This Super Bowl is shaping up to be a blowout — for corporate America.
Spending on hotel rooms, dining and entertainment during Super Bowl week is expected to top $200 million, beating the record from 2007 — before the recession made it taboo to throw lavish parties and treat clients to skyboxes. Much of the tab will be put on corporate cards.
Companies have started throwing money around again now that their finances are improving, fears of a double-dip have subsided, and memories of bailouts and mass layoffs are fading. Last quarter, large businesses spent 10 percent more on entertainment — think rounds of golf, New York Yankees games and the opera — than a year earlier, according to American Express. They also spent more for airfare, food, drinks and hotels.
The return of the expense account is welcome news for the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Taxpayers in nearby Arlington, Texas, helped subsidize the construction of the $1.2 billion Cowboys Stadium, which was completed in 2009.
“After a big drop-off the past couple of years, companies appear less hesitant to invite their customers to Dallas,” says PricewaterhouseCoopers sports and tourism analyst Robert Canton. “You see that in the luxury suites, which completely sold out.”
One 15-person partial suite went for $73,000, according to StubHub spokeswoman Joellen Ferrer.
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