Houston Super Bowl LI Bid Committee News Conference On James Baker
Here it is:
Super Bowl LI Bid Committee News Conference
Monday, February 25, 2013
Greater Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau President and CEO Greg Ortale
Houston Texans Chairman, Founder and CEO Bob McNair
Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III
Camden Properties Chairman and CEO Richard “Ric” Campo
Greater Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau President and CEO Greg Ortale
(opening
statement) “Good afternoon, everybody. It’s really exciting to be here
to announce what we’re going to be doing. Before I do that, though, I
want to recognize Councilmember James Rodriguez from District 1. Thank
you for coming. You know, going for a Super Bowl is a major, major
effort, and it is not done by the Convention and Visitors Bureau alone;
it is done with a whole bunch of folks. On our bid committee, we’ve got
people from Harris County, we’ve got people from the city of Houston as
well as Houston First, the Harris County/Houston Sports and Convention
Corporation; we have SMG-Reliant Park, and also the Sports Authority –
everybody: Sherriff’s Department, Police Department – and a whole bunch
of volunteers. In a very short time frame, there are a lot of things
we’ve got to get done. We’ve got to secure all the venues, we’ve got to
get 19,000 hotel rooms under contract, and we have to get the hotels to
hold them for three weekends, so there’s a lot of business that’s going
to be going on. Fortunately, we have a couple of things going for us,
one being a great consultant, Sallie Sargeant, who is very familiar with
Super Bowl presentations as well as many other big presentations that
have gone one. But most importantly, I think our biggest asset is the
enthusiasm of Bob McNair. He has energized all of us to really make
something happen, and with that, it’s a great privilege to introduce Mr.
McNair.”
Houston Texans Chairman, Founder & CEO Bob McNair
(opening
statement) “Thank you, Greg. It’s really an exciting time for us
because this is such a big event and it is so important to the city of
Houston. Otherwise, the people that are involved in this would not be
dedicating their time and effort in such a valuable fashion. We have
wonderful facilities here, as you know, with Reliant Stadium. There’s no
better stadium in the NFL. We’ve had the experience before, and it was a
pleasurable one, in 2004 when we had the Super Bowl here. We have this
great Reliant Park; we have tremendous area here where we can have many
facilities. We have the hall across the way here, and then downtown we
have the convention facilities. We’ve got the physical assets that are
needed. We’ve got the restaurants, we’ve got the entertainment. We have
everything that is needed, so I’m very excited about it.
“As
I thought about this and how we could put our best foot forward, I
thought about who we might ask to be our honorary chairman, and many
times cities have had their mayor or they’ve had a governor or they’ve
had a senator or what have you, and it’s reached the point now where
that’s not the sort of thing that gets anyone’s attention. As I looked
around and thought about who really is respected by these other owners,
because that’s what really counts – there are going to be 32 of us and
Houston’s got my vote and whoever we’re competing with will have that
owner’s vote, so that leaves 30 others – and who would be most favorably
impressed by those 30 owners.
“And
I could think of no one who is held in higher respect than Secretary
Jim Baker. I know that Jim has a great love for this city, I know that
he has great love for football, the NFL and the Texans, I know of the
many things that he has done here locally. He’s better known for the
international accomplishments, and such momentous things as being
Secretary of State when the Berlin Wall came down. I mean, how
monumental an occasion was that? And so everyone knows who Jim Baker is
and the good news is that Jim Baker loves Houston and he’ll have an
opportunity to tell you how much he loves Houston. He goes back, his
family has roots going back to the 1800s.
“His
grandfather, if you’ll recall, was Captain Baker, who really is
responsible for saving what is now Rice University in that the estate of
William Marsh Rice was fraudulently being claimed by some other people
and the will had been changed, and Rice was the beneficiary of that
will; and had Captain Baker not gone to New York and exposed this, there
wouldn’t be a Rice University. And so his family has a great love and
deep roots here in Houston.
“I
know that all the other owners are going to be delighted to see him;
he’ll be with us at the owners’ meeting in May. And Jim, I want to let
you know how much we appreciate you doing this for the city. It’s just a
tremendous boost to our efforts, and I couldn’t think of anybody that
we would like to put forward who could represent our city in a better
way. So with that, I’ll introduce to you Secretary Baker.”
Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III
(opening
statement) “Thank you very much, Bob. Ladies and gentlemen, I am really
delighted to assist a good friend in this effort to bring Super Bowl LI
here to Houston. Bob and I have been friends for a long, long time. We
were friends before there were any Texans. Of course, our goal now is to
encourage the owners, those 30 people that Bob mentioned to you, to
recognize that one again, as was the case in 2004, Houston is the very
best choice for their prestigious event.
“Let
me say a word or two about why it is very special for me to serve as
honorary chairman of this host committee. I’ve already mentioned my
friendship with Bob and we’ve known each other long before his hard work
got our city another National Football League franchise, but I need to
say a word or two about Bob because he was so successful before the
Texans, and he’s been successful with the Texans. He is a savvy
businessman who has had success from the boardrooms of energy to the
front offices of football, and of course to the many charities that he
supports. He and Janice support charities not just in Houston and Texas,
but around this country. So it’s easy, I think, to understand why most
National Football League observers consider this franchise to be a model
franchise.
