Apple, Google, others promise $2M each to hold Super Bowl 50 in Bay Area

Posted:
in General Discussion edited June 2014
With help from tech giants that call San Francisco and its surrounding cities home, the Bay Area Super Bowl Host Committee on Thursday announced it raised some $40 million to be put toward hosting the championship game in 2016.


Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. | Source: Levi's Stadium


Apple, Google, Yahoo and Intel each chipped in $2 million in cash and services to offset taxpayer dollars associated with bringing the historic 50th Super Bowl to the San Francisco 49ers stadium in Santa Clara, reports the San Jose Mercury News.

In exchange for their donations, the tech companies will receive a Super Bowl 50 suite and official publicity consideration. According to the publication, any burden on local taxpayers is expected to be fully paid off by the total $40 million in private funding.

The Super Bowl Host Committee was able to raise $30 million in 2013, with the funds going toward traffic control, overtime for police officers and other infrastructure costs that come along with bringing the nation's biggest sporting event to town.

Previously themed as the "SF Super Bowl," the new "San Francisco Bay Area" moniker was officially selected to represent a wider swath of the region. The committee is reportedly pushing Bay Area sights ahead of the game, though most activities will take place in San Francisco and Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara.

Set to open in two months, Levi's Stadium cost $1.3 billion to build and is located near the Santa Clara Convention Center, a 20-minute drive from Apple's Cupertino, Calif. headquarters.

With the $2 million investment, Apple may make a return to the Super Bowl advertiser's list after being absent for nearly 15 years. Apple helped foster the trend of "blockbuster" Super Bowl television commercials with its iconic "1984" Mac spot, but the company has been silent since 1999. Its final Super Bowl ad featured HAL 9000, the sentient supercomputer from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, taking jabs at the Windows Y2K bug.

Many anticipated Apple would make a return to Super Bowl ad making this year in commemoration of the Mac's 30th anniversary, but the company instead commissioned Jake Scott -- son of legendary director Ridley Scott who filmed the "1984" spot -- to create a special short film using nothing but iPhones, iPads and Macs. The ad was subsequently released online as part of the Mac 30 media campaign.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 16
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    What an ugly stadium.
  • Reply 2 of 16
    marvfoxmarvfox Posts: 2,275member

    Who cares .

  • Reply 3 of 16
    flash_beezyflash_beezy Posts: 239member
    It really is ugly...and my tax dollars helped pay for it..being a Santa Clara Resident.
  • Reply 4 of 16
    tonyp385tonyp385 Posts: 6member

    Its a very big shame.  Companies like this want to waste 40 million $ to watch sports or whatever there reasoning is.  Why dont you fill 40million worth of food and things needed to help the people who need it the most. Off course some people will say they do not deserve since they are lazy or do not want to work or for whatever reason but in the end then you should justify spending it on entertainment uselessly like this  and worst case give people jobs to do anything including cleaning the city or what ever it is .

     

    But in the end Money is Power and people are the slaves to those who use it to control others.  Very sad day.

  • Reply 5 of 16
    robin huberrobin huber Posts: 3,949member
    Expensive suite. Is this the best use of assets; perks for high level execs? How about spending that much more to support customers?
  • Reply 6 of 16
    malaxmalax Posts: 1,598member

    I hope this has a $2 million boost to Apple employee morale, because I can't think of any other justification for spending corporate dollars for this.

  • Reply 7 of 16
    malaxmalax Posts: 1,598member
    Interesting that the logo showed "50" instead of the Roman numeral L. Maybe Superbowl L would just blow too many minds, so they are dropping the pretentious X's, V's, and I's.

    Update: ah, no "L" for Superbowl 50, but it will be LI for 51. http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/06/nfl-super-bowl-50-roman-numerals-l
  • Reply 8 of 16
    mpantonempantone Posts: 2,033member

    The NFL is deliberately using Arabic numeral "50" instead of Roman numeral "L" to associate the 2016 event more closely with its golden (50th) anniversary.

  • Reply 9 of 16
    Great, because all we need is more traffic in our horribly congested area.
  • Reply 10 of 16
    dualiedualie Posts: 334member
    This looks like a screen cap from Sim City.
  • Reply 11 of 16
    dickprinterdickprinter Posts: 1,060member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by tonyp385 View Post

     

    Its a very big shame.  Companies like this want to waste 40 million $ to watch sports or whatever there reasoning is.  Why dont you fill 40million worth of food and things needed to help the people who need it the most. Off course some people will say they do not deserve since they are lazy or do not want to work or for whatever reason but in the end then you should justify spending it on entertainment uselessly like this  and worst case give people jobs to do anything including cleaning the city or what ever it is .

     

    But in the end Money is Power and people are the slaves to those who use it to control others.  Very sad day.


    :rolleyes:

  • Reply 12 of 16
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    tonyp385 wrote: »
    Its a very big shame.  Companies like this want to waste 40 million $ to watch sports or whatever there reasoning is.  Why dont you fill 40million worth of food and things needed to help the people who need it the most. Off course some people will say they do not deserve since they are lazy or do not want to work or for whatever reason but in the end then you should justify spending it on entertainment uselessly like this  and worst case give people jobs to do anything including cleaning the city or what ever it is .

    But in the end Money is Power and people are the slaves to those who use it to control others.  Very sad day.

    Companies have sponsored sporting events for a long time. People that can't afford food much less their products aren't high on their priority list.
  • Reply 13 of 16
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post

    What an ugly stadium.

     

    Apple offered to build a brand new one, but the NFL committee didn’t agree to their stipulations.

     

    Namely that the all future teams involved in any Super Bowl be retroactively renamed; the winner to ‘Apples’, the loser to ‘Samsungs’.

  • Reply 14 of 16
    thewhitefalconthewhitefalcon Posts: 4,453member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post

     

     

    Apple offered to build a brand new one, but the NFL committee didn’t agree to their stipulations.

     

    Namely that the all future teams involved in any Super Bowl be retroactively renamed; the winner to ‘Apples’, the loser to ‘Samsungs’.




    They also demanded that all players wear cleats with spikes that had diamond cut chamfers, that the coin toss be performed with an iPod Shuffle, and that the playing field be round.

  • Reply 15 of 16
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by melgross View Post



    What an ugly stadium.

     

    All stadiums are ugly.

  • Reply 16 of 16
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
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