VEGAS BABY! The 2024 Super Bowl Will Be Played In Las Vegas. (As Should Every Single One After)

LVRJ - Las Vegas has been chosen as the host city for Super Bowl LVIII in 2024 pending final approval from owners, the Review-Journal has learned, according to sources familiar with the process. An official announcement is expected on Wednesday when the league’s owners meet in Dallas.

The NFL and the Raiders declined to comment on Monday.

The original hosting duties for Super Bowl LVIII were awarded to New Orleans. But when the NFL recently added a 17th game to its schedule, the end of the regular season was pushed ahead by a week. As a result, the 2024 season-ending championship game was moved from Feb. 4 to Feb. 11, and created a conflict with New Orleans’ annual Mardi Gras celebration.

New Orleans surrendered Super Bowl LVIII in favor of assuming the assignment for Super Bowl LIX in 2025, when Super Bowl Sunday would be Feb. 9 and not be in conflict with Mardi Gras.

LETS. FUCKIN. GO.

Am I an idiot for having assumed for like 2 years now that this was already a done deal? Or am I just a soothsayer and predicted it?

Because since the Raiders announced they were moving, I've been telling people that the 2024 Super Bowl is the year everything changes. And that we have to be there.

After this Super Bowl, everybody that attends, the entire league, and anybody with a brain pretty much is going to say, "wow. Vegas is the perfect place to do this. It was made to host the Super Bowl. Let's just do it here every year."

You know why?

Because it's true.

I've been to many Super Bowls in many different cities: New Orleans, Miami, Arizona, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Houston, Minneapolis, San Fran, and you want to know who did the best job out of all of those at hosting?

Indianapolis. I kid you not.

Even though I watched Mario Manningham rip New England's heart out right in front of my eyeballs, I still left town on Monday morning blown away at how good a job the city, Lucas Oil, and all the surrounding businesses did hosting. It was like New Orleans in that you could walk around everywhere downtown with drinks, hopping from bar to bar, from event tent to event tent, and everything was condensed in and around the stadium. The hotel zone was right next to the entertainment zone, which was right next to the stadium. You didn't need to take $150 cabs or ubers everywhere, you didn't have to wait in outrageously long lines to get in everywhere, and the locals were nice as could be. 

Houston, Jacksonville, Phoenix are all great places (well maybe not Jacksonville) but way too large and spread out. Took hours and sky high prices to get anywhere. The party situation sucked too, but not as bad as the ones in Minneapolis, San Fran, and Miami. Unless you were a dude who enjoyed hanging out with 99 other dudes for every 1 female, and paying $900 for the privilege to do so. Then they were cool.

Vegas solves all of this.

More hotel rooms than you know what to do with. All budgets and price ranges too. You fancy? You got the Wynn and Bellagio right there. You not looking to spend a fortune because you'll never be in your room anyway? Excalibur or Luxor are calling your name.

Restaurants impossible to get into on high-traffic tourist weekends? Never in Vegas. Well always in Vegas, but they're used to high volume weekends every weekend all year, but they have a zillion top notch ones as opposed to a small handful of good/great ones like other cities. 

Entertainment also needs no discussion here but I'll do it anyway. Las Vegas is the entertainment capital of the world. Plain and simple. More bars, clubs, strip clubs, theatre shows, peep shows, whatever you're into. They have them and they have lots of them. And they're all in a few square miles. Meaning you can walk to everything. Including the stadium.

This place is fuckin stunning.

And it's right behind the strip of hotels on the other side of Dean Martin Dr.

Meaning depending how far down the strip you are, it's walkable. At the worst, you're talking a $20 uber.

The Super Bowl, is arguably the biggest entertainment and sporting event in the world besides the Olympics, and Las Vegas is the biggest entertainment capital on the planet.

The two were made for each other.

Make this a yearly thing and follow it up with making the Final Four a yearly Vegas thing also. Done and done.

p.s. - you gotta love how shocked people are by the "success" of the Raiders. 

That opened the door for Las Vegas, which has quickly emerged as one of the NFL’s bright new markets after the arrival of the Raiders in 2020 and the coinciding opening of Allegiant Stadium.

Las Vegas has quickly emerged as one of the NFL’s go-to markets for big events. In addition to Super Bowl LVIII, Las Vegas is also scheduled to host the Pro Bowl on Feb. 6 and the NFL draft April 28-30.

Man, a pro sports team in the sports betting capital of the world worked out well. Who woulda thought?

p.p.s. - kinda gotta respect the clout that Mardi Gras has. Such a monster party that the city of New Orleans said, "hey NFL we got a scheduling conflict. We gotta move your little championship game back a year. sorry. thanks."