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Wille Brown Holds Key to Oakland Super Bowl - OpEd for Oakland Tribune by Zennie Abraham (Published April, 2000)
The NFL Championship Game known as the Super Bowl is the world's biggest
single-day sports event. This virtual holiday is so large, there are more
parties on Super Bowl Sunday than on New Year's Eve. The Super Bowl is
viewed by over 800 million people and is the perfect marketing vehicle for a
city -- but look, you know that.
I'm here to tell you that Oakland is the best city to host the Super
Bowl. Recently, Oakland was invited to compete for the 2005 Super Bowl. If
San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown publicly supports Oakland's Super Bowl bid,
Oakland will be the choice.
When Oakland wins the right to host the 2005 Super Bowl, it's San
Francisco's gain, too. The City by the Bay has over 30,600 hotel rooms;
Oakland has over 3,400 hotel rooms. Since the NFL says that Oakland must
identify 24,500 hotel rooms within an hour's drive of the Network Associates
Coliseum, San Francisco's 25-minute distance from the stadium is an
advantage in the Super Bowl bidding wars. It's a perfect match: Oakland has
only one of two stadiums on the west coast capable of hosting the Super Bowl
and many venues for parties, while the San Francisco Bay Area has over
50,000 top quality hotel rooms within one hour's drive of the stadium.
According to estimates made by the Oakland-Alameda County Sports
Commission based on NFL data, the Bay Area will gain over $200 million in
spending revenue from the Super Bowl -- over $40 million of that will go to
San Francisco's hotel industry. Numbers like that must be music to Mayor
Brown's ears, but thus far he has not publicly supported Oakland's bid.
Someone may have told him that the
alleged poor relationship between the Oakland Raiders and the NFL would
block Oakland from landing the Super Bowl. The real truth is that if San
Francisco's mayor openly backs Oakland's Super Bowl bid, the NFL must look
at the effort as a regional one with Oakland at the helm.
Mayor Brown's public support of Oakland's bid will give the San Francisco
49ers the freedom to join the effort, too. Essentially, the Oakland Raiders
will be the Super Bowl host team, with an assist from the San Francisco
49ers. Whenever the 49ers' new stadium is finished the roles will be
reversed.
The Oakland-Alameda County Sports Commission will be the Super Bowl host
committee, with the Oakland Convention and Visitor's Bureau working with
the San Francisco Convention and Visitor's Bureau and all the other ``CVBs''
to book hotel rooms. It will be one big happy family.
If Mayor Brown joins the Oakland team, he will unite the Bay Area. His
concern may be with the 49ers' new stadium, but if that is finished in a
timely fashion, the Bay Area will have the opportunity to host the Super
Bowl twice within the next 15 years.
But if the San Francisco mayor fails to support the Oakland bid, the Bay
Area will remain a region divided with nothing to gain.
Zenophon Abraham is the president of the Oakland-Alameda County Sports Commission.
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