Super Bowl 2021 awarded to Los Angeles. CHARLOTTE, N.C. >> The Rams and the National Football League brought professional football back to Los Angeles in January, correcting a 23-year mistake that left the second-biggest market in the country without a team from the most popular sports league in North America.
Now the Super Bowl is coming back to the City of Angels, too.
That didn’t take long, did it?
In a sweeping vote by NFL owners on Tuesday in Charlotte, North Carolina, Los Angeles was awarded hosting duties for Super Bowl LV in 2021. The game will be played at the privately funded $2.6 billion stadium being built by Rams owner Stan Kroenke at the sports and entertainment hub he is constructing in Inglewood.
It will be the first Los Angeles area Super Bowl since Super Bowl XXVIII in Pasadena in 1993, and eighth overall.
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“This is a great day for L.A. and is reflective of a ton of hard work,” Kroenke said. “We couldn’t be happier bringing the Super Bowl back.”
Los Angeles was on the ballot for the 2020 and 2021 Super Bowls, and the NFL seemed willing to bend some rules to get around it’s rule that a new stadium must be in operation for two seasons before being eligible for a stadium.
The Rams Inglewood stadium is scheduled to open in 2019, which would have meant only one season under its belt had it been awarded the 2020 Super Bowl.
“They were potentially going to make some provisions,” Kroenke said.
The league ultimately decided there was no need to rush it, especially with South Florida such an attractive option.
In retrospect, it makes the most sense.
“You want it to be perfect, right? When you come back to L.A. after all those years, you want to be perfect,” Kroenke said. “So I think an extra year might be good.”
The reaction was immediate.
“Los Angeles is built to host the Super Bowl,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, in a statement. “We helped forge this great American tradition as its very first host in 1967; and now, at long last, we’re bringing it back where it belongs.”
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The NFL also decided on host sites for Super Bowl LIII (2019) and LIV (2020), with Atlanta getting the nod for 2019 and South Florida for 2020.
L.A. joined Atlanta, South Florida and Tampa on the ballots for Super Bowls LIV and LV, while New Orleans, Atlanta, South Florida and Tampa made up the ballot for Super Bowl LIII.