SBJ Facilities: Superdome's Doug Thornton ready for most-challenging Super Bowl

Sunday’s Super Bowl at Caesars Superdome will be the 12th one worked by Doug Thornton, president of North American venues for Legends/ASM Global, and the fourth at the famed building he’s run for 28 years.

This one has easily had the most challenging run-up of any of them. The New Year’s Day terrorist attack on New Orleans’ Bourbon Street chilled the excitement and created justifiable questions around the Super Bowl’s security, before an extremely rare snowstorm dumped 10 inches on a city much more synonymous with flooding and humidity. It will be several weeks before Thornton completely lets his guard down.

“Everybody has to be prepared for the unexpected,” he told me. “Things break, there are always curveballs being thrown at you last minute and the NFL plans for that, we plan for that, we drill for that. Hopefully, we won’t have those instances, but there is always something.”

Overcoming those obstacles just adds to the feeling that Thornton is a guy who has seen it all. The former McNeese State QB began his working life in the oil industry, but gradually shifted into sports during a spell leading the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation. He was hired to run the Superdome in June 1997 and led the building through the tumult of Hurricane Katrina and its subsequent reboundafter the traumatic event. 

“He’s an icon in the business. He knows the business well, and he’s still a student of the business,” said Venue Solutions Group Managing Partner Russ Simons. “The continuity makes a difference, and translates into this business environment -- consistency, continuity and understanding of what was thought of before.”

That’s important in the Super Bowl planning context because the event continues to swell in almost every conceivable way, becoming more challenging and potentially unwieldy. Planning by the NFL and Populous’ events master-planning group starts two years out from the game. 

“That’s what the NFL and their planners are so good at,” Thornton said. “Taking the footprint in New Orleans and those are very, very tight geographical areas, and they can figure out how to accommodate all the elements that are needed to support the game.”

Trip down memory lane

I asked Thornton for four of the most memorable occurrences from the Super Bowls he’s worked:

1. When the power went out for 34 minutes the last time the Superdome hosted the Super Bowl in 2013. “I was going to mention that,” he said, “for all the wrong reasons."
   
   
2. The Superdome hosted the first Super Bowl after 9/11, an unforgettable one because of what it represented for the country at the time. There were questions about whether it should even be played and whether it would be safe, Thornton said. "I remember Commissioner [Paul] Tagliabue -- he used the words ‘we’re going to redefine the way Super Bowl is played now’ -- and he gave everybody a challenge, including us, on how to change the week’s activities. His whole focus was to make it safe for the fans. That was a huge effort.” 
   
   
3. In Jacksonville before Super Bowl XXXIX, pea gravel infiltrated a sewer line, backing up the sewer system and overflowing restrooms before the game. The local water board had to pump roughly four inches of water on the main concourses and the teams couldn’t exit their locker rooms because of the standing water on the concourse.
   
   
4. Janet Jackson’s halftime show "wardrobe malfunction" in Houston during Super Bowl XXXVIII. “That was not a good day,” Thornton said, chuckling.

Martye Kendrick’s bright and bubbly personality cuts through even a Friday Microsoft Teams call.

The former attorney will need all that positivity for the challenge of determining NRG Stadium’s future in her new role as CEO and executive director of the Harris County Sports and Convention Corp. (HCSCC). It’s the entity that oversees the 350-acre NRG Park, which includes the Texans’ county-owned stadium, as well as the Astrodome, NRG Arena and the NRG Center convention space (and not to be confused with the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority, which oversees the Astros, Rockets and Dynamo/Dash’s venues).

“She’s very well respected in the community here, both generally in the corporate community and on the municipal side with her work in public law,” said attorney Denis Braham, who was Kendrick’s legal colleague at Greenberg Traurig, and who incidentally is representing the Texans in this scenario. “She has a great work ethic and she’s a very pleasant person to work with. She’s not afraid to learn and she’s very deliberate in how to learn, how to listen, and how to act."

Kendrick was hired for the full-time role in December from Greenberg Traurig, where she practiced public finance law, mostly focusing on the kind of public-private partnerships (P3) she’ll try to forge between the HCSCC and the Texans. Kendrick had previously been a member of the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority, which first piqued her interest in the sports industry.

“With everything that goes on in the world, sports is that one thing that brings everyone together,” said the Howard Law School grad. “You’ve got a unique situation here where you've got publicly financed facilities, real estate and development opportunity and for me that’s a culmination of my experience and career path.”

Peering into the future

Kendrick’s arrival comes at a pivotal time for the 23-year-old NRG Stadium. A recent report, unearthed by the Houston Business Journal, said the venue -- whose upkeep is handled by the county -- needs roughly $1.4 billion worth of deferred and ongoing maintenance over the next few decades (an eye-watering figure that doesn’t even include renovations or improvements). The stadium is hosting 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup matches, but that assignment wasn’t predicated on a major renovation being completed by then.

The Texans’ lease ends in 2031 and the next one (if there is one) will be very different from the agreement signed over 20 years ago. The county currently is on the hook for all ongoing maintenance costs, with no required contribution from the Texans or the Houston Livestock and Rodeo Show (the stadium’s other main tenant).

