The NFL is holding their annual May owners’ meeting this week, and every two years said meeting includes a vote on two of the upcoming Super Bowl hosts. In May 2013, that featured the San Francisco 9ers being selected to host Super Bowl 50 two years after Levi’s Stadium opened.
This year, the owners are voting on Super Bowl 57 and 58, which are scheduled to take place in 2023 and 2024. The vote has not happened yet, but multiple reports (first by SBJ’s Daniel Kaplan) have the league awarding those games to Arizona and New Orleans.
The San Francisco 49ers were expected to bid on the two games, with team president Al Guido announcing that at the team’s State of the Franchise event last year. The league has kept things fairly quiet in the process, and the 49ers did not get the games.
49ers beat writer Cam Inman is reporting the team plans on bidding for Super Bowls 59 and 60, which will take place in 2025 and 2026. According to Inman, the organization is hoping, “a massive, mixed-use development should be completed next door to Levi’s Stadium,” and that would help boost their bid.
As Inman pointed out, the 49ers could face stiff competition from what will be the Las Vegas Raiders. Construction has begun on their stadium in Las Vegas, with an opening scheduled for 2020. Even if there are any delays, a stadium only needs to be open two seasons to host a Super Bowl. The league has now handed out Super Bowls through 2024 (2019: Atlanta, 2020: Miami, 2021: Tampa, 2022: Los Angeles), which gives the Raiders and Las Vegas plenty of time to finish the project.
The league features some regulars in the Super Bowl rotation, including New Orleans, Arizona, South Florida, and Tampa. If the 49ers want to get into the rotation, they’ll be competing regularly with Las Vegas and Los Angeles. That will mean four stadiums between the 49ers, Raiders, Rams, and Chargers. If I had to rank the likelihood of becoming regulars in the rotation, I’d say Los Angeles and Las Vegas will eventually be neck-and-neck ahead of the Bay Area.