The Los Angeles Rams are set to start playing in California this season, and that already has the NFL thinking about bringing a Super Bowl to the city in the future. The league is reportedly considering hosting the Super Bowl in Los Angeles for the event in 2020 or 2021.
The Rams do not currently have a home stadium to call their own yet, but construction on that venue is expected to be completed by 2019. The league has not yet voted on where the Super Bowl will be for the 2019, 2020 and 2021 seasons, but that will happen in May when the owners have offseason meetings. Reports have Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami and Tampa Bay as the main candidates for the Super Bowl in 2020 and 2021.
The NFL had been trying to bring a team back to Los Angeles for a number of years, and now that the Rams are moving, the league has the chance to bring a Super Bowl to the city, as well. It's in the best interests of the league to promote the Rams and the city as they welcome back the NFL, and awarding a Super Bowl should only increase the enthusiasm for the franchise.
The league has a "guiding principle" that a stadium needs to have "two full seasons" of operation before hosting a Super Bowl, making the 2020 or 2021 events potential options. The league has brought the Super Bowl to recently-built stadiums over the past decade, including at Levi's Stadium, University of Phoenix Stadium, Lucas Oil Stadium and MetLife Stadium.
Houston and Minneapolis are already slated to host the next two Super Bowl games. The Minnesota Vikings will move into US Bank Stadium for the 2016 season after playing the past two years at TCF Bank Stadium at the University of Minnesota. The Rams will temporarily play at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum before moving into their new complex in 2019.
The Super Bowl has previously been held in Los Angeles seven times, the most recent being in 1993. The first Super Bowl game between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs was held at the Coliseum, while the most recent five events were held at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.
"We began discussions with local leaders almost immediately after the vote on how to bring the Super Bowl to Los Angeles," Rams EVP of football operations Kevin Demoff said. "We've continued those discussions with the NFL, and we're excited by the opportunity to bid for either 2020 or 2021."
