B+N Insight: The Super Bowl Is the Pinnacle of Facilities Management
- 23 Feb 2024 11:43 AM
The FM team at Allegiant Stadium, host of this year’s Super Bowl, must pay close attention to every detail to ensure the smooth running of the event. Sports events of this size present unusual challenges to those involved in facility management, Realista.Ingatlan.com points out.
The Super Bowl is not just a sporting event, but a complex event that presents many logistical and infrastructural challenges to the host city and the Super Bowl facility management team.
Exceptional requirements
Every November, the National Football League (NFL) publishes a 200-300 page bid book for cities aspiring to host a future game. Basic requirements include things like a 70,000-seat stadium or expandable to that size, at least 19,000 hotel rooms for a minimum stay of three or four nights, including rooms for teams and NFL personnel, several nearby facilities or spaces for media and an accreditation centre, an average daily temperature of at least 10°C during the week of the match, or an air-conditioned indoor facility.
There are also special conditions for obtaining the right to host the event, like granting exclusive access (free of charge) to three high-quality, 18-hole golf courses, and it is also stipulated that on the day of the game, the NFL must receive 35,000 free parking spaces near the stadium.
The location
The site of this year’s Super Bowl, Allegiant Stadium is a ten-story, domed, multi-purpose stadium in Paradise, Nevada, southwest of neighboring Las Vegas. The space, which opened in 2020, features an ETFE (ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) roof, light strips installed by YESCO, an 84-foot video screen, and large retractable curtain-like side windows.
In the area of the northern end zone, there is a 26-meter torch, which was the largest 3D-printed object in the world at the time of the handover. The stadium can be expanded to accommodate up to 71,835 people.
The LEED Gold-certified stadium features a natural bermuda grass field used primarily for NFL games. The main advantage of such a configuration is that it allows natural sunlight to reach the playing surface and, when not in use, the facility can be used for other events without the risk of damaging the grass.
Allegiant Stadium also has an artificial turf field used primarily for college football games.
The greenest Super Bowl in history
This year’s Super Bowl is to be powered by Nevada desert solar farm, marking a historic green milestone – CBS news reports. The Allegiant Stadium will host the event powered entirely by renewable energy — a first in the history of the event.
The vast solar farm with over 621,000 panels has the capability to power close to 60,000 residential customers — or a very big stadium. CEO Doug Cannon told CBS that the solar installation would supply more than 10 megawatts of power for the Super Bowl. This amount of energy is roughly equivalent to the consumption of 46,000 homes.
The Las Vegas Raiders, which call Allegiant Stadium home, have entered into a 25-year agreement to buy power from this new solar installation owned by NV Energy.
Photo: allegiantstadium.com
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