Ric Campo builds houses, a business that he describes as creating homes and memories for people. In his role shepherding the Super Bowl in Houston, he also is a memory maker, from the NASA Mars simulator that’s sure to be the star of the main downtown celebration, dubbed Super Bowl Live, to the game itself. Campo, 62, oversees a $63 million budget that will put on a week’s worth of events leading up to the Feb. 5 game, which he described as all but ancillary to his task of promoting his beloved city.
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We want visitors to understand Houston in a way they haven’t in the past.”
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Photo by: CAMDEN PROPERTY TRUST
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What do you hope visitors’ takeaways will be from this Super Bowl? There are three things we want to communicate: One, Houston is the most diverse city in America and one size does not fit all. We have no racial tensions, or anything like that that other cities have had. It is because we all get along. No. 2, it’s fun and affordable and accessible. And the third big piece is if you dream big you can make it happen in Houston. It is very entrepreneurial.
What do you think people think of when they think Houston? A dirty, flat oil town who is having economic problems because oil prices are down.
Your local sponsors are not activating in the traditional sense. Why? We have 16 founding sponsors, two destination sponsors and a number of others. What our sponsors have decided to do, which is pretty amazing, rather than activate as Shell, or Conoco or Halliburton or Camden. … They have created the sponsor area activation as one group with one message, and the message is Houston is diverse, Houston is fun and affordable, and if you can dream big you can do it. Which is very unusual because usually competitors want to be competitors.
Is there sponsor activation within the 750,000-square-foot Super Bowl Live? We will do activation with NFL sponsors … you won’t see a Shell booth or Chevron booth.
You didn’t know you would be bid chairman until you showed up for the press conference in 2013, right? I thought [Texans owner Bob McNair] wanted me to go and make a presentation to owners. I didn’t realize I was the chairman until I went to a press conference at NRG Stadium. … I just showed up at this press conference where I was going to be the spokesperson and then all of I sudden I see in the press release I am the chairman. [Honorary Chairman James Baker, former secretary of state,] takes me aside and said, “Son, you have to read the fine print.”
