Tampa still feeling impact of Super Bowl LV 2 years after being host city
TAMPA, Fla. - Tampa’s boat parade celebrating the Super Bowl win in 2021 was a spectacle. Many who watched from cold places likely had a warm feeling for Tampa as a place they’d like to go.
"Hosting a Super Bowl made it clear to others that we can host any convention, any big group, because we’re able to host a Super Bowl responsibly and safely during a pandemic," shared Santiago Corrada, president and CEO of Visit Tampa Bay.
Corrada’s job is to bring conventions and tourism to the Bay Area.
In 2021 construction here was racing, despite COVID-19, so that hotels, restaurants, and other businesses, could get ready for the big game.
Corrada says on Super Bowl Sunday, revenue was up nearly 200 percent over the previous year, despite everything.
Tampa hosted the Super Bowl during the coronavirus pandemic in 2021.
"It was happening during a pandemic with our team in the Super Bowl instead of another city that would have brought visitors and fans and we still saw these kinds of numbers," Corrada stated.
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Single mom Alexia Shepard was also impacted by the 2021 Super Bowl in Tampa. She and her two young children were on the edge of homelessness and had slept in her car.
"Now, she’s going to live in 1,200-plus square feet of safe and secure housing," Tim Marks told FOX 13 news in 2021. Marks is the president and CEO of Metropolitan Ministries.
Buccaneers fans cheer after the home team won the Super Bowl in Tampa.
Tampa’s Super Bowl Host Committee, the NFL, and Metropolitan Ministries put Alexia and her children in a new apartment and helped her pay for nursing training.
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Since we first reported the story, Marks says, Alexia has moved to a place of her own and has a good job.
Fans cheer outside of Raymond James Stadium following a Buccaneers win in 2021.
Her family was one of 20 helped by Metro Ministries. The organization received $200 thousand from the NFL. It was part of the League and Host Committee’s Forever 55 program. It brought millions of dollars to local charities as part of Super Bowl LV in 2021 in Tampa.
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"There will be a long-term impact for the moms and the dads and the children that were helped. This focus that we brought to the initiative was to care for 20 families," said Marks.
Those families, along with others who were helped by Forever 55, maybe the lasting impact of a Super Bowl that helped bring a future to Alexia and her children and helped Tampa’s skyline continue to grow despite a pandemic.