NFL to scrap bidding process for Super Bowl host site

The NFL plans to do away with its process of accepting bids to host a Super Bowl.

The next available Super Bowl is No. 57 in 2023, and the league intends to choose one optimal site and enter into negotiations with that city, Daniel Kaplan of the Sports Business Journal reports.

In the past, the league has allowed cities to bid on the Big Game, but the NFL would prefer to have more control on where the Super Bowl is held.

"The process is really focused on identifying the really optimal destination for the Super Bowl, as opposed to a process where you may have multiple cities spending significant time and energy around a bid process," NFL senior vice president of events Peter O'Reilly said.

Miami and New Orleans have hosted the most Super Bowls, and fellow warm-weather locales Los Angeles, Tampa, and San Diego often get the spectacle. The league has also sprinkled in stops at newly constructed stadiums.

"This makes it less subject to the whims of a vote," former events organizer Frank Supovitz said of the change. "When you have a number of different choices that are available to the ownership to vote on you don't have control obviously where it is going to go. It gives the NFL some ability to strategize where it goes from year to year."

After Super Bowl LII this Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis; opened in 2016, the game will head to the recently opened Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta next year, Hard Rock Stadium in Miami in 2020, back to Tampa for 2021, and then to the under-construction Los Angeles Stadium in 2022.