About The Bay: Super Bowl 50 Will Be In Santa Clara, But San Francisco Has Its Own Plans For The Big Game
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS)— The San Francisco Giants are back home Tuesday night to continue their quest for another World Series championship, but that's not the only big game San Francisco is gearing up for.
In in a nondescript office near the Embarcadero, [full disclosure: the office is located in the same building as KPIX 5 which will air the Super Bowl and KCBS], a group of people are hunkered down not paying much attention to this baseball season. Instead, they're focused on the end of next football season, when the 50th NFL Super Bowl come to the Bay Area.
The big game will go down in 2016 and will be played inside the new 49ers' Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara. That leaves 16 more months for planning.
"Even though it seems like it's far away for us in terms of planning a major event like this, it's almost tomorrow," said Pat Gallagher, marketing manager of the Bay Area Super Bowl. He said the focus now is to raise "lots of money".
Super Bowl 50 Will Be In Santa Clara, But San Francisco Has Its Own Plans For The Big Game
"There are only 70,000 people that can actually go to the game, but there are maybe a million people who can come to all of the public events that we're planning. We live here in the Bay Area. We don't build stadiums publicly anymore. We build them privately. We also do events like this privately as well," he said.
The cost will be upwards of $50 million to put it on, but 25 percent of that will go to charity.
"When the circus leaves town there will be something left here more than just cleaning up after it."
San Francisco has 38,000 hotel rooms; three quarters of which are already booked the first week of February 2016.
"The majority of the public activities are going to be in San Francisco right in the heart of the city from the Moscone Center to Union Square, down Market Street to the Embarcadero," said Joe D'Alessandro with San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau. "It's an American football game, but it is watched around the world as one of the most popular sporting events, so it is going to showcase the Bay Area."
Some are saying the energy and excitement for the Super Bowl will be heightened in The Bay because even the bandwagon fans come out. Now just imagine in the Niners or Raiders play in 2016's big game.
