Santa Clara and Pittsburgh Seek Impact from Super Bowl, NFL Draft

Silicon Valley in Northern California and Steeltown in Western Pennsylvania may not appear to have much in common on the surface. But in 2026, Santa Clara and Pittsburgh are going to enter a small fraternity of destinations that are doing something extraordinary: hosting the NFL’s two marquee events.

For Santa Clara, Super Bowl LX on February 8 will be a repeat experience after hosting Super Bowl 50  — 10 years ago. It’s yet another opportunity to take advantage of Levi’s Stadium and the hordes of fans that will flock to the destination for the end-of-season championship. And with the FIFA World Cup on the heels this summer at the same venue, the NFL showcase may only be a precursor of the opportunity ahead as more major events call the area home. The question for destination leaders: How best to take advantage of a Super Bowl that has elements across the entire Bay Area?

In Pittsburgh, the city’s first time hosting the NFL Draft on April 23–25 offers the chance to deliver some unique and memorable moments — including an event with footprints on either side of the Allegheny River, one of the three rivers that define downtown. But how does the destination prepare its hotels, restaurants and hospitality community to know what to expect and what not to expect when hundreds of thousands of visitors come to experience the event?

With the NFL trusting its largest events to the two destinations, SportsTravel spoke with destination leaders in both areas to assess how they are executing their game plans and what success will look like when it’s all finished.

Santa Clara Prepares for a Double

Located between San Francisco and San Jose, the destination of Santa Clara has one distinct benefit over its larger neighbors: Levi’s Stadium. And that geographic advantage means that the destination will be the end game for anyone hoping to attend the big game come Super Bowl LX.

But it’s not just the Super Bowl: The destination will also host six games during the FIFA World Cup in June and July, resulting in a remarkable double bill that no other destination has ever achieved in the same year.

“It really puts us on a unique global stage where we’re seen as a premier destination for global sporting events and other experiences,” said Christine Lawson, the president and CEO of Discover Santa Clara.

Step one to make the most of the opportunity has involved constant communication with area hotels and partners. The destination features 11 hotel properties offering 3,100 rooms.

“The unique aspect of that is that those hotels are very close to the stadium and the perimeter of what will be the whole Super Bowl event,” she said. “So it’s really important that we coordinate with them so that the visitor experience and also that of our community members is smooth and seamless.”

How to Keep People in Town?

The trick for Lawson and her staff of nine employees is finding a strategy to convince those in the stadium to stay in the market. It’s the million-dollar question for a destination that happens to be the site of the stadium: How do you keep people in town?

For the team at Discover Santa Clara, the answer is a concentrated approach including the creation of a fan guide that will offer visitors the full range of options around the destination to explore. It also includes an AI-powered trip planner that can customize the experience for visitors as well.

The last piece of the destination’s strategy is a public relations and communications blitz to highlighting the city’s arts and culture, attractions, shopping and diverse culinary scene.

“We’re confident that while it’s a regional event, that people are going to feel the energy that’s in Santa Clara and want to be around that pre, during and post-Super Bowl,” Lawson said.

Asked what success looks like from an event like the Super Bowl, Lawson cited economic impact and the creation of jobs, for starters. The event itself is expected to generate about 5,000 jobs both temporary and long-term. But the real touchdown for the destination will come in repeat business, underscoring the importance of the public relations effort.

“The long game for us is really the repeat business,” she said. “How do we turn a visitor that’s here for the Super Bowl or FIFA and showcase enough of the city so they get enough of a taste that they have a curiosity and desire to come back?”

“The long game for us is really the repeat business.”
— Christine Lawson, Discover Santa Clara

When the game is over, Discover Santa Clara is considering a post-event report that goes beyond an estimated economic impact of hosting the Super Bowl itself. The metric Lawson and her team will look at closely is the return on the communications effort to showcase the destination as more than just the site of the stadium.

“All this work that we’re doing to promote the brand of Santa Clara, what’s the measurement there?” she said. “What was the impact on visitors from that perspective on repeat business and how much can we capture that?”

Indeed, that may be the most important factor of all for Lawson as she thinks about two of the biggest sports events in the world headed to the area just months apart.

“Once the ball’s thrown for the last time, or the soccer ball’s been kicked for the last time in July,” she said, “our goal then is leveraging that moment and making sure that the groundwork we’ve laid with these events results in return business to Santa Clara.”

The Draft Comes to Pittsburgh

In Pittsburgh, the city isn’t just preparing for one NFL game. It’s essentially preparing for three.

Over time, the NFL Draft has become one of the league’s marquee events and by far its largest driver of visitation. Stretched over three days, the Draft will encompass two different parts of downtown Pittsburgh over its seven rounds.

