The economic impact of this year’s Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale was released Tuesday in a study by Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business, hailing it as Arizona’s biggest special event yet.
ASU economists said this year’s game generated more than $719 million in total economic impact for the Valley. That’s higher than the $600 million impact that the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee had previously expected and was almost 31 percent more than, adjusted for inflation, what the Super Bowl generated for metro Phoenix in 2008.
It was also the highest figure of any special event in Arizona history, the study said.
The study was commissioned by the Arizona Commerce Authority and released by the host committee. It focused on the nine days leading up to game day on Feb. 1, when 1 million people flocked to downtown Phoenix and 500,000 to Scottsdale.
Gross economic impact is defined as what visitors spent directly on Super Bowl events and the ripple effects the activities had on indirect spending.
