The NFL have confirmed that Levi's Stadium, home of the San Francisco 49ers, will host Super Bowl LX in 2026.
NFL owners voted to approve the decision during Monday's Spring League Meeting. As a result, the Super Bowl will now return to the Bay Area for the first time in a decade. The same venue in Santa Clara hosted the golden anniversary 50th edition in 2016, two years after it opened, which the Payton Manning -led Denver Broncos won against the Carolina Panthers.
The announcement comes after a reportedly reduced desire from franchises to host Super Bowl 60. That was apparently due to being in the same year that the FIFA World Cup will predominantly take place in the United States.
As many as 11 stadiums where NFL teams play their home games will host matches at the tournament during the summer months. The other five venues are in Canada and Mexico, two in the former and three in the latter.
Levi's Stadium is one of those 11. The prospect of having the Super Bowl and World Cup coming to their door within mere months of each other did not dissuade the Niners from bidding.
Team president Al Guido stated, per the Associated Press, that it was nonetheless a "competitive process" to be awarded the game by the NFL. In total, it will be the third time that the Bay Area hosts a Super Bowl, having done so in 1984 too.
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Almost 40 years ago, at Super Bowl 19, the 49ers won their second Lombardi Trophy after beating the Miami Dolphins at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto. They will hope history repeats itself in three years in Northern California.
In the meantime, the Las Vegas Raiders ' Allegiant Stadium will host the next Super Bowl in February. The Superdome, which the New Orleans Saints call home, is the venue for Super Bowl 59 in 2025.
West Coast cities also hosted the previous two final games of the season. State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, hosted the Kansas City Chiefs ' win earlier this year. SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles was where the Los Angeles Rams won on home turf the season before that.
Niners president Guido hopes that rotation will continue in the future. "I think hosting this now in a competitive process ten years after we hosted the first one," he told PA, "when you have other major markets that will continue to host, both SoFi Stadium, Allegiant Stadium, a lot has changed since we hosted.
"I do believe that this puts us up for future Super Bowls. We have to pull this one off." Bay Area Host Committee president and CEO Zaileen Janmohamed is equally excited.
"[It's] going to be an amazing year for our region," she told PA. "We have this incredible opportunity that doesn't really exist anywhere else to unite the entire region with sport across multiple sporting events."