“This will be the largest sporting event that has occurred in Pittsburgh, and we believe even across the state of Pennsylvania because of the way the draft has grown,” said Jim Britt, vice president of sports events for VisitPittsburgh, noting that Philadelphia hosted when the draft began making the modern-day rounds to different cities in 2017.

The Pittsburgh region has been no stranger to big events, including last year’s U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club. But the Draft is a different animal since the venue is the city itself.

“We have to physically build a venue, which is such a unique opportunity and challenge for the sporting world,” Britt said. “If the Steelers play an AFC Championship Game, Acrisure Stadium is standing there. They have restrooms, they have concessions, they have security guards. This is re-imagining all of those things and then doing it in a way that will welcome the largest crowd we’ve ever seen as well.”

Plans call for draft activations to take place in and around the Steelers home stadium as well as Point State Park, which sits across the river on the westernmost tip of downtown.

“What’s unique about our Draft is that we have a river running right through the middle of it,” he said. “The Allegheny River will separate these two sites and certainly adds some complexion into the travel and the fan experience for how do I get from one site to the other? What’s the quickest route there and how do we do so safely?”

In addition to working with the NFL and various city departments, VisitPittsburgh has also partnered with P3R, which organizes its city marathon, on logistics for the event. “When VisitPittsburgh and SportsPittsburgh talk about what we do best, this is what we do,” Britt said. “Join interested parties and bring all of the right people within the market here to the table to make sure that events are able to really grow and thrive.”

Telling the Destination’s Story

The region also helps to tell a narrative that it may not be as different a market as Santa Clara, for example, as people expect, including a surrounding region becoming known as a new hub of the tech industry. While the Pittsburgh of the past may have been based on steel, it also has its share of new technologies. “We are leading the charge in robotics and AI and a number of industries,” Britt noted.

But through the Draft, Pittsburgh also wants to tell the story of its own football culture. Among more than 25 Pro Football Hall of Fame members who call the area their original home: Joe Montana, Johnny Unitas, Dick Butkus.

“These guys came from these tiny little towns, a lot of them with a legacy of legendary football products coming out of there,” Britt said. “And we want folks to go see those towns, see where these guys came from, explore our region, see what Pittsburgh is, that we’re a lot more than a stadium and the golden triangle of downtown. There’s so much to do and see. So we’re hoping folks will get out to explore it all.”

And yet, the destination is also being realistic with its surrounding communities on what to expect. While no one knows what the final attendee count will be, NFL estimates at recent past drafts were 600,000 in 2025 in Green Bay and an astounding 775,000 in 2024 in Detroit. Pittsburgh has been in regular dialogue with both recent hosts to gauge the movements of fans at those events. Detroit provides perhaps the best recent comparison as their 2024 Draft was also held downtown.

The results of those discussions have concluded that many people will be likely to remain downtown or in the immediate area. Britt and his team have used those data points to communicate to surrounding destinations what to expect.

“There will be some impact that is spread throughout the county and throughout our shouldering counties,” Britt said. “But we’re trying to make sure that folks know that if you’re at a certain distance, if you’re in one of those collar counties, you might see an uptick but you’re not likely to see a flood.”

As an example, restaurants in outlying areas of recent drafts stocked up on extra food supplies only to be left with a larger unused inventory when massive crowds failed to materialize if they were far enough away, Britt said. “We’re trying to help not only our hotels, but the restaurant industry — all of our partners — to navigate any of those challenges the best we can.”

As a destination, Pittsburgh is also looking at the legacy of hosting the event. Similar to Santa Clara, that legacy includes storytelling about the destination. Part of that plan is to emphasize more than $600 million in recent downtown improvements that were inspired in part by the showcase of the Draft.

There are also more concrete plans including a tree planting program in partnership with several local foundations and investments in youth sports, including girls flag football, which is a priority for the Pittsburgh Steelers and across the region. A legacy committee that includes Steelers ownership has proposed a traveling museum that can tell the region’s football story and be activated at events such as high school football games.

‘You Can Host Anything’

Looking to the draft itself, while the final attendance numbers and estimated economic impact will be determined for those who visit Pittsburgh, it’s the 50-plus million people watching at home that may also have an impact — and make the effort even more worthwhile.

“You look at that Thursday night, they’re going to call 30-some names but they’re going to fill four or five hours of airtime,” Britt said. “And a lot of that time is going to be spent showing off our beautiful city, showing how well we can deliver an event of this size and scale. That’s one of the things that I’ve heard from my peers in the markets who’ve hosted before — that it’s a launch pad. People recognize if you can host the NFL Draft, then you can host anything.”