Experience University Podcast

S5E12: Planning the Super Bowl with Amanda Kleker

September 30, 2021 Extraordinary Events Season 5 Episode 12
Experience University Podcast
S5E12: Planning the Super Bowl with Amanda Kleker
Show Notes Transcript

Ever wondered about how the Super bowl is planned? On today's podcast, our curious student Amanda Kleker informs us of what she found based on her research!

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Amanda: Hi everyone and welcome to Amanda’s awesome podcast, with your host none other than myself, Amanda Kleker. I am currently a sophomore here at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where I am majoring in Hospitality, Restaurant and Tourism Management. For my podcast today I will be talking with you all about the National Football League’s Super Bowl. 

 Whether you enjoy watching American football, eating some good food, laughing at the commercials, or just watching the halftime performance, most people in the U.S. tune in to see the big event. This past year alone the broadcasted event had about 115 million viewers tune in. Now I don’t know about you guys, but I love the Super Bowl. Not only is it fun to eat all the good food, but I am also a huge football fan and I look forward to watching the Super Bowl every year. It's almost like Christmas for me honestly. Since I watch this event every year, I have been wondering just how much work it takes to plan the Super Bowl and what all goes into that process.

 As I started my research to find out just how much work it takes to plan the Super Bowl, I came across the name of Frank Supovtiz who was the senior vice president of events for the National Football League. A position he held for over nice years, who is responsible for the production of all major NFL events, including the Super Bowl. Now for a few hours on the day of the Super Bowl, Frank Supovtiz is the most powerful man in the U.S. he isn’t worth billions and doesn’t have any sort of weapon where he is super powerful, but virtually everyone in the country, including the President, is expected to tune in to his job that afternoon. Frank Supovtiz runs the Super Bowl. But as Supovtiz says himself, “the Super Bowl is a living breathing organism. It’s subject to surprises at any corner and any level,” which means he’s always having to be on his A-game.

 Bizbash.com in an interview with Super Bowl planner, Frank Supovitz where he gave his six rules for planning events.  Be prepared for anything. Prioritize and remain focused on the most important tasks; train and trust your staff and contractors. Based on his last nine Super bowls, he has learned that knowing that “anything” will pretty much always happen. Large and small challenges will pull away attention from the most important objectives, but you have to learn to overcome those issues. Sometimes Super Bowl host cities are forced to get creative. When Jacksonville, Florida, hosted Super Bowl in 2005, the city didn't have enough hotel rooms to meet the NFL's requirements. So, in their bid to serve as the Big Game's host, they had to recruit five docked cruise ships as "floating hotels" for the event. Now if that doesn’t say be prepared for anything and try and pull through those issues, I don’t know what does.

 Frank’s second rule is You can never fully let go of the reins, you have to identify what decisions can be made “on the ground” and which ones should be made at a higher level. The majority of decisions are made by knowledgeable employees at the time and place they need to be without running everything past whoever is in command. Decisions made about public safety, major impacts on the game or on the broadcast, the fan experience, or running schedules are all shared with higher decision makers, however those come across less often.

 His third rule is to Create a sense of team with your staff. There are more than 10,000 staff members for the Super Bowl, and the majority will work on game day for the very first—and possibly only—time. It is up to the planner to make sure everyone feels as though they are part of something special and exciting. 

 The fourth rule is to Involve the local community. Just about every N.F.L. event has opportunities to engage the local fans, from music events to venue-based attractions at little to no cost at all. You need to understand the responsibilities you have to the local community, especially given the inconvenience caused by one of the largest events. I cannot imagine the amount of traffic they have. His fifth rule is to stay focused year-round, even on smaller events. 

 His sixth and final rule is to Be open to opportunities, especially when first starting out. Try new experiences and discover what you love to do (and what you don’t). I didn’t start out in events, or in sports. I was in front-of-house operations at Radio City Music Hall. After years of experiencing a series of new responsibilities with the organization, from operations to marketing to event production, I discovered that organizing events was the most fulfilling thing I had yet done. I would never have known that until I was presented with the possibilities and worked my butt off to learn everything I could.

 Now I don’t know about you guys at home, or wherever you are when you are listening to this, but I think that it’s important to be open to new opportunities, especially when you’re first starting out like he said.