A New Stadium Isn’t The Key To Scoring The Super Bowl — But It Doesn’t Hurt

Since Mercedes-Benz Stadium opened in 2017, Atlanta has been the site of several major sporting events, including the college football playoff.

Danny Karnik / Associated Press

Build it and the Super Bowl will come.

While that’s not exactly how the sites of the NFL’s championship extravaganza are determined, it sure doesn’t hurt to have a brand new, billion-dollar facility in your city.

Including the 2004 game in Houston, the league will have staged nine Super Bowls in metropolitan areas with new stadiums in the past 15 years: Detroit, Phoenix, Dallas, Indianapolis, New York, San Francisco, Minneapolis and, now, Atlanta. Arizona and Houston actually have hosted twice, but obviously neither of those buildings was new the second time around.