Houston projects Super Bowl to net local economy $350 million

When you're talking Super Bowl, conventional wisdom tells us there are always two winners-- the franchise which prevails on the field, as well as the American metropolis hosting what's emerged as the premiere sporting event in the nation.

"I think we will make more money from restaurants, malls to all types of businesses because of the number of people who are coming," said an exuberant Houstonian.

And that number is a big one--138,000 out of town visitors ready and willing to spend. Houston predicts the net economic impact of this super bowl will be $350 million. That's a sizable bump from the $250 million San Francisco says it hauled in last year.

Economist Patrick Jankowski with the Greater Houston Partnership says there's nothing inflated about the coming cash infusion.

"It has a huge impact on the economy. It creates jobs and injects tax revenue.

We are looking at 62,000 additional room nights. Each of those rooms is going to book for $300 a night. We're looking at the typical visitor to Houston is going to spend about $600 a day," said Jankowski.

What's far more difficult to quantify are the long term, intangible benefits of bringing the Super Bowl to H-town--the prestige, the global exposure and the rare opportunity to deliver a worthy stage for the biggest productions in sports.

"You become more and more of an expert at planning them and managing them and every entity that's involved in them learns from it and it just builds that reputation and ability to host these large events," said Jason Draper, tourism analyst and researcher at the University of Houston.

Under the category "spending money to make money",  the City of Houston and state of Texas are set to see very healthy return on their investment with a projected Super Bowl tax haul in the neighborhood of $44 million.

Like we said, one Super Bowl, two winners.