NFL: Santa Clara to Host Super Bowl L

The only previous Super Bowl played in northern California was at Stanford Stadium in 1985

NFL owners on Tuesday picked Santa Clara over Miami to host the 50th Super Bowl in 2016.

The news first came in a tweet from San Francisco 49ers CEO Jed York.

Minutes later, at a news conference in Boston, where the decision was made, a beaming York repeated how "excited" he was about having the Big Game played "in the heart of Silicon Valley."

It was the first time in a decade that a Super Bowl was awarded on the first ballot.

Super Bowl committee chair Daniel Lurie, and CEO of Tipping Point Community,  thanked the mayors of San Francisco, Santa Clara and San Jose for working as a community and pulling together to make this dream a reality. The entire region will benefit from the boost of hosting the game.

"This is a huge moment," Lurie said. "We're excited to show what the Bay Area has to offer at Levi's Stadium."

MORE: Reaction on Twitter to Super Bowl Bid

Lurie said they'd party on Tuesday night and hunker down to work on Wednesday; there's only 33 months to go before the premier football event.

Back in Santa Clara, where about 80 supporters were cheering at City Hall, a jubilant Mayor Jamie Matthews said, "Before we built  a stadium, we landed the 50th Super Bowl." When he heard the news, he said, "a shot of electricity ran through me."

He estimated that the region would reap between $300 million to $500 million, with happy game-goers dining at restaurants, staying in hotels and visiting the Bay Area's top tourist spots.

VIDEO: Super Bowl L Will Bring Millions to Bay Area

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee has been publicly gracious about losing the San Francisco 49ers, who have played at the aging Candlestick Park and who will  now play in the high-tech, $1.2 billion stadium in Santa Clara, 45 miles away, starting in 2014.

Lee learned the learned the news during a peppy ceremony to  honor the Golden State Warriors and point guard Stephen Curry for their NBA  playoff run. He was handed a note about the winning bid. And his announcement drew cheers from the crowd at San Francisco City Hall.

Lee tweeted he was "proud to be the host of Super Bowl L."

MORE: Guide to Surviving Super Bowl L in the Bay Area

Later, Lee added: “Are we ready for some football, San Francisco Bay Area? Make no mistake, we put forward an incredible bid and that’s because the San Francisco Bay Area is quite simply the best place to host Super Bowl 50.

"It is an honor to get this great opportunity to host one of our nation’s most historic celebrations and we will host the best, most innovative and most philanthropic Super Bowl in the history of the game."

This will be the first time in 28 years that the Super Bowl will be hosted in the Bay Area. The last time was in 1985 at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto.

Most expected Santa Clara to win the bid. It may not even be so much about what the small city of about 120,000 45 miles southeast of San Francisco has going for it - but what Florida didn't.

MORE: Bay Area Prepares to Make its Super Bowl Bid

The Sunshine State recently failed to pass a funding mechanism that would’ve provided needed improvement’s to the aging Sun Life stadium where the Dolphins play, considered a lynchpin of its bid. Multibillionaire Dolphins owner Stephen Ross said it would cost $350 million to upgrade the stadium, but he didn't want to pay for them himself.

The new, high-tech San Francisco 49ers stadium, which will top $1.2 billion when the construction is complete, is set to open in 2014. Levi Strauss, headquartered in San Francisco, recently announced a $220 million naming rights deal to brand the new arena. The stadium will be solar-powered and offer high-speed WiFi for 75,000 fans.

In addition, the Bay Area's Super Bowl committee has lined up $30 million dollars in funding pledges from Bay Area companies such as Apple, Google and Hewlett-Packard. A total of $8 million of that is earmarked for Bay Area charities.  

Also on Tuesday, the NFL also announced that Houston will host  Super Bowl LI in 2017.

The full list of who comprised the Super Bowd bid commitee:

  • Nikesh Arora, CBO of Google
  • Robert Mailer Anderson, Author
  • Todd Bradley, EVP of Hewlett Packard
  • Willie Brown, former Mayor of San Francisco
  • Lloyd Dean, President & CEO of Dignity Health
  • Joe D'Alessandro, President & CEO of SF Travel
  • Pat Gallagher, Former President of Giants Enterprises
  • John Goldman, Former President of San Francisco Symphony
  • Carl Guardino, President & CEO of Silicon Valley Leadership Group
  • Thomas Keller, Chef & Restaurateur
  • Chris Kelly, Entrepreneur & Former Facebook Executive
  • Daniel Lurie, Founder & CEO of Tipping Point Community
  • Stephen Luczo, President & CEO of Seagate
  • Michael O’Hara Lynch, former Head of Global Sponsorship of Visa
  • Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo!
  • Mary Murphy, Partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
  • Laurene Powell Jobs, Co-founder of Emerson Collective
  • Condoleezza Rice, former U.S. Secretary of State
  • Joseph Saunders, Chairman & CEO of Visa
  • Charles Schwab, Founder & CEO of Charles Schwab Corporation
  • George Seifert, former San Francisco 49ers Coach
  • Charlotte Shultz, Chief of Protocol of San Francisco
  • Jeff Ubben, Founder & CEO of ValueAct Capital
  • Jim Wunderman, President & CEO of Bay Area Council
  • Steve Young, former San Francisco 49ers Quarterback
  • Gideon Yu, President & Co-owner of San Francisco 49ers

NBC Bay Area's Lori Preuitt, Adrian Holeyman, Marianne Favro, Joe Rosato Jr. and Bob Redell, and Bay City News contributed to this report.

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