The 50th anniversary of the most prestigious game in professional sports will take place in the San Francisco Bay Area. Following a vote by 32 NFL owners on Tuesday, Super Bowl L will be played at Levi's® Stadium, the future home of the San Francisco 49ers.
The San Francisco Super Bowl bid was selected over the South Florida bid to host the league's championship game in February of 2016.
"Today's vote is the culmination of a great deal of hard work by a number of dedicated individuals," 49ers CEO Jed York told 49ers.com moments after the big game was awarded to the Bay Area. "Our bid committee should be commended for putting together a proposal for NFL ownership that accurately depicted how memorable a Bay Area Super Bowl will be."
Levi's® Stadium, set to open in 2014, will be the most technologically advanced venue to ever host a Super Bowl. In addition to the standard amenities enjoyed at NFL stadiums, the building plans to offer cashless and ticketless services, as well as Wi-Fi capacity to satisfy the needs of everyone in attendance.
The Super Bowl's 50th anniversary game will return to the Bay Area for the first time since Super Bowl XIX, a 38-16 victory by the 49ers over the Miami Dolphins at Stanford Stadium in 1985.
The 49ers still stand as the only team in league history to have won a Super Bowl in the same year their region hosted the championship game. Tuesday's bid victory was another win for the Bay Area, which continues to be one of the most prosperous sports regions in the nation.
NFL owners, along with Commissioner Roger Goodell, filed into a boardroom in a Boston hotel to decide the fate of both Super Bowl L and Super Bowl LI by way of a secret ballot vote. Following a 15-minute presentation from the San Francisco and South Florida bid committees, and five-minute presentations from the owner of the NFL team in each respective market, the owners submitted their votes.
Once the votes were tabulated by NFL senior vice president of events Frank Supovitz, Goodell officially announced the Bay Area's victory live on NFL Network.
The region's top figures in politics, business and philanthropy comprised the Bay Area bid committee. San Francisco philanthropist Daniel Lurie directed the committee, which spent countless hours building the most attractive and comprehensive proposal since April of 2010, when the NFL's Super Bowl Advisory Committee first announced the region's eligibility to host the game.
"The vision of a Bay Area Super Bowl is now a reality," said 49ers President Gideon Yu, a member of the Super Bowl bid committee. "I am extremely proud to have worked alongside such great leaders in our community on this bid. We are confident our region will see great economic prosperity by hosting the Super Bowl, and are very proud to have committed to turning at least 25 percent of all funds raised through this process back into our local community."
Levi's® Stadium will stand as the embodiment of the region's emphasis on innovation and sustainability as it plays host to the Super Bowl. The Bay Area's weather, culture and local attractions were all key components of the committee's winning bid proposal.
The 49ers future home will also allow the sports world's biggest stage to highlight the best of the West Coast. Super Bowl L will be the league's first championship game in the state of California since San Diego hosted Super Bowl XXXVII in 2003.
The long Super Bowl drought in California was not lost on York, who is eager to share the Bay Area's passion for the game to football fans around the world.
"Even before breaking ground in April of 2012, the vision for Levi's® Stadium has always been to build a venue that showcases all that is special about the Bay Area," York said. "Innovation, sustainability and fan experience are the pillars on which we designed and constructed this world-class facility.
"We look forward to NFL fans from around the globe enjoying our region and our stadium, the likes of which cannot be found anywhere else in the world."
The 49ers future home will be the first professional football stadium to open with LEED certification, the recognized standard for measuring building sustainability. The stadium's infrastructure will also allow fans to enhance their in-game experience with their own personal devices (phones and tablets) and through an in-game mobile application currently being developed.
In addition, Super Bowl L will highlight the stadium's unique sustainable vision. All 49ers home games will be net zero to the power grid resulting from energy collected throughout the year by the stadium's solar arrays and the green roof will be the first of its kind at a Super Bowl site.
The Super Bowl L announcement is just the beginning of great things to come for the future home of the San Francisco 49ers, and the team's CEO is eager to continue watching it all unfold.
"Every year, football fans gather to celebrate this great game on Super Bowl Sunday," York said. "As we host the most spectacular sporting event in the world, the Bay Area has a tremendous opportunity to celebrate on the grandest stage all that makes our region so dynamic."
It's fitting that the region made famous by the Gold Rush will now host the Super Bowl's Golden Anniversary.
**For more information about the 49ers future home, visit LevisStadium.com**
