Bennito L. Kelty
Audio By Carbonatix
With recent championships in basketball, football and hockey, Denver has the right to boast that it’s a major sports city. However, this city has yet to host the country’s most-watched game: the Super Bowl.
The NFL picks Super Bowl cities well before knowing which team will play each year, and the strict eligibility rules for hosting have always eliminated Denver because Empower Field doesn’t have a roof and the city is usually cold with a good chance of snow in February.
But Broncos ownership has already announced a goal of ditching Empower Field and building a new stadium with a retractable roof in Burnham Yard, a former train yard near La Alma/Lincoln Park. So, with one big obstacle on the way out, what else is needed?
According to a 150-page list of NFL requirements for Super Bowl host cities, originally obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune, Denver wouldn’t just need a roofed football stadium but plenty of other local amenities, from parking and hotel rooms to fancy golf courses. These requirements are laid out for city bid committees, which comprise representatives from an NFL team and its stadium, as well as local and regional governments, visitor bureaus and key businesses.
Hosting a Super Bowl can create a lifelong memory for sports fans, but it’s also a cash cow. The United States Chamber of Commerce estimates that hosting a Super Bowl can pump more than a half-billion dollars into a local economy and attract more than 125,000 out-of-state visitors, and it rarely requires major changes or additions to a city’s infrastructure, unlike the Olympics.
The 2026 Super Bowl will take place on Sunday, February 8, in Santa Clara, California. If Denver ever wants to host one of its own, here’s what needs to happen over the next few years — because everyone knows the NFL loves a Super Bowl in a new stadium.
Enough Seats
Aside from a roof, a Super Bowl-eligible stadium needs at least 70,000 seats, each at least 19 inches wide, plus suites with unobstructed views. Empower Field has about 76,000 seats and about 144 suites. The Denver Post reported in January that the new stadium is expected to have more seats and suites.
Enough Parking
The NFL requires that a Super Bowl stadium have at least 35,000 paved and well-lit parking spaces on-site or nearby on gameday for fans, employees and security. NFL staffers need up to 3,000 parking spaces within a half-mile of the stadium — not just on game day, but during the entire “Super Bowl period,” which starts thirty days before the game. The NFL gets to keep all the parking revenue from the stadium’s lots and any NFL-operated parking.
According to the current Burnham Yard plan, which is a very early overview published in November, the owners seek to move away from “a sea of parking” that most sports venues have. It calls for more off-site and shared parking (or parking meant for multiple nearby sites), but doesn’t specify how many spaces the new stadium might have.
According to the Empower Field fan guide, the stadium has 9,000 parking spaces on-site, 15,000 spaces near the stadium and 15,000 spaces at off-site, independent parking lots. That’s about 39,000 parking spots, and would seem to embody “a sea of parking.”
Hotel Rooms
The area immediately outside any potential Super Bowl venue must be ready for an influx of out-of-state fans. For the NFL, that means having enough hotel rooms within a sixty-minute drive to host 35 percent of the available Super Bowl seats.
For a stadium the size of Empower Field, that would mean more than 27,000 hotel rooms less than an hour away during peak drive times. Denver would also need to have 19,000 “top quality, full service” hotel rooms for the NFL and “NFL-related groups,” many of which are expected to be offered up for free.
According to Visit Denver, the city’s tourism bureau, about 13,000 hotel rooms are within walking distance of the Colorado Convention Center, which is about a mile and a half from the future Broncos stadium. That gets Denver about halfway to the minimal hotel requirements.
There are over 55,000 first-class hotel rooms in the greater metro area, Visit Denver adds, but some of those could be more than a hour’s drive during peak traffic hours.
A redevelopment plan for nearby Ball Arena, home of the Colorado Avalanche and Denver Nuggets, calls for new hotels, among other commercial projects.
Government Guarantees
If Denver is picked to host a Super Bowl, the mayor or city council must create a temporary “clean zone” that would suspend certain permits for any event planned within a one-mile radius of the stadium, including for temporary inflatables, signs and sales. The NFL states that clean zones are meant for health and safety.
The NFL would also require local law enforcement to submit resolutions “expressing support for the NFL’s anti-counterfeit” efforts. Local law enforcement would have to provide officers to help crack down on counterfeit merchants for six days surrounding the game.
The NFL expects major tax exemptions, too. According to its Super Bowl bidding guide, the league would be exempt from “any state, county, city or other local taxes, including income, gross receipt, franchise, payroll, sales, use, admission or occupancy taxes.”
Revenue from ticket sales and parking must be tax-exempt, too.
“Top-Quality” Golf, Bowling
One of the odder NFL requirements is not one, but “two quality bowling venues.” Also funny but slightly more understandable is the need for “three top quality eighteen-hole golf courses.”
The NFL wants these venues for two events: the NFL Foundation Golf Classic and the Super Bowl Celebrity Bowling Classic, both intended for former players.
The three golf courses have to be close to one another, the NFL specifies, and greens fees must be waived. If the weather turns out to be cold or snowy, the NFL reserves the right to postpone the golf classic to summer or fall.
The two bowling alleys don’t have to be in proximity to each other, and the NFL doesn’t specify what would make them “top quality,” only that it expects “no rental cost.”
Metro Denver has plenty of bowling alleys, a few within city limits (maybe Lucky Strike is good enough). There are also many top golf courses in the area, from Cherry Hills to Castle Pines.
