The Super Bowl is something of a moveable feast for the cities in which it is held, and the National Football League’s Business Connect program serves each year to ensure that local businesses get a seat at that very large table.
This outreach became even more needed after 2021 when, due to Covid-related precautions, in-person attendance for the big game was restricted to just 25,000 of the more than 65,000 seat capacity at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., the venue for Super Bowl LV. In addition, in-person celebrations and media events were either eliminated or replaced with virtual alternatives.
This year, both the NFL and the city of Los Angeles were eager to stage a celebration worthy of one of the biggest sporting events of the year.
The NFL forecasts Super Bowl LVI will produce economic benefits between $234 million and $477 million, including tax revenue to the L.A. region ranging between $12 million and $22 million. Leading up to the Feb. 13 game, the NFL enlisted 225 local businesses to provide a variety of goods and services across 30 different disciplines related to event production — including staging and lights, audiovisual services, furniture and decor, catering, and transportation.
Training camp
NFL consultant BJ Waymer has overseen the 27-year-old program since 2015, when it shifted its focus from a more rudimentary introduction to the football business to a business-to-business initiative advocating for women, minority, LGBTQ-plus and veteran-owned businesses to compete for and win contracts related to the Super Bowl.
Business Connect begins its process of reaching out to neighboring communities some 18 to 22 months in advance of each Super Bowl, starting with minority chambers of commerce, supplier diversity organizations and any other local groups whose members are companies that produce special events or would have access to businesses that provide those services. For Super Bowl LVI, the NFL solicited applicants through its community outreach partners between Oct. 27, 2020, and Feb. 23, 2021.
“We need to identify suppliers that have expertise and the capacity to work events the size of Super Bowl,” Waymer told the Business Journal.
She said the program typically receives as many as 1,700 applications per year, which her team narrows to between 200 and 225 by evaluating applicants based on a variety of criteria that includes everything from the business’ diversity ownership to its geographical footprint. Business Connect subsequently helps these local partners understand how the NFL does business and prepare them for what larger league contractors look for in suppliers.
“We have conversations and do workshops and networking events with them to try and up their business acumen so that they are a full package when they stand in front of an NFL contractor to do an interview or fill out a (request for proposal),” she said.
Waymer added that there are no guarantees that anyone who joins the program will get a contract, but because the program verifies that everyone in it has what it takes to be a subcontractor for the Super Bowl, simply being accepted confers an imprint of scale and legitimacy to local business, and could lead to future opportunities.
For Super Bowl LVI, the geographic footprint was “Los Angeles and Los Angeles County,” so the NFL cast a wider net for relevant businesses while specifically prioritizing Inglewood because it is the home of SoFi Stadium. Some of the businesses accepted into the program in 2021 include Santa Monica-based event production company Jive Live Entertainment whose owner Julio Garcia won a contract to produce the 2022 NFL Play Football Family Festival in Boyle Heights, and Fairfax-based Bludso’s Bar & Que, which is working with Culver City-based company Party Planners West Inc. to provide 7,000 servings of meat alongside two other suppliers in a special barbecue-focused area at the official NFL Tailgate Party.
Bludso’s Director of Community Relations Trena Lawson said the separate area came to fruition as a result of the restaurant’s initial presentation to Party Planners West.
“They came back and said, ‘Can you bring the big smoker we’ve seen on your website? We want to do something that says football, barbecue, family,’ and we jumped on it,” Lawson said.
Although the Super Bowl offers the company a new level of visibility, she explained that Bludso’s maintains a contract with Banc of California Stadium in Exposition Park that regularly requires its staff to prepare as many as 10,000 servings per event, making the demands placed on the business for the tailgate party less intimidating than they might have been to other companies.
Lawson added that the bigger challenge Bludso’s will face on game day is ensuring its brick-and-mortar and catering operations out of its La Brea Boulevard location are as fully staffed as the one it’s organizing by SoFi Stadium.
“As a barbecue restaurant, our Super Bowl day is pretty big — our restaurant is full,” she said. “Everybody’s having Super Bowl parties, and of course they’re gonna order ribs and hot links.”
She also noted that filling 15 more permanent positions was easier when candidates learned they would initially be working in proximity to one of the most exclusive events of the year.
“They were way jazzed,” she said. “Not only are you going to give me some hours, I’m going to the Super Bowl tailgate party.”
Post-game coverage
While the Super Bowl is the centerpiece of the opportunities offered to local companies through the program, NFL Business Connect aims to prepare them for opportunities and challenges after the game as well, giving guidance on everything from basic communication with potential clients to the finer points of promotion on social media platforms.
The program also brings in panels of experts from suppliers and outreach partners for Pitch Day, during which businesses selected for the program can refine their salesmanship.
“Our panel is there to help them get past those nerves to understand how to present themselves and their products so that when they get in front of an NFL contractor, it’s muscle memory at that point,” Waymer said.
She calculated that between July and December 2021, the Business Connect program had made 955 interactions with local businesses, which qualifies as anything from an interview or a request for proposal to a contract being awarded. She said that total marks the highest number for any Super Bowl since the program began.
She also said the 2022 benchmark points to the program’s efficacy not just in finding a thriving community of businesses capable of meeting the NFL’s needs, or even facilitating opportunities around the Super Bowl, but in supporting an entire city and region for months and years to come.
“Every contract that is awarded to a Business Connect supplier has a ripple effect through the community, so we like to think of Business Connect as a community impact program,” she said. “We build our program around what our suppliers need in order to help them be stronger businesspeople at the end of the process.”
