Roger Goodell Hopeful Browns New Stadium Will Host Super Bowl

Roger Goodell Hopeful Browns New Stadium Will Host Super Bowl

Dreams of a Super Bowl in Cleveland could become a reality one day.

On Thursday, the Cleveland Browns hosted their official groundbreaking ceremony for their new stadium in Brook Park, with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in attendance to celebrate the milestone.

Asked about the possibility of the NFL's biggest event coming to Cleveland, Goodell made it clear that the game isn't just about the stadium, but also about the infrastructure around it.

"I have no doubt that this stadium is going to be Super Bowl quality. Zero doubt about that, said Goodell. I think the challenge now for this community, now hopefully this stadium and this development is going to be transformative, is how the rest of the facilities in the community develop, because we don't just have 72,000 or 75,000 people coming to the Super Bowl, it's close to 200,000 people that come in."

Goodell pointed to the need for more hotels, both near the stadium but also the surrounding area, but also the airport as the two biggest factors in Cleveland's realistically having a chance to host the big game one day.

Currently, the Haslam Sports Group has two hotels planned for the immediate development around the stadium. Cleveland Hopkins Airport, which will be right across the street from the new venue, began a major renovation estimated over $1 billion last fall.

Those are steps that will certainly help the cause of Cleveland getting a Super Bowl, but there's more work to do. Goodell mentioned an arbitrary number for hotels being somewhere in the high forties, while he believed Cleveland has about half of the venues needed.

In the meantime, Goodell did give Browns fans something else to be excited about. After the NFL hosted the NFL Draft in Cleveland back in 2021 with plenty of Covid-19 restrictions still in place, Goodell mentioned that the event should return to Northeast Ohio at some point soon.

"As we were battling through Covid and trying to get out of it, it was not the event that we expected, but this community came together and met those challenges and we pull the draft off here. But it wasn't, I think, the impact that was necessary, so Jimmy [Haslam] and I have talked about it a lot, I've talked about it with our committees. We look forward to coming back here with the draft for sure. I think it's important."