Super Bowl 59 will take place at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana, in front of approximately 75,000 spectators in exactly 260 days. It will be the eleventh time that the largest game in professional sports has been held in New Orleans, and the eighth time that it has taken place inside the Superdome, home of the New Orleans Saints. Now, Hell could truly freeze over on February 8th, and I’m positive that the game would still be played on February 9th, 2025, considering how popular the NFL is and what the Super Bowl has come to represent over the last six decades.
That doesn’t mean, however, that a public standoff between the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District (LSED) and the New Orleans Saints wasn’t going to complicate things and make things uglier than they needed to be, if only momentarily. The two parties decided to undertake a much-needed $550 million repair project in 2019, and it was expected to be completed by this summer. But as Saints President Dennis Lauscha told the Associated Press, “dissatisfaction over the state’s posture in parallel negotiations towards a long-term Superdome lease” was the reason the team had been ignoring its last $11.4 million payment since December.
The LSED made their concerns about their talks with the New Orleans Saints public on Wednesday, saying, “That is a completely separate and independent agreement.” The Superdome Renovation Project Development Agreement does not provide a legal justification for payments to be withheld in light of negotiations for a longer term extension.
The two parties seemed prepared to resume collaboration just one day later, after a conversation between Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry and New Orleans Saints owner Gayle Benson. On Friday, Lauscha and LSED board chairman Rob Vosbein had “a productive call.”
“The New Orleans Saints diffused a public standoff between the NFL team and state officials who oversee the stadium that will host the next Super Bowl by making a $11.4 million payment towards Superdome renovations on Friday.”
