An estimated 113 million people watched on TV as the Kansas City Chiefs eked out a last-minute win against the Philadelphia Eagles February 12 at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., before a crowd of 68,000 people. But that was just for the game. 

For visitors and people in the Phoenix area and other nearby communities, the big game is only part of an event that spans more than a week and includes concerts, golf tournaments, parties, forums and even a race that locals compete in with their dogs.

All of these events are organized by a standing host committee that relies on a team of lawyers who volunteer their time to help ensure everything goes off smoothly – and maybe gain experience and connections that only an event on the scale of the Super Bowl can provide. 

“As transactional lawyers, we tend to toil in obscurity so this is a chance for lawyers to connect with lawyers coming from all over the country, in some cases from all over the world, and work on interesting contracts,” Kenneth Van Winkle, Jr., managing partner at Lewis Roca in Phoenix, told Legal Dive. “It can be fun to go home and say you did the contract with the Gin Blossoms for the concert, or you did the contract for the airplane hangar that Drake performed at before the game.”

Van Winkle, who relied on the help of some 30 lawyers at his firm to work on the thousands of contracts that are involved in hosting the big game, has been working with the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee since 2005. Since then, he’s helped the nonprofit group bid on multiple Super Bowls and other large-scale events, like the NCAA Final Four and Women’s Final Four in basketball, all of which are more than just the game; they’re multi-part events that Phoenix and surrounding areas invest time and money in because of the economic boost they bring to the state. 

“We’re a big geographical state but we’re relatively small in numbers,” Van Winkle said. “We do look at the Super Bowl [and other events like it] as a benefit to the cities, towns, counties, the state and native American communities.”

Small team 

The host committee has a core group of paid professionals who write the bid proposals for big events years in advance. As the events near, that work is supplemented by more paid staffers and legions of volunteers, including his legal team. 

“These things are in the works for years,” he said. “Preparations for this Super Bowl started back in 2018-19.”

In addition to working on aspects of the bid proposal, the legal team hammers out the contracts with the hotels, meeting venues, event sponsors and local groups and businesses. 

“We go out to each of the hotels around town and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got this coming in. We’d like to do a room block. How many rooms can you give us?’ Then we’ll assign somebody or people to that hotel.”

The host committee is not unlike the committee that serves as the local host for the Olympic games or the Democratic and Republican national conventions – any kind of big event that needs a central entity to take responsibility for everything that goes on in the area. In the case of the Super Bowl, the host committee works with the National Football League to make sure everything surrounding the game is ready to go.  

“Everything inside the perimeter of the stadium is NFL based,” he said. “The NFL puts on the game, sells the tickets, puts on the entertainment and other events around and in some cases outside the stadium. They look to us as the host committee to get the space, make sure the symphony hall, where they held the honors party, and the convention center, where they host the NFL Experience, are ready.”

Because tens of thousands of people come into the area, the host committee adds dozens of other events so local businesses can participate, as sponsors or as caterers or in some other capacity. 

One of the events is a CEO forum in which some 70 CEOs are invited to talk about their businesses and learn about the benefits of locating operations in the area. “These are CEOs of companies the state would like to see consider Arizona as a place to do business,” he said.

It’s this economic development component that makes it possible for the host committee to operate as a charitable organization. It brings on board thousands of volunteers who, in exchange for welcoming visitors to the airport or making sure concert-goers don’t get lost, get the chance to be the face of the area. It also brings in donations from companies that want a chance to associate with the influx of people and the spending it attracts.

“We have a business connect program, which connects minority- and women-owned businesses with companies that are coming to town so they can get contracts to do food service at parties, provide swag for the parties, and so on,” he said. “Another thing we do with the NFL is a legacy gift program, where we give money back to the community and local charities from money we raise.”

Contractual work

The lion’s share of the legal work goes off without a hitch but there are times when the volunteer lawyers must have difficult conversations with hotels or sponsors or event participants who don’t fulfill their commitment. 

“We had some hotels that made commitments years ago to block rooms at certain prices that decided they can get a better offer for the rooms and they didn’t want to honor their block,” he said. “So we have to meet with their lawyers and negotiate a solution. Or we have sponsors who commit to sponsorships a couple of years in advance but when it comes time to write a check they aren’t in a position to do so, so we have to work out alternatives. We haven’t had to file suit or write nastygrams. Most of the time we’re able to work things out. For the most part, this is not an organization that wants to fight.”

The group is already looking ahead to more big events that can be brought in. 

“We’re always in the running for major events because we’re a city that’s capable of doing it, given our size, our infrastructure, our hotels, our arenas and the way we come together,” he said. “So, we’ll always be in the running. We always want to get right back in the queue.”

For the volunteer lawyers, that means more chances to get involved with novel work and connect with lawyers from outside the area that they otherwise wouldn't.