Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville

Jacksonville hosted Super Bowl XXXIX on Sunday, February 6, 2005, at the stadium on the Northbank that was then called Alltel Stadium and is now EverBank Stadium. NFL.com records the result: the New England Patriots beat the Philadelphia Eagles 24 to 21. It remains the only Super Bowl played in Jacksonville.

The city won the game in a vote of NFL owners in 2000, according to The Coastal. The Christian Science Monitor reported in February 2005 that Jacksonville had been chosen over Miami and Oakland, and that New Orleans had hosted nine Super Bowls and Miami eight while this was Jacksonville's first. News4JAX reported that the game drew 78,125 fans, that tickets averaged $550, and that more than 100,000 fans, media and celebrities came to Jacksonville that first weekend of February. Paul McCartney played the halftime show, and the Florida A&M Marching 100 marched into Alltel Stadium before kickoff.

The doubts were about size and hotel rooms. Speaking in December 2003, the president of the Jacksonville Super Bowl Host Committee told the Jacksonville Daily Record that Jacksonville would be a first-time host in the smallest market to ever host the game. The committee drew its footprint wide, from Georgia's Golden Isles to the north, Daytona Beach to the south and Lake City to the west, to cover the visitor load.

The league's room requirement was the hard part. A December 2002 Daily Record report says Jacksonville had to provide 17,500 rooms for NFL use, that the committee had about 11,000 hotel commitments at the time, and that it had assurances from 12 cruise ships that would be docked from downtown to Talleyrand. The Christian Science Monitor listed the other league demands as 700 limousines for the week and facilities for 650 corporate jets, which Jacksonville could meet.

The groundwork went back two decades. Jacksonville Today reports that the floating hotel idea was first raised in 1982 by former Mayor Jake Godbold, whose administration pitched for the 1985 or 1986 Super Bowl. The NFL also required a host hotel of at least 750 rooms, and Mayor John Delaney's answer was the 966-room Adams Mark on the Downtown riverfront, opened in 2001 and later converted to the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront.

The ships are the image most people tie to Jacksonville's Super Bowl. The Christian Science Monitor reported that city leaders leased five cruise ships for $11.7 million and positioned them on the St. Johns River near the stadium. In a December 2003 talk reported by the Daily Record, a host committee planner said the ships would add 3,600 rooms and double the hotel capacity of downtown Jacksonville, and that the public could buy lunches and dinners aboard.

Where the ships tied up depended on the bridges. As early as September 2001 the committee told the Daily Record that the bigger ships could not get under the Mathews Bridge and would be docked just north of it at Talleyrand. Jacksonville Today reports how it worked out: the Seven Seas Navigator docked Downtown in front of the Adams Mark, the Carnival Miracle used the cruise terminal JAXPORT had opened in 2003 off Heckscher Drive, and Holland America brought the Zuiderdam, Zaandam and Volendam to the Talleyrand Marine Terminal. Together the ships provided more than 3,500 rooms close to Downtown, with shuttle buses running around the clock.

The ships also had a lasting side effect on the port. Jacksonville Today notes that Carnival has continued to call at the Heckscher Drive terminal since the Super Bowl year. The economics were less flattering: a 2018 Jacksonville Bar Association column in the Daily Record noted that spending aboard the cruise ships left with them, a textbook case of what economists call leakage.

The stadium itself was barely a decade old. The Coastal reports that the city rebuilt almost all of the old Gator Bowl into Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, which opened for the Jaguars' first regular season in 1995, and that Alltel signed a 10-year naming rights agreement two years later. Only the concrete ramp system from the old Gator Bowl was kept.

Hosting the Super Bowl required more. According to The Coastal, $47 million in renovations began in 2003 to prepare the stadium. News4JAX dates the improvements to 2003 and 2004 and lists the Bud Zone and escalators in the north and south end zones among them. After Alltel's deal expired in 2007, the stadium went back to the Jacksonville Municipal Stadium name before EverBank, TIAA Bank and EverBank again took the naming rights.

The renovated building still had to stretch for the night. The Christian Science Monitor, writing three days before kickoff, described 83,000 expected fans at Alltel Stadium, far above a normal Jaguars crowd, and a box office ticket price of $500 to $600. The stadium sits on the Northbank east of the Downtown core, which is why the Talleyrand ships to its north and the Southbank theme park across the St. Johns River were within a shuttle or water taxi ride; the 2001 plans described in the Daily Record called for water taxis, trolleys, ferries and trams so visitors would not need rental cars.

The host committee set out to build a party district from scratch. In December 2003 it told the Daily Record that Superfest would stretch from the T-U Center all the way to Metro Park as a temporary entertainment zone along the St. Johns River. News4JAX reports that the city spent $1.4 million to widen sidewalks and add landscaping along Bay Street between Liberty and Ocean streets, creating part of a three-mile pedestrian mall in the blocks now called the Elbow. Jacksonville Today adds that the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission lent more than $2 million to businesses opening restaurants, bars and clubs on Bay Street.

Across the river, the NFL Experience took over the site of JEA's Southside Generating Station, which operated from 1950 to 2002 and was cleared for the event. Jacksonville Today puts the theme park at 850,000 square feet; News4JAX estimates that 50,000 people visited it. That ground is now the Rivers Edge development across from the stadium. The Jacksonville Landing served as the central gathering place, and The Coastal reports that the Jacksonville Fairgrounds became a Super Bowl City with games, exhibits and autograph signings.

The city's bridges carried the branding. The Coastal reports that the NFL marketed the game around a building bridges theme, with the Main Street Bridge in the logo. Jacksonville Today notes that four bridges, including the Main Street, Acosta and Hart bridges, received decorative lighting, part of more than $10 million in public money spent before the game, along with a Northbank Riverwalk extension through Brooklyn.

The Jacksonville Super Bowl Host Committee was the liaison between the NFL and the community. In December 2003 it projected $250 million to $350 million in economic impact, 3,500 credentialed media, more than 100 events and 100,000 visitors, and said it needed to train and schedule 8,000 volunteers, about half of them ambassadors at the airports, hotels and cruise ships. Its volunteer form, now held in the Florida Blue Archives at the University of North Florida's Digital Commons, carried a nautical slogan built on the word voyage, a nod to the cruise ships that defined the Jacksonville plan.

John Peyton was mayor of Jacksonville during Super Bowl week, and the Christian Science Monitor reported that he and other city leaders hoped investors and tourists watching the coverage would like what they saw. Whether the projected impact arrived is debated: the 2018 Daily Record column cited a study that found hosting a Super Bowl had no measurable impact on income in the host city.