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WINNERS & LOSERS

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By BAIRD HELGESON

bhelgeson@tampatrib.com

Published: January 18, 2009

Updated: 01/18/2009 12:12 am

Tampa seems to struggle to get a team in the Super Bowl, but the community sure knows how to host one. Soon, we'll see what we get in return.

The Buccaneers have played once in the National Football League's championship game, and won. But on Feb. 1, in its 32nd season as an NFL city, Tampa welcomes its fourth Super Bowl.

Only New Orleans, South Florida and the Los Angeles area have hosted more.

"We have been planning for three years," said Santiago Corrada, Tampa's director of neighborhood services and the city's Super Bowl XLIII point person. "Now we just have to execute the plan."

Like a Super Bowl team, a host city brings a collection of strengths and weaknesses to the game. An estimated 100,000 visitors - including celebrities, corporate leaders and athletes - will test our amenities, security and hospitality.

Some parts of Tampa will capitalize on the spectacle, others will try and fail, and still others will ignore it.

Here's a rundown of a few likely winners and losers.

WINNERS: Restaurants near Super Bowl fun

Some of Tampa's best-known eating establishments are primed for a surge.

Bern's Steak House expects its reputation - if not a stadium location - will fill its tables and booths Super Bowl week. Same with Oystercatchers and Armani's in the Grand Hyatt, which underwent $5 million in renovations. Ditto Lee Roy Selmon's, which honors the Buccaneers' first NFL Hall of Famer. The Columbia Restaurant, near party venues in Ybor City, has a leg up hosting the NFL's Hall of Fame luncheon.

LOSERS: Neighborhood restaurants banking on huge sales

Some restaurants weren't prepared for the heartbreak of the 2001 Super Bowl. No hoards of hungry high-rollers found them.

Donna Sinudom, an owner of Circles New Tampa Bistro on North Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, said she doesn't expect Super Bowl fans to venture far enough into the community to find her neighborhood eatery.

WINNERS: Hotels seeking recession relief

Tampa Bay area hotels saw a 14 percent decline in occupancy during November compared with the same month of 2007.

Several hotels are remodeling or rushing to finish new features. Marriott opened an 87-room Fairfield Inn & Suites in Plant City, 31 miles from Raymond James Stadium, in time for Super Bowl visitors.

"We do anticipate selling out," said Bob Spraker, a hotel spokesman.

LOSERS: Visitors not going to the Super Bowl

Pity the poor sap who comes to Tampa for any other reason in a couple of weeks.

"If you don't know the Super Bowl is going on, you might be in for a bit of a surprise, but certainly a welcome surprise," said Travis Claytor, a spokesman for Tampa Bay & Co., the region's economic development arm.

An expensive one, too.

Hotels are boosting rates as much as 300 percent for the weekend, if any rooms are to be found at all. On Jan. 9, American Airlines offered the cheapest nonstop flight from Chicago to Tampa on Super Bowl weekend: $792. The same trip the week before on United Airlines cost $206.

WINNERS: The environment

Unused food from NFL-related parties will be donated to local food banks. The league will recycle solid waste in the Super Bowl tent city surrounding Raymond James Stadium. The NFL also is planting more than 1,000 trees in the Bay area to offset greenhouse gas from Super Bowl activities.

LOSERS: The environment

Environmental groups have criticized the NFL's carbon calculations.

Last year, the NFL bought renewable energy certificates and replanted 42 acres worth of Arizona forest consumed by wildfires. The league wanted to offset the 350 tons of greenhouse gas produced by the 3,000 vehicles it used for the week. Critics faulted the NFL for not including air travel by NFL teams and staff.

WINNERS: Strip clubs

From New Port Richey to Dale Mabry Highway, clubs will bring in hundreds of extra dancers from across the country. Many clubs are finishing renovations, adding high-tech lighting and sound systems. A couple even built private rooms to rent for hundreds of dollars an hour, complete with dancers and a bottle of champagne.

LOSERS: Strip club foes

Tampa's reputation as the lap dance capital of the world has drawn its share of critics.

The national Super Bowl exposure "will just further legitimize the sex industry in Tampa and esteem them with the perception of economic clout," said David Caton, founder of Florida Family Association, an advocacy group.

WINNERS: Tampa's signature attractions

Super Bowl visitors can't spend all their time around Raymond James Stadium, scene of many of the formal activities. Thousands of added visitors are expected at Busch Gardens, The Florida Aquarium, Lowry Park Zoo and other attractions.

The aquarium has booked several Super Bowl parties. Zoo staff will bring dozens of animals to a VIP tailgate event on game day. Sports super agent Leigh Steinberg was negotiating to hold his annual Super Bowl party at the zoo.

