved in the New York/New Jersey committee knew they needed to adopt a broader approach.

“Because of the special nature of the Super Bowl, we wanted to really blow it out of the park,” he said. “We had two states, five boroughs — we even had some [philanthropic projects] in Connecticut. We wanted to hit as many communities as we could.”

Al Kelly, the retired American Express executive tapped as CEO of the New York/New Jersey host committee, started organizing the legacy campaign soon after he began working on the game itself in April 2011. Over six to eight months, Kelly, Johnson, and the Mara and Tisch families, who co-own the Giants, helped come up with a strategy for strengthening community programs by using the allure of the Super Bowl. Once the strategy was in place, it took about two years of fundraising to realize their vision.

And the target kept moving. Kelly first envisioned surpassing the host committee milestone of $3 million raised. He hoped to reach $5 million and take on 15 projects spread across the area. Early success led Kelly to push for $10 million. Instead, the total haul reached $13 million, encompassing 80 projects. Their emphasis: after-school care and activities as well as weekend and summer programs to help children.

“We didn’t want to build anything from scratch,” Kelly said. “We wanted to help these facilities. What we found is these places generally have funding for their programs, but their facilities in many cases are really run down. So we did a lot of projects where we did anything from put fresh coats of paint on places to redoing gymnasiums and redoing pools and redoing rooms in these facilities.”

Emphasizing a combination of refurbishments and continuing programs mirrors what the NFL itself has done.
At Super Bowl XXVII, played in Pasadena, the NFL donated $1 million to build an after-school education center in south central Los Angeles. It has helped build similar centers in other Super Bowl cities. They are called Youth Education Towns, or YETs, in league parlance. North Texas, Tampa, Miami and New Orleans are among the other cities where the league has opened YETs.

The Bay Area host committee for Super Bowl 50, by mid-January, had raised $12 million and hoped to sustain a final push that would eclipse the New York/New Jersey philanthropy drive.

As in New York, organizers for the game this year created a spinoff nonprofit to distribute money raised, known simply as the 50 Fund. (New York/New Jersey had the Snowflake Youth Foundation.)

As in past years, the NFL gave $1 million. Already, the 50 Fund has distributed $5.3 million to 108 Bay Area nonprofits, said Jason Trimiew, host committee community relations vice president.

Among the programs: Play 60, Play On, a collaboration between the 50 Fund, the NFL Foundation, UNICEF, Playworks and KaBoom! Play 60, Play On includes football clinics and drills, conversion of spaces into more play-friendly areas, and worker training to encourage and improve children’s play time.

Through grants, the program will reach tens of thousands of Bay Area kids and young adults, said Alexia Gallagher, the NFL’s philanthropy director. “This is very different from what we did years ago in funding a [youth center]. That physical building, maybe that impacted 100 or 150 kids. With this, working with the host committee and the 50 Fund and other nonprofits in the Bay Area, we’re able to reach tens of thousands of kids.”

The bid for Super Bowl 50 included a pledge to commit 25 percent of all sponsorship money toward the legacy campaign. Early backers included Apple, Google, Intel, Yahoo and The Gap.

Gallagher said the league leaves the strategy and emphasis of legacy programs to the host committees. Since local executives and civic leaders make up those committees, they know the needs better than the NFL and can better determine what will have the most benefit.

In Arizona last year, organizers worked with a local community foundation to distribute $2 million raised for education and youth wellness instead of forming a separate nonprofit. Grants were awarded to various causes that, according to the host committee, helped 400,000 children.

In New York and the Bay Area, the new nonprofits created avoided administrative costs by relying on the host committees to provide staffing help.

The NFL’s legacy program at the Super Bowl has been adopted by the College Football Playoff, the organizing group for the national championship game started in 2014.

Michael Kelly, who ran host committees for Super Bowls in Tampa, Miami and Jacksonville, is the chief operating officer at the College Football Playoff organization. He said the national championship game has made education and teachers the primary beneficiaries of its community campaigns. All CFP licensing revenue goes to those efforts, including school supplies and teacher training.

As the Bay Area attempts to set a new standard for philanthropy, Johnson, the Jets owner, offered encouragement — to a point.

“Absolutely,” he said when asked whether he hopes they eclipse New York/New Jersey. “Because if we get another Super Bowl, we plan to break a record again. … We like this competition for helping people.”

Erik Spanberg writes for the Charlotte Business Journal, an affiliated publication.


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