Super Bowl LX Promises Big Bucks for the Bay Area. Cities Are Trying to Cash In

As the Bay Area gears up to host Super Bowl LX, cities across the region are looking for ways to cash in on one of the biggest annual sporting events in the world, this time happening in their backyard at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.

The Bay Area Host Committee projects that football fans could generate up to $630 million across the region, including nearly $16 million in revenues directly to local governments. But those dollars won’t be distributed equally, leaving some cities feeling shortchanged.

“We want a bigger slice of the pie, obviously,” said Christine Lawson, CEO of Discover Santa Clara, the city’s marketing organization. “There’s a monetary and economic impact factor, which every city is eager to get their part of.”

Even though Santa Clara will host the big game between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots on Feb. 8, the city is projected to rake in just a fraction of what San Francisco will claim. And after losing several major sports teams in recent years, Oakland and the East Bay are projected to get even less.

The 2016 Super Bowl – the first held at Levi’s – brought an estimated $240 million to the entire Bay Area, according to one analysis, which factored in everything from hotel and restaurant bookings to transit ridership. More than 57% of that revenue went to San Francisco; 12.3% went to San Jose; 7.2% went to Santa Clara; 7.1% went to areas near San Francisco International Airport; and 3.7% went to Oakland.

This year, the Bay Area Host Committee, a nonprofit established by the 49ers, estimates that San Francisco could receive up to $440 million, while Santa Clara County could bring in around $160 million and other counties such as Alameda and Contra Costa could collectively see about a $30 million boost.

City leaders across the Bay Area are working furiously to draw tourists, and their dollars, to their downtowns with live events, food tours and celebrity appearances. San José is slated to host a weekend of concerts, including by Bay Area-born hip-hop star Kehlani, along with a lineup of free activities in San Pedro Square.

“We made it a point to have as many experiences that are free or low cost so that people can experience the Super Bowl even without a ticket to the big game,” said Frances Wong, director of marketing for Visit San José, which promotes tourism to the Silicon Valley hub.

Wong hopes the widely accessible public events will draw people to the South Bay, as events the NFL plans to host in San Francisco will cost money this year, a shift from many of the offerings around the Embarcadero and Union Square during the 2016 Super Bowl.

“Even if you’re just walking down the street and you see a bar cheering over a football game, you’re invited to grab a drink and watch with everybody else and create great memories that way,” Wong said.

Compared with other Bay Area cities, San Francisco’s great advantage for the Super Bowl is its vast hotel market and ability to host tourists traveling in from Seattle, Boston and all over the globe.

And while city leaders may publicly bemoan the 49ers’ failure to make the Super Bowl this year, those looking at game revenue say teams traveling across state lines actually bring in more money than visitors from across the state’s bridges and highways.

“Let’s say a Southern California team gets in, that might be a two-night stay [for a fan], but if an East Coast team comes in, that’s a four- or five-night stay,” said Anna Marie Presutti, CEO of the San Francisco Travel Association. “The beauty of it is that they’ll come into the neighborhoods and become tourists before the big game.”

Jeff Bellisario, executive director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, a think tank focused on the nine-county region, said “the real economic impacts” from Super Bowl 50 in 2016 were from “people that are outside of the region and outside of this state coming here to spend new dollars.”

The last time the Bay Area hosted the Super Bowl, San Francisco’s hotel occupancy rates reached nearly 90%, according to Presutti. But the city’s tourism industry took a hard hit during the pandemic. Now, she’s hoping the game will not only give the industry a much-needed boost, but that sparkly images of the city on TVs around the world will inspire skeptical travelers to visit the Bay Area in the future.

Restaurants and other venues are already seeing bookings go up in the days leading up to the game.

“Business looks like it is going to be booming,” said Amy Cleary, director of public policy for the Golden Gate Restaurant Association.

Cleary expects smaller businesses will see some uptick in traffic around the game also. Unlike with some other major events, such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference, when high-security levels prompted the closure of several streets downtown and blocked foot traffic to some local establishments, she’s projecting smaller coffee shops and other local staples will reap the benefits of more people around town.

“This is simpler than APEC. Then, you had certain areas in the city which you could not access. And if you obviously operated your business in those zones, that was really problematic,” Cleary said. Obviously there is security for Super Bowl-related things, but it is not at that level.”

Not all will be winners, however. Some street vendors in Santa Clara have already been told they must clear their regular trading posts to make way for Super Bowl activities, sending them to less busy parts of the city.

Security will also pose a significant cost to any city in the Bay Area that’s hoping to court tourists, whether they’re traveling from far away or across town.

“Economists would pretty much agree on the one real down side for the city of Santa Clara: They confront the risk,” said Michael Kevane, professor of economics at Santa Clara University. “The city has to spend a lot of money on prevention, on disaster preparedness, overtime for police and fire to be prepared for that eventuality.”

In August 2025, Santa Clara officials estimated that it would cost the city more than $6 million to host this year’s Super Bowl, primarily for event security and policing. The Bay Area Host Committee is reimbursing Santa Clara about $6.2 million to cover event expenses, according to their agreement.

This year’s Super Bowl comes during a particularly fraught time in big cities across the country, as demonstrations have escalated in recent weeks after federal immigration enforcement officials killed multiple protestors in Minneapolis. Ahead of the football game, Bay Area cities are preparing for the possibility of immigration officers and protests.

Even with the reimbursements, some Santa Clara leaders have criticized the high cost of hosting the event, especially since the city takes in such a small portion of the regional revenue.

The Santa Clara City Council passed an agreement with the Bay Area Host Committee and the stadium’s operations company, StadCo, last fall. But Santa Clara Mayor Lisa Gillmor and Vice Mayor Kelly Cox voted against the deal.

“I don’t know why we aren’t asking for a letter of credit for this. This is a massive risk,” Cox said at a meeting in September 2025 when the agreement was approved. Gillmor echoed her concerns, saying, “The onerous system you have to go through to get reimbursed is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

But even this year’s mind-boggling revenue estimates (which are not always agreed upon) for cities who will claim a significant portion, like San Francisco, won’t close looming budget deficits (around $1 billion in the city’s case).

“You’re not talking about dollars that’ll be big enough to fill budget gaps,” said Bellisario of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. “But the spending that does occur will have sales tax implications. Some people might be hired for a short amount of time. Maybe some people will be hired even for a longer amount of time. All of these things add to the economic vitality of the place.”

The Super Bowl is only the tip off for world-class sporting events taking place in the region. The Bay Area Host Committee estimates that the region will generate roughly $1.4 billion across all counties between the Super Bowl, last year’s NBA All Star Game and FIFA World Cup in 2026.

“We’re the first city in history to host both the Super Bowl and FIFA in the same year,” said Lawson of Discover Santa Clara. “We’re vying for everybody’s time and attention.”