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Will Pasco Gain From Super Bowl?

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By GEOFF FOX

gfox@tampatrib.com

Published: January 25, 2009

WESLEY CHAPEL - Hotels, restaurants, cab companies and other businesses around the city of Tampa should realize significant financial gains thanks to the Super Bowl, but it's less clear how an infusion of consumers to the region will affect Pasco County.
Deer Creek Sporting Clays on Ehren Cutoff is hosting an NFL Alumni fundraiser Saturday and expects to be full. But, because it's hosting the only official Super Bowl event in Pasco, Deer Creek has benefited from something no other area business has: a listing on the Super Bowl's official Web site.

At the Saddlebrook Resort on State Road 54, Dick Boehning has worked through three previous Super Bowls in Tampa, the last in 2001. The resort's chief marketing officer, Boehning views the event as practically recession-proof and says it should provide outlying areas with a much-needed financial boost.

"I don't think that the people who are coming to the Super Bowl are going to change their plans because of the economy," he said. "A lot of that has to do with companies entertaining their customers. We're mainly getting people from out of state, and most of the commitments to us were made before the two teams were identified."

Last week, only a handful of the resort's 535 rooms were still available.

But that's Saddlebrook, which will host groups from CBS and Samsung, which were referred to the resort by the National Football League.

Businesses without those kinds of advantages are trying to cash in, too.

At the Sleep Inn, near Interstate 75 and State Road 54, general manager Simone Harmon said the hotel is getting some Super Bowl-related reservations.

"But we're not as busy as we anticipated," she said Thursday.

"We thought people would be calling ahead, but they may hold out until" the week of the game.

The hotel has marketed its proximity to The Grove at Wesley Chapel, a shopping plaza with restaurants and 16-screen cinema that opened its first phase in November 2007.

"That's our selling point," Harmon said. "We're also going to host tailgating parties this Saturday and Sunday for our guests."

Jason Stearns of Land O' Lakes is co-owner of Ultimate Room Brokers, a company that packages hotel rooms with tickets to events such as the Super Bowl. Filling the rooms at the Hampton Inn & Suites at Interstate 75 and State Road 56, which opened last February, has been tougher than expected, he said.

"I think we had 50 of 98 rooms still available when I checked" early Wednesday morning, Stearns said. "The economy is killing us. We haven't had this bad a year since Detroit in 2006. But no one wants to be in Detroit in June or July, let alone January or February."

County Doing What It Can

The Super Bowl was last held in Tampa on Jan. 28, 2001. That year, Pasco County reported tourism revenue of more than $60,000 in January and more than $100,000 the following month.

At the time, that represented the second-highest tourism revenue total for the month of February in a decade, said Eric Keaton, Pasco's public communications director.

With additional rooms now available - and being rented at a higher rate - and more shopping attractions open, the county's Super Bowl XLIII revenue should eclipse those numbers, but officials won't know for sure until figures are released in March.

Keaton said the county has promoted local destinations on its Web site, www.visitpasco.net, but added that the county is "limited from an actual involvement because St. Petersburg, Clearwater and Tampa have exclusive rights, which you pay for if you want to be part of the host committee."

"We've played up the trolley tour in Dade City, and Skydive City in Zephyrhills is offering special rates," Keaton said. "However, the Kumquat Festival and Greater Dade City Chamber of Commerce has done a good job of getting listed on the Super Bowl site."

One of northeast Pasco's signature events, the annual Kumquat Festival is Saturday.

The event at Deer Creek Sporting Clays will benefit children's charities selected by the NFL Alumni, a nonprofit organization. The shoot costs $4,500 per foursome. Each of 15 to 20 expected teams will be led by a celebrity host, usually a former NFL player.

Tim Watson, president of the NFL Alumni's Tampa Bay chapter, said he didn't know who this year's celebrity hosts would be.
Deer Creek owner Roger Gascoigne said one of his customers recommended the roughly 300-acre facility to the NFL Alumni.

"They came out and visited in May and decided to run the shoot with us," he said. "They basically pay us to have the event here."

Many of the shooters at Saturday's event will be out-of-towners, like many of Gascoigne's customers this time of year.

"Last week we had customers from eight different states," he said. "Shotgun shooting is very popular all over, and we get a lot of snowbirds. November through April is the busy season, all tourists."

Pasco's thriving nudist industry may also benefit from the Super Bowl. There are at least 14 nudist or clothing-optional resorts or campgrounds in the county.

Seeking to capitalize on the big game's proximity, the Caliente Resort, off U.S. 41 in Land O' Lakes, agreed to host Lingerie Bowl VI, billed as "the ultimate catfighting competition," on Saturday. The Lingerie Football League game between the Tampa Breeze and Miami Caliente will feature scantily clad women playing tackle football.

Arizona Numbers Were Huge

A few months after last year's Super Bowl in Phoenix, Arizona State University's W. P. Carey School of Business released a study showing that slightly more than $500 million was injected into the state's economy during Super Bowl week.

While the study analyzed statewide numbers, Barry Broome, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, said two counties and 19 municipalities around Phoenix, including Glendale, where the game was actually played, benefitted the most.

"It was a bonanza for the entertainment venues," he said. "We had hotels sold out within an hour drive. We had limo services coming in from Los Angeles. Of course, the economy was a little bit better then. I don't know that you'll have the same impact around Tampa as we did."

It didn't hurt that the New York Giants were facing the New England Patriots in last year's title game.

"The Giants really affected us because that's a Wall Street crowd," he said. "We found out they are the financial district's team. We had a huge infusion of high-end Wall Street people. One limo service told us they had about 6,000 limos fully utilized for three days."

According to Stearns, the co-owner of Ultimate Room brokers, it won't hurt that the Pittsburgh Steelers, which play the Arizona Cardinals on Super Bowl Sunday, are one of the most popular teams in the country.

But what will that mean for Pasco?

Based on Super Bowls past, Boehning, Saddlebrook's marketing officer, says the local economy will boom on Super Bowl week, especially at The Shops at Wiregrass at Bruce B. Downs and State Road 56. The 800,000-square-foot open-air mall opened in October.

"A lot of our guests will have occasion to go over there," he said. "In our case, people staying here would have occasion to frequent areas restaurants, as well. Other than Wiregrass, though, there isn't a great deal around here but fueling stations and so on."

Reporter Geoff Fox can be reached at (813) 779-4613.

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