Nashville is still four years away from hosting its first Super Bowl. It may note end there.
“We’re going to do it better than anyone of all time,” Jim Nantz, a Nashville resident and Super Bowl committee co-chair said about the city hosting the 2030 Super Bowl at the formal event introduction on May 20. “And we’re not doing it once.”
Peter O’Reilly, the NFL’s vice president of league events, maintains there’s no such thing as a formal “Super Bowl rotation.” But formal list or no, the NFL has its go-to host sites. Since 2000, the Super Bowl has been held in Miami, New Orleans, Tampa and Phoenix three times each. In 2028, Atlanta will host its third Super Bowl of the millennium too, and in 2027 and 2029 Los Angeles and Las Vegas will join the not-a-rotation rotation with their second Super Bowls of the decade.
Then there are the cautionary tales. Since 2005 alone Jacksonville, Dallas, Indianapolis and New York have all been one-and-done hosts. So have Detroit and Minneapolis, which hosted in 2006 and 2018 after 24-year and 26-year gaps and haven’t been granted third chances.
“I think they probably wait until you host the first one and then talk to you,” said Deana Ivey, the president and CEO of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp and one of the lead organizers who brought the 2030 Super Bowl to Nashville. “I don’t think they talked to Vegas (about a second Super Bowl) before they hosted the first one. But I haven’t asked the question. I’m focused on the first one.”
Still, the promises about Nashville’s ambition for this first Super Bowl read an awful lot like a city hellbent on it not being the last. O’Reilly says there’s “something magic” in Nashville and expects its plans to be a game-changer for the Super Bowl and the NFL. Nantz promises not just the best environment in Super Bowl history, but the best halftime show in the history of sports.
These aren’t the words of a city that’s content to host one killer party and bow out.
And, based on what Ivey says she’s heard from the league’s most powerful decision makers, that’s not the expectation either.
“I had a couple of the owners say that to me yesterday, that they we would be a great city for the rotation,” Ivey admits. “You never know what will happen, but we’re focused on 2030 first.”
Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at nsuss@gannett.com. Follow Nick on X @nicksuss. Subscribe to the Talkin’ Titans newsletter for updates sent directly to your inbox.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Could Nashville host another Super Bowl after 2030? NFL, city leaders explain
