The NFL and Host Committee lay the ground work for community initiatives
The NFL gang is coming to North Texas next Monday. They’ll be taking notes, visiting communities and determining where to stage the many events of Super Bowl XLV.
It’s a big deal. And the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee is ready to serve as tour guides for the four-county region (Collin, Dallas, Denton, Tarrant) that worked on the Super Bowl bid.
Anytime the NFL prepares a host city for the complete Super Bowl extravaganza, it stretches its long and flexible arms into an entire region and leaves behind a lasting legacy.
In recent cities like Houston and Detroit, the events surrounding the Super Bowl were in a more compact downtown area. That was also more common for most of Miami’s Super Bowl experiences of the past.
But just as a three-county area of South Florida will host the coming Super Bowl, North Texas will spread itself out like a Thanksgiving feast, allowing as many communities as possible to get a taste.
Super Bowl XLV in North Texas will be the 10th for David Krichavsky, NFL Director of Community Affairs, and the eighth time working on the NFL’s community outreach program.
“One of the things the Super Bowl does, probably more than any other event, is bring people together,” Krichavsky said. “We use our community programs to do just that.”
The number of NFL sanctioned events for each Super Bowl varies from year to year. Eleven are planned for South Florida. The North Texas Host Committee will be adding its own, original SLANT 45 program — an opportunity for 20,000 school children to contribute to their respective communities through their own initiatives.
“SLANT 45 is an amazing program and something that we are incredibly excited about,” Krichavsky said. “From the league perspective, we see it as having the ability to transform the North Texas community. It’s the largest and most ambitious community outreach program that we have ever seen around a Super Bowl.”
“We look forward to working with the Host Committee and Big Thought to compliment their efforts around SLANT 45.”
When the NFL and its sponsors visit North Texas next week, they will be familiarizing themselves with the area. The trip will help them decide where to hold the Super Bowl Breakfast, where the Bart Starr Award will be presented to an NFL player for outstanding character and leadership, and more. There are celebrity bowling and golfing events. There’s the extremely popular Taste of the NFL, a gospel celebration, a Hall of Fame event, a banquet for the NFL Alumni Player of the Year Awards and on it goes.
A key component to the NFL’s efforts to leave a lasting legacy is its YET program. The NFL builds a Youth Education Town (YET) in each hosting region — a “bricks-and-mortar” facility that will house an after-school program that offers children educational and recreational opportunities.
“We now have a network of 13 after-school facilities across the country in Super Bowl host communities — with new YET facilities scheduled to come on board in both North Texas and Indianapolis,” Krichavsky said.
Another fascinating effort is the One World Program, established to give children a cultural understanding of their neighbors.
“Schools are paired with other schools within the region,” Krichavsky said. “Pen pal relationships are established between various schools, and so you will have kids in Fort Worth, for example, having pen pal relationships with kids in Arlington and Dallas. During Super Bowl week, we bring all the kids in the One World Program together for an event that we call the One World Huddle.
“At this Huddle, the kids meet their pen pals for the first time and participate in workshops with NFL players. The program is designed to show students how everyone has certain similarities, but that diversity is also something to celebrate. The fact that the North Texas Super Bowl is going to be so far-ranging geographically makes it that much more important to bring everyone together.”
Another initiative that will impact North Texans is the NFL PLAY 60 Super Bowl Challenge.
“NFL PLAY 60 is a program designed to help kids get 60 minutes of activity a day,” Krichavsky said. “It’s the NFL’s primary social responsibility program and it has been adopted by all 32 NFL teams. When we come to a Super Bowl host community, we definitely try to make PLAY 60 the centerpiece of our community outreach work.”
The NFL’s outreach program also includes youth football clinics for boys and girls, outreach to the military community, and countless other NFL-organized programs. There are a number of “sanctioned events” which are planned and executed by external partners with support from the NFL.
First, they have to get the lay of the land. And in North Texas, the land stretches for miles. The NFL is confident its tentacles will embrace many of those hoping to be involved in North Texas’ first-ever Super Bowl.
