Roger Goodell Says Browns May Have to Wait to Host Super Bowl Despite New Stadium

The Cleveland Browns hosted their groundbreaking ceremony in Brook Park for their new enclosed stadium.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell attended the ceremony with Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam, JW Johnson and Ohio governor Mike DeWine.

Brook Park’s new $2.6 billion enclosed stadium will be nice enough to host a Super Bowl, but Goodell wasn’t so fast to make that guarantee to Northeast Ohio quite yet.

“I have no doubt that this stadium is going to be Super Bowl quality, zero doubt about that,” Goodell said. “I think the challenge now for this community, and hopefully this stadium and this development is going to be transformative, is how does the rest of the facilities in the community develop?”

Goodell explains that in order to host a Super Bowl, a city needs to have enough infrastructure to welcome 200,000 people. The NFL commissioner estimated that they need between 50,000 and 60,000 hotel rooms. Competing markets, like SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, have upwards of 100,000 hotel rooms to accommodate the NFL.

While the new stadium will feature over 377,000 square feet of concourse space, the Browns and Brook Park will need to figure out how to build up hotels, restaurants and infrastructure to handle a massive influx of tourists in the Cleveland area and into the surrounding suburbs.

In a radio interview on 92.3 the Fan on Thursday morning, Browns president David Jenkins explained that the city of New Orleans, which hosted a Super Bowl in 2025 and is used to major events, struggled with having enough hotel rooms to accommodate the league’s biggest event.

"The commissioner has already said publicly that the stadium will be Super Bowl ready,” Jenkins said. “It's can the region bear a Super Bowl?”

NFL Draft is likely coming back to Cleveland before any potential Super Bowl

Goodell noted that the Browns and the city of Cleveland masterfully handled the 2021 NFL Draft, which had limited capacity because of restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The NFL commissioner noted that the 2021 NFL Draft in Cleveland did not have the economic impact that the league typically experiences because of the strict restrictions.

But conversations between the NFL and Haslam Sports Group have already taken place about another NFL Draft in Northeast Ohio. The 2027 NFL Draft will be held in Washington D.C. In 2028, the Minnesota Vikings and Buffalo Bills have already expressed interest. Cleveland’s new stadium will be opened by Week 1 in 2029.

Due to the pandemic, it sounds like Goodell is putting Northeast Ohio back in line for the NFL Draft, even with interest from Minnesota and Buffalo.

The 2027 Super Bowl will be held in Los Angeles before the league returns to Atlanta in 2028. In 2029, the Super Bowl will go back to Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas before the NFL rewards the city of Nashville with the 2030 Super Bowl for opening their new stadium.

Could the city of Cleveland be in line for a Super Bowl in the 2030s? It sounds like they might need more hotels. But the NFL Draft is certainly within reach sooner than later.

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