Super Bowl LI is right around the corner, and this year the big game is taking place in Houston, Texas. The NFL is the largest professional sports league in America, and the Super Bowl always brings quite a bit of business to its host city.

Obviously, the Super Bowl attracts tens of thousands of people to its host city. Most of those people are there to attend the game, some show up without tickets just to be there, but one thing they have in common is that they all spend money. This is great for local businesses, as they benefit from the large amount of people in town for game day. The Super Bowl will feature the winner of the AFC and NFC championships slated to be on Sunday February 5th at NRG Stadium broadcasted on FOX, kickoff time is TBA.

How much money will the Super Bowl generate? Conservative estimates are over $500 million in total revenue, but it could be much more. The 2015 Super Bowl took place in Phoenix and created $719 million in terms of economic impact (the 2016 Super Bowl in Santa Clara doesn't have those numbers available yet, but similar results are expected).

There's one difference that could boost Houston's numbers even higher than the previous two Super Bowls – location. Houston's stadium and most of its amenities, including hotels and restaurants, are in Houston. The stadium for the Phoenix Super Bowl, Univerity of Phoenix Stadium, was in Glendale, which is about half an hour away from Phoenix. The stadium for the San Francisco Super Bowl, Levi's Stadium, was an hour away in San Francisco. In both cases, the distances involved spread tourists out across multiple cities. The spending wasn't concentrated in the host city, like it will be for Houston.

Last year's Super Bowl, Super Bowl, was held in the San Francisco/Santa Clara area. A whopping 88% of San Francisco's hotel reached occupancy that weekend. Both areas experienced a decent spike in revenue per available room for Super Bowl weekend compared to the same weekend last year, with the city of San Francisco more than tripling its prior-year performance with an average rate of $529.95.

With San Francisco and Santa Clara essentially splitting the hotel rooms, it's hard to get the full grasp of how Houston's hotel scene will compare to last year's. With Houston being a large enough to accommodate all the people coming in, expect the occupancy to reach towards the 95% rate as it was when Phoenix hosted the Super Bowl in 2015.

In all fairness, the NFL's numbers are often on the high side compared to other revenue estimates. It's a tricky item to track, because analysts can't simply count total revenue during the time period. They have to evaluate how much revenue the game is adding, compared to what would normally occur. Regardless, there's no doubt that the Super Bowl brings tourists and money to every host city.

The top restaurants are packed with people night and day around the Super Bowl, and Houston has quite a few great places to eat. The great thing about Houston's restaurant scene is that it has high-quality restaurants in every area. While most of the city's restaurants can expect more business, the most popular spots, including the upscale Mexican restaurant Caracol, steakhouse Vic & Anthony's, the Tex-Mex Cyclone Anaya, and lounge style Monnalisa are all likely to have huge lines at all hours.

The city itself should also benefit from the Super Bowl, although the bulk of the revenue will go to local businesses. Houston previously hosted the Super Bowl in 2004, and the city earned $3.2 million on taxes and fees. The overall cost for that Super Bowl was $2.3 million, so the city came out $900,000 ahead.

The Super Bowl's overall impact on Houston is difficult to estimate, but there will certainly be huge crowds and plenty of money made by the city's businesses.

Jason Gordon
USS Sports Machine