Las Vegas Super Bowl week expected to draw thousands of media reps

When Super Bowl LVIII takes place in Las Vegas in February, the eyes of the world will be on Southern Nevada.

Helping the masses see the spectacle that is Super Bowl week will be throngs of media who will converge on the city for the big game and events leading up to it.

Officials expect that between 6,000 and 7,500 media members will be credentialed to cover Super Bowl-related events in Las Vegas.

“It represents as significant of an opportunity to generate media coverage as the city has seen,” Dave Kirvin of Kirvin Doak Communications said during Tuesday’s Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board meeting. “Super Bowl is so much more than a game and one important component of that is the celebration of the city in which it hosts.”

Kirvin serves as co-chair of the media and public relations sub-committee of the Las Vegas Super Bowl Host Committee.

The Super Bowl public relations sub-committee includes media and public relations professionals from the Raiders, Golden Knights, Aces, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Las Vegas police, the Regional Transportation Commission, the LVCVA, the city of Las Vegas and Clark County, as well as representatives from various resorts.

The group of about 30 professionals meets monthly to organize their planning and develop what aspects need to be pushed out by the media, to help tell Las Vegas’ story.

Major broadcast companies also will set up studios at various locations in Las Vegas for live coverage throughout Super Bowl week. They include CBS Paramount, ESPN, Fox Sports and NFL Network.

“The national networks have already begun visiting Las Vegas to secure the sites where they’re going to broadcast live for the Super Bowl,” Kirvin said. “CBS has the game. They’ve been here a couple of times. … They’re looking to do much more beyond broadcasting the pregame that week and the game itself.”

CBS is owned by the Paramount Network. Kirvin said it wants to activate multiple networks throughout the week, including BET, CMT, Paramount Plus, Nickelodeon and Showtime.

“Will there be a ‘Yellowstone’ activation somewhere on the Strip? Probably,” Kirvin said of the popular Paramount Network series.

ESPN executives also recently visited Las Vegas to scout sites for their potential Super Bowl week studio.

Many of the media members will be stationed at “media row,” at a location that is still being determined by the NFL, working with the Las Vegas Super Bowl Host Committee. At Super Bowl LVII in Arizona, media row was located at the Phoenix Convention Center.

Over 100 media outlets set up stations where they conduct live shows throughout the week, interviewing current and former NFL players, other sports stars and celebrities.

“The bigger networks circle it much like a major trade show,” Kirvin said. “The major networks, some of them broadcast 15 hours a day. As the week goes on, more and more guests go in there, and they’re looking for content to fill.”

The Super Bowl Committee will host dedicated media trips throughout the year to get those outside the Las Vegas Valley accustomed to the area ahead of Super Bowl week.

Various resorts in Las Vegas will assist the committee in hosting the networks, showcasing their properties as potential broadcast sites.

Kirvin noted that the Super Bowl is not just a sports story, it’s an opportunity to showcase Las Vegas and the various aspects that make Southern Nevada a great place to live and visit.

“To us the Super Bowl is a travel story, a hospitality story, an entertainment story, it’s a business story, it’s an economic story, and we’re going to be pursuing all of those angles,” Kirvin said.

Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on Twitter.