For the first time in history, the Super Bowl took place in Las Vegas, Nevada. The event brought in an estimated 330,000 visitors and many celebrities only a few months after the F1 racing event and mere days after a torrent of rain. 

“I feel like it was very chaotic and definitely very stressful,” sophomore Karina D’amico said. “I feel that F1 was just recently and they just took everything down and things were just starting to get back to normal, and then all of a sudden everything was being built up and everyone was preparing for another big thing.”

Despite critics’ positive remarks, many locals believe that Las Vegas’ infrastructure was not prepared for such a large event. 

“I feel like we’re kind of putting the cart before the horse right now,” sophomore Terence Yeung said. ”There’s a lot of things we’re trying to do at the same time, like, we’re way behind on road construction. My friend sent me a photo and it was the street of Buffalo under construction right before Interstate 215 and cars were just lined up for miles and miles.”

A major concern for local residents was simply a lack of space. According to the New York Times, “[Allegiant Stadium is] one of the National Football League’s smallest in terms of capacity”.

“There’s still more changes that need to be done to the city, like expanding The Strip,” freshman Anya Chohan said. “Even though it’s already big, it should be bigger because of how many people come to Vegas, especially during the Super Bowl, F1, or events like that because those are a big deal. Allegiant is way too small, I think there were probably only 100 thousand seats, but it just wasn’t enough.”

However, many speculate that the Super Bowl in Las Vegas had a negative effect on tourism as well. According to U.S.A Today, this year’s Super Bowl was one of the most expensive in history. Ticket seller SeatGeek said the average ticket cost $12,082 this year compared to last year’s, which only cost $8,907. Hotel prices also surged with the average daily rate for a hotel being $808 on Super Bowl Sunday, the highest in recorded history (excluding Hawaii).

“The stadium was ready and everything, I had been seeing them for months prior setting up the stadium, taking out certain foods, different things like that,” Parker said. “But the road and infrastructure around [the stadium] wasn’t ready for it. I think it had Vegas having to book out a lot of hotels, even some of the sucky hotels that you know, nobody wants to go to just because like the Venetian and all the big hotels, they filled up.”

Many however, prefer to see the positive aspects of Las Vegas’ first Super Bowl. Visitors spent an estimated 500 million dollars on The Strip and on local businesses.

“I think coming off of F1, which I thought was a little bit of a mess specifically with traffic and all those kinds of things going, I thought the Super Bowl was done exquisitely,” Assistant Principal Eric Gant said. ”I pay close attention to sports media and that’s where I get a lot of reactions with the professionals … I heard nothing but positivity about Las Vegas, the experience, but personally, I avoided The Strip that weekend for good reason.”

This is the first time Las Vegas hosted the Super Bowl, but it might not be the last. According to Mick Akers of the LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said “The hospitality here, you outdid it. I think it’s safe to say the NFL looks forward to coming back.” 

“It was an interesting game for sure, it definitely could have gone either way on any day,” senior Jordan Rodriguez said. “It just happened to be that the Chiefs won, even though it was very close. It was a fun game to watch though, and an interesting event for our city.”