With Super Bowl LX less than six months away, the Santa Clara City Council this week signed off on a key agreement that ensures the city will be reimbursed for the estimated $6.4 million it will cost to host the big game.
The deal is better than the one the city struck when Levi’s Stadium hosted Super Bowl 50 in 2016, according to City Manager Jovan Grogan.
“It covers reimbursement for our costs as well as provides a financial backstop,” he told the council. “It provides a very detailed and transparent process for reimbursement and advanced payments.”
The Bay Area Host Committee — a nonprofit that was formed in 2022 with the goal of bringing major sporting events to the region — will cover the costs incurred by the city. The San Francisco 49ers, through the team’s stadium operations company StadCo, have also agreed to act as a financial backstop in case the Bay Area Host Committee can’t pay its bills.
The agreement mirrors a similar deal made earlier this year for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Santa Clara next year is set to become the first city to host both major sporting events in the same calendar year, with the Super Bowl on Feb. 8 and six World Cup matches between June 13 and July 1.
Jihad Beauchman, the executive vice president and general counsel for the 49ers, said in a statement that the team looks forward to finalizing the remaining details with city officials.
“This final vote confirms that Santa Clara will be able host two of the world’s largest events in 2026, with no costs from the city’s general fund,” he said. “We look forward to working with the Bay Area Host Committee and Santa Clara to put on these historic events, which will generate an estimated $1 billion for the Bay Area economy next year.”
But the decision to approve the agreement wasn’t unanimous — Mayor Lisa Gillmor and Vice Mayor Kelly Cox voted against it, raising concerns that the city’s coffers could still be at risk.
When Santa Clara voters approved the stadium back in 2010 via Measure J, the ballot initiative included taxpayer protections that prevented the city from dipping into the general fund for stadium or event-related expenses.
The agreement approved by the majority of the council requires the Bay Area Host Committee to make an advanced payment of 50% of the estimated event costs on or before Dec. 25, 2025. Zaileen Janmohamed, the president and CEO of the nonprofit, has said in the past that fundraising is going well, but has declined to give any numbers citing confidentiality.
The framework that city officials have negotiated, though, isn’t strong enough for Gillmor, who said that it puts the city at risk since the Bay Area Host Committee and the 49ers’ StadCo don’t have any “meaningful unencumbered assets”
“I think the Super Bowl is a great opportunity, but it should never come at the expense or the risk of the Santa Clara taxpayers,” she said. “I think that by requiring a letter of credit or some kind of guarantee, we ensure that every dollar we spend on public safety and city services is reimbursed.”
Both city officials and Beauchman disagreed with the need for a letter of credit.
“This idea that StadCo possibly would not be able to pay these amounts, I think we have a fairly strong record of 11 years of performing and paying those amounts and also a significant record to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars of paying those amounts,” Beauchman told the mayor.
Councilmember Suds Jain said he was “confused about how this is risky” in the mayor’s view.
“If StadCo was unable to pay the $6.4 million, how are they going to pay the $24 million of stadium rent annually?” he said. “It just doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Only minor changes have been made to the agreement since the city unveiled the preliminary details last month — including an updated cost estimate that increased by roughly $125,000. The $6.4 million figure could change again in the coming months.
A large chunk of that number comes from the cost of being the lead public safety agency that will provide security leading up to and during the event. City Attorney Glen Googins called it a “heavy lift” and a “challenging thing” for the city to do.
“But it is absolutely something that your public safety officers and Santa Clara PD wants to do and they’re really good at it,” he said. “It’s an elite group. They take pride in this, they take pride in protecting the community and the people who attend these events.”
The council is expected to sign off on the special event zone for the Super Bowl in the next month, which helps regulate the activities in the perimeter around the stadium.