


Partially, that means events across South Florida. And while he can’t get more people into the game itself, he says the Super Bowl has gotten better over the years at incorporating locals – both for events and on the business side.
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Everything that surrounds it from the TV to who’s singing at the halftime show, who’s singing in the pregame show, now they have concerts…The biggest event of the week is now the Commissioner’s Party.”įans, he says, tend to get locked out of the “core product” – by which he means the game. It’s product extension, everything else around the game. “People forget about the game and they worry about everything else around it. “You would be there on the day of the game and people would be walking into the game, and at both of the Super Bowls I worked, you would hear somebody asking, ‘Who’s playing today?’ Then there’s the development of the product. Former Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga with artist Peter Max’s custom-painted Super Bowl XXIX helmet. You can’t fit more fans into Hard Rock Stadium than you can for any other sellout, but that doesn’t mean you can’t add a whole lot more logistics issues for the people on the ground. (The game gets flyover protections.) And then there are the international media, representing nearly 200 countries. Homeland Security is now involved, as well as state agencies and the FAA. (The ’99 game was in Miami.) He says that over the years, the growth of the spectacle – and the legions needed to sustain it – has grown remarkably. In his previous career in sports management and security, Riordan worked two Super Bowls, in 19. “It’s so much more than a game, and I know that sounds cliché, but it truly is an event in itself.” “It stems from Super Bowl 1, when (then NFL commissioner) Pete Rozelle was selling tickets for $12 the night before the game, to what we have now,” he says. He offers perspective on what the Super Bowl has become in more than half a century. James Riordan is the director of that program. Some of those volunteers are students from Florida Atlantic University’s Sport Management program. Meanwhile, just before Thanksgiving they had an orientation for those 10,000 volunteers, most of whom won’t work the game itself, but rather one of the events around it. “As you can imagine, the jurisdictions I have to deal with … we’re dealing with city managers, mayors, elected officials, community activists on all fronts,” he says.

Then there are the meetings after meetings with first responders, civic leaders, etc.
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It’s for Super Bowl Live, a free event in downtown Miami’s Bayfront Park that’s open to the public. Photography: State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory.Ĭlearly, it’s evolved as a spectacle – a rolling party that sprawls across the host region and leads up to an entertainment-surrounded game watched around the world. “And I have watched it evolve.” Aerial view of Miami’s Orange Bowl during Super Bowl III. “It has evolved over the years,” he says. He’s been involved in some capacity with every Miami Super Bowl since Super Bowl XXIII in 1989. (Or maybe a navy, marina and all.) When Super Bowl LIV (that’s Super Bowl 54, in case your Roman numeral knowledge is rusty) comes to Hard Rock Stadium on February 2, it will be the culmination of a lot of work by many people.īarreto, an influential Miami business and consulting leader who is also past chairman of the Fish and Wildlife Foundation of Florida, has seen the changes. As chairman of the Miami Super Bowl Host Committee, he heads what looks like a small army.

There are the events in Miami‑Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties that need vendors, behind-the-scenes technicians and, in one case, a temporary marina in Biscayne Bay. There are the public officials – federal, state, county and many different cities – who need to be coordinated with. There are the volunteers – about 10,000 – who needed to be located and vetted. Rodney Barreto has a few things on his mind. When the Super Bowl comes to Miami for a record 11th time, it will be a truly regional event that spills over into communities across South Florida.
