Do Bank of America Stadium renovations bring Charlotte closer to hosting a Super Bowl?

Renovations to Bank of America Stadium are on the way.

Does that mean a Super Bowl in Charlotte is on the way, too?

The short answer: The stadium upgrades certainly don’t hurt the cause.

The City Council and Tepper Sports and Entertainment unveiled plans earlier this month for the largest and most expensive renovation yet to the home of the Carolina Panthers and Charlotte FC. And last week, the city agreed to send $650 million in public funds to push those renovations through — upgrades that include replacing the seats in the upper and lower bowls, stadium safety and security enhancements, updating the scoreboard, placing video boards outside the stadium and more.

Public officials and business leaders claim the renovations, which are planned to be completed in 2029, will make Charlotte home to the “best outdoor stadium in America.” And while that is an important development, that’s not the only thing the NFL considers when the league selects sites for the Super Bowl — the most-viewed annual sporting event in the nation.

In an email to The Charlotte Observer, an NFL spokesperson said that there are five criteria the league uses to determine whether a city is prepared to host the Super Bowl. Those criteria include “host city vision, stadium attributes, weather, hotel and venue inventory, and local partnerships (including government).”

While the “holistic picture is considered,” per the league spokesperson, some of these criteria do appear to have certain benchmarks, according to multiple media reports. One is weather. According to a CBS report in Feb. 2024, the league chooses venues that either have a roof/dome — which the Panthers will not with these renovations — or venues that have an expected average game-day temperature above 50 degrees. The average high in Charlotte the week leading up to Super Bowl Sunday this past year — from Monday, Feb. 6, 2023, to Sunday, Feb. 12, 2023 — was 59.7 degrees.

The league has deviated from these benchmarks before. For instance, in 2014, the NFL hosted the Super Bowl in the open-air MetLife Stadium in New York.

Other criteria have benchmarks, too. Sporting News reported in 2023 that the game needs to be hosted in a market that hosts an NFL team, that the venue has a minimum of 70,000 seating capacity and that hotel spaces equal at least 35% of the stadium’s capacity.

These requirements appear to be satisfied by Charlotte. Bank of America Stadium has a capacity of just over 75,000, and Vinay Patel, a local hotel owner and Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority board member, told Charlotte City Council last month that “we have the opportunity to go get (a Super Bowl) at least once after this” and that “we have everything we need that the NFL would look for.”

The process for selecting a Super Bowl site can vary in length. First, per the league, the NFL begins by gauging hosting interest across all of its teams. Then, a host city and its team work on a proposal in partnership with the league office before the proposal is reviewed by the Fan Engagement and Major Events Advisory Committee, a group of 11 NFL clubs represented by owners and presidents.

After that, the proposal is taken to NFL ownership for a vote. Twenty-four of 32 affirmative votes are required for the motion to pass.

The next three Super Bowl sites are determined. Super Bowl LIX (2025) is slated for New Orleans. Super Bowl LX (2026) will be in San Francisco. And Super Bowl LXI (2027) is planned for Los Angeles. Future sites are to be announced.

Charlotte city officials are confident that the renovations will put them in line to secure big events, such as international soccer matches, a Super Bowl and the NFL Draft. And that’s true even without a dome on the stadium: 15 of the last 24 Super Bowls occurred in domes or stadiums with retractable roofs, the Observer previously reported.

Charlotte Sports Foundation executive director Danny Morrison leads an organization that seeks out big-time sports opportunities and brings them to the city. CSF did so earlier this month when it announced the arrival of a pro tennis event scheduled for later this year.

Morrison told The Observer that while some things have likely changed since he left his post as president of the Panthers in 2017, the “critical elements” of compelling high-profile sports events to Charlotte — quality of the stadium, city infrastructure, number of hotel rooms, convention space, hospitality venue space — have only improved in the past seven years.

“As I’ve said, you’ve got this classic American stadium, and with the improvements, I believe it’ll be the best outdoor stadium in America,” Morrison said. “So when you have the best outdoor stadium in America, I think it certainly makes it attractive as we try to make high-profile events to Charlotte. ... The feedback that we get from fans who come to Charlotte for these high-profile events is very positive because of the quality of the hotels in the Uptown area, the walk-ability (of the city), the fact that the stadium is in the center city, the restaurants, the social scene.

“So a lot of the elements that you would want to be able to host a mega-event are in place.”