LOSERS: Tampa gems missed by the masses

Count Skipper's Smokehouse among landmarks that will close on game day.

"We are not a sports bar," said Tom White, an owner of the open-air roadhouse.

The expected crush of visitors isn't enough to persuade the owners to open for the game. Fans will have to go elsewhere for grouper, gator tail or conch fritters.

"There's already so much going on around town," White said. "We just get kind of lost."

WINNERS: Pundits who predict the economic impact of the game

The only people quoted more than sports analysts are the economists and academics who debate the economic impact of the Super Bowl.

Each year, community leaders from host cities and sports economists square off in their still-unresolved battle over how much money the game brings its host community.

Bay area leaders are forecasting about $300 million. Philip Porter, a University of South Florida economist, says it's a fraction of that.

LOSERS: Companies with Super Bowl-loving employees

All that workplace banter about Super Bowl winners, commercials and betting pools adds up.

Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., an employment consultant, estimated Super Bowl-related distractions cost employers up to $848.5 million in lost productivity in the week leading up to last year's game. But the company's chief, John A. Challenger, urges restraint in dealing with it.

"If someone misses an important deadline due to the Super Bowl, he or she probably would have missed it no matter what," Challenger said.

WINNERS: Pedestrians, bicyclists for four blissful hours

A 2007 Brookings Institution survey of walkability ranked Tampa last among 30 major metropolitan areas. But for four glorious hours, while the Super Bowl is under way at Raymond James, the rest of the city is wide open to those who enjoy simple forms of travel.

"It's an absolutely wonderful time to walk, run or bike," said Mo Chiodini, health initiative director for the YMCA.

LOSERS: People who must get around town quickly

Life doesn't get much tougher for pizza delivery drivers than Super Bowl week.

Business does go up, but not as much as the aggravation of crippling traffic, pizza restaurant managers said. Confused motorists from out of state add to the usual bothersome intersections and long lights.

"It takes a whole lot longer to get places," said Tiffany DeFiore, manager of Pizza Hut on South Dale Mabry Highway. She tells delivery customers the wait could be 15 minutes longer than usual.

WINNERS: Those trying to prove too many people drive drunk during Super Bowl

About six years ago, researchers at the University of Toronto determined automobile crashes climb more than 40 percent in the hours after the Super Bowl. The study pointed to alcohol consumption among the primary causes.

The Insurance Information Institute, an industry lobbying group, found that nearly 60 percent of traffic deaths on Super Bowl Sunday involve alcohol, making it the second-deadliest event of the year, after New Year's Day.

LOSERS: Drunken drivers

Super Bowl revelers who get tipsy and drive could end up paying more than the cost of $1,000 game tickets for the whole family and a limousine ride home.

Florida law enforcement officials estimate a first-time offender spends $8,000 in fines, legal defense and insurance increases.

Motorists who think they can get away with it, beware: On Super Bowl Sunday last year in Arizona, local authorities stopped 544 cars on suspicion of DUI.

LOSERS: Super Bowl soreheads

Think of Lee Dunlap as the founding member of the "Anti-Super Bowl Host Committee."

The 71-year-old Riverview man hates the way the community heaps on tax dollars and good will to help the NFL's "fat cats get fatter."

So when the Super Bowl host committee launched a campaign urging locals to smile and welcome tourists, that was all Dunlap could stand.

"I am going to be ugly, ugly, ugly," he said. "Local people have no chance to get into the Super Bowl, so why should we be nice to people who can?"

WINNERS: Tampa's image as a prime destination

When it comes to exposure, the Super Bowl is the Super Bowl of events.

Community leaders hope visitors remember the good times and quality of life when they plan their next vacation, convention or business expansion.

Even the most skeptical can't put a price on all the news coverage, said Dick Beard, chairman of the Tampa Bay Super Bowl Host Committee.

"Tampa will be talked about from one end of the world to the other."

MONEY MATTERS

The Tampa Bay Super Bowl Host Committee isn't immune from the tough economic times. Local Super Bowl organizers have cut $1 million from their original private fundraising goal of $8 million, said Amanda Holt, host committee spokeswoman. Taxpayers' obligation remains unchanged at $3.75 million. The host committee has cut costs and benefited from several anticipated expenses being well under budget, Holt said. For example, the bid required the host committee to offer golf to all 32 NFL teams. Fewer than five teams to date want to play golf during the week. Here's a breakdown of local government obligations:

Hillsborough County: $2.5 million

Pinellas County: $750,000

Florida Sports Foundation grant: $500,000

Reporter Baird Helgeson can be reached at (813) 259-7668.

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