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Effort Made To Give Minorities Super Bowl Business Playbook

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By ELLEN GEDALIUS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 15, 2008

TAMPA - City council members on Thursday pressed for the Super Bowl Host Committee to ensure minority-owned businesses have a fair shot of winning contracts for event-related work.

Councilman Tom Scott invited representatives of the committee to the council because of complaints minority-owned businesses in 2001 didn't know about work opportunities until it was too late.

When the Super Bowl was held in Tampa in 2001, more than 105 minority- and female-owned businesses received game-related contracts totaling $2.5 million.

"Our goal is to do better than we did before," said Dick Beard, chairman of the host committee.

Curtis Stokes, president of the Hillsborough chapter of the NAACP, said the committee plans to step up publicity by working with minority media outlets, meeting with community business organizations and having information available on its Web site, www. tampabaysuperbowl.com.

Dianne Hart, a business owner in East Tampa, urged Super Bowl officials not to rely too heavily on government-created databases of minority-owned businesses.

"They need to get down to the community level to people not on these databases," Hart said. "It is really critical they realize it early on and get the community involved. If you don't know about it, you can't participate in it."

Super Bowl XLIII will be played at Raymond James Stadium on Feb. 1.

Reporter Ellen Gedalius can be reached at (813) 259-7679 or egedalius@tampatrib.com.

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