That will almost certainly be changed in any new deal.

At Greenberg Traurig, Braham’s office sat next to Kendrick’s; now they’ll be sitting across the negotiating table from each other. And last week, the Texans hired former Legends co-President and COO Mike Tomon as team president, meaning there are two new key faces determining the stadium’s future.

“The Texans are very focused on the upgrade,” said Braham. “So, we’re actually at a very exciting time for NRG; you’ve got new people involved -- and this is not to say anything bad about people that were involved -- and the McNair family are very committed.” 

Fifty CEOs and founders from the hospitality space are involved with Mathew Focht’s Emerging Fund, which has made 14 investments so far, including PuttShack, F1 Arcade and Sandbox VR. Focht calls these kinds of concepts “sport-tainment.” They harness social competitive energy and usually feature higher-end food and beverage. And they’re increasingly forming symbiotic relationships with the stadiums and arenas around which mixed-use developments are popping up.

“Get your spend up on the property, build higher frequency,” said Focht. “They’re driving bodies to these experiences because they have a stadium full of people, a natural feeder. A huge anchor for these entertainment concepts”

Emerging Fund has a handful of companies it owns or invests in, including Buyers Edge Platform, which Focht helped co-found with John Davie and which counts nearly a third of American restaurants as customers. Other Emerging Fund-invested companies are focused on real estate, data analytics, hiring and staffing tech; the company even has investments in revenue maximization software.

Focht couldn’t name all the sports-related mixed-use projects Emerging Fund has worked with or conversed with, but noted the fund’s portfolio companies are present in The Battery Atlanta, Wrigleyville and a handful of Cordish Cos. projects.

A quick background on Focht: he trained as a civil engineer and wanted to be a master plan developer, but an early project steered him toward data. He found it could answer questions like why and how often people visit developments, what their behaviors and habits were and their demographics. He began building data models to help entrepreneurs more intelligently pick their locations and sites (including some big conglomerates that owned brands like Cheesecake Factory and Rio Bravo).

That led to helping big real estate companies attract the right restaurant and entertainment concepts to their developments. He then began investing in the concepts and hospitality industry technology, launching Emerging Fund two years ago.

“You have a built-in audience, why not capture it?” Focht said. “It’s why mixed-use projects get bigger, they start building critical mass that starts feeding the engine of crossover sales generation. That guy that goes to entertainment will also spend money eating out.”

How about a New Orleans alligator sausage topped with seafood etouffee on soft French bread?

This item is on offer at the Super Bowl next weekend and Sodexo Live expects to sell more than 5,000 of them.

Count me in! 

Earlier this month, I wrote about another fan-friendly concessions menu, this time at Camden Yards. I don’t think it will be the last one rolled out this year.

Home sales hit a 30-year low last year and consumer confidence has dipped, though that appears to be heavily politically influenced. So, whether anything real is happening with the economy or not, F&B providers and teams in leagues that have lots of home games (MLB, NBA, NHL and -- to an extent -- MLS and NWSL) need to account for how it “feels” out there for many of their customers. 

• Will the Superdome’s $560 million renovation be enough to keep the stadium, and New Orleans, in the Big Game hosting rotation? Ben Fischer and I dig into it.

• At least a dozen state legislatures could take sports venue-related action in 2025. I’ve rated the states on bullet-point scale of 1 to 3, with 3 being the ones to watch closest.

• Tennessee is set to unveil further plans to renovate Thompson Boling-Arena at Food City Center, Vols AD Danny White told my colleague Ben Portnoy. The newest batch of changes is set to include the “Riverside Club” premium space in the arena’s lower bowl. The plan would give access to various food and beverage options and a club area for roughly 1,500 seats.

• USC is issuing an RFP seeking a third-party food and beverage provider for its athletic venues within the next two weeks. The RFP is for F&B service at six USC facilities -- including Galen Center (basketball and volleyball), the school’s under-construction soccer/lacrosse and baseball stadiums, and several Olympic sports venues that don’t have permanent F&B setups -- but does not include L.A. Coliseum.

• Boldyn Networks U.S. has secured $1.2 billion in debt financing via senior secured credit facilities and fixed rate notes, notes SBJ's Ethan Joyce. The network infrastructure developer said the capital injection will help its continued expansion into the U.S.

• XL Center in Hartford will begin accepting deposits this month for the new premium seating options that are part of the $145 million renovation underway at the 50-year-old arena. The state of Connecticut is covering $125 million of the project cost, with Oak View Group -- which manages the venue in addition to providing F&B, premium and sponsorship sales, and booking -- chipping in the other $20 million. 

• FC Cincinnati is spending $1.5 million to add a speakeasy to TQL Stadium, creating a unique, 2,000-square-foot premium offering that will be sold on a game-by-game basis when it opens in late summer.

• Prince George’s Stadium, home of Orioles’ Double-A affiliate Chesapeake Baysox, is getting a $50 million renovation.