“Another
reason, quite frankly, that I’m glad to serve as the committee’s
honorary chairman, is that I do love football. I didn’t play it after
high school, but I loved the sport, and I attend as many Texan games as I
can, and I think nothing symbolizes Texas more than football – maybe
Houston and Texas more than football.
“And
the third reason that I’m glad to serve as honorary chairman is that I
believe Houston is indeed one of the world’s great cities. Now, I am a
little biased because I’m part of a dwindling breed of native
Houstonians – there’s not a whole hell of a lot of us left. My family,
though, has been here since 1872, if you can believe it, when my great
grandfather joined the law firm that carries his name. I did move to
Washington on two occasions to take part in another blood sport called
politics, and I’ve always come back to Houston, though, after my team in
that sport was defeated. So it’s for those reasons that when Bob asked
me to take this on, I immediately said yes with no hesitation.
“Let
me say one word or two, briefly, about why I think the NFL owners
should award our city its third Super Bowl. First and foremost, I think
more than any other U.S. city, Houston maintains the brand of
entrepreneurial spirit and work ethic that has fueled our nation. I was
telling Bob a minute ago out there when we were waiting to come in here,
the Brookings Institute recently ranked Houston as the top United
States economy, and get this: the 40th top economy in the
world. Despite the economic downtown, global economic downturn, our
unemployment rate remains relatively low largely I think because of our
ingenuity and work product. The NFL shows off, I think, the best of our
country when it puts Houston center stage.
“Secondly,
we are an international city. People from across the globe move to
Houston to be a part of that incredible entrepreneurial spirit which I
just alluded to. This is here in Houston, Texas, the land of
opportunity. More than one million residents here were born in other
countries. You look at the neighborhood of Gulfton, which includes
residents who came here from more than 80 countries and speak more than
16 different languages. Houston is such a culturally diverse city that
it has one of the highest concentrations of consulates in the country – I
think the third-highest in the entire United States. So if you want to
see what the United States will look like in the coming century, I think
Houston provides you with the perfect snapshot.
“Thirdly
and last, I think that Houstonians strive to be the very best. We do
indeed have the world’s best football stadium. We put man on the moon.
We built the world’s largest and best medical center. And we are the
energy capital of the world. Also, for anyone who’s been around here for
a very long time, you know that we host the very best parties, bar
none. We threw a great one earlier this month for the NBA All-Star Game.
We have thrown two for past Super Bowls that were held here, and the
list goes on and on. It’s not too much to say, I don’t think, that
Houston knows how to throw one hell of a good party, and that is a lot
of what the Super Bowl is about.
“So
I am really pleased to be the honorary chairman of this effort. I want
to conclude by telling you that I gave up predicting the outcome of
campaigns a long time ago, so I won’t offer a guess about our campaign
to host the Super Bowl in 2017, but ladies and gentlemen, I am
rock-solid certain about one thing, and that is that the Houston bid for
the 2017 Super Bowl will be first-class and it will be one of which all
Houstonians can be proud. Thank you very much, and I am delighted to
turn the microphone over to our chairman, Ric Campo.”
Houston Texans Chairman, Founder & CEO Bob McNair
(introductory
comments about Ric Campo) “I want to tell you a little bit about how
Ric became our chairman. We had our honorary chairman; now we said, ‘Now
we’ve got to have somebody that’s ready to go to work!’ (laughing) Ric
is an outstanding executive with his Camden Property group. He came here
how many years ago from Oregon? Thirty-five years ago. And really, in a
way Ric, and to some extent me, I came here in 1960 from somewhere
else; Ric came from here from Oregon and he has just become such an
integral part of our community, our business community and our civic
community. And I think that’s typical of what we find in Houston. That’s
what makes this city such a great city: we welcome people like Ric to
come here and to be so tremendously successful, and we’re proud of him.
“He’s
been involved with the city in many ways – Houston First, which they
manage the Hilton, the property downtown, and the Jones Hall and the
Wortham (Center) and other city properties; and he’s volunteered his
time and effort for the Sports Authority. He has just done so many great
things for our city and done it in such a competent way. He has the
respect of the business community. I know he’ll be able to enlist
tremendous support from that corporate community, and I know that he’s
an outstanding executive and he will be doing a great job for Houston.
And so we just couldn’t have selected anyone who would offer all of the
great skills and qualities that Ric brings to the table, and we
appreciate very much, Ric, the fact that you’re doing this for this
city. Thank you.”
Camden Properties Chairman and CEO Richard “Ric” Campo
(opening
statement) “Thank you very much, Bob. A couple of hard acts to follow
here. So keeping on this entrepreneurial sort of theme, it is really
incredible when you think about what Houston is, and I’m really excited
about being involved in this process. I think it’s going to be great to
communicate to those 30 owners how great this city is, what a great
venue it will be to host the Super Bowl. I have a little experience at
Super Bowls: I’ve been to 15 Super Bowls over the years, and I will say
that Houston was right up there at the top of the list in terms of
quality of venues and quality of experience from a Super Bowl
perspective.
“But
what we’re going to do in our presentation to the owners is talk a lot
about what’s happened since the last Super Bowl, because they were all
here or a lot of them were here for the last Super Bowl. And when you
think about that, Houston has just been on a roll for the last nine
years, and since we’re talking about 2017, we’re talking about a 13-year
gap between the last time we had one. When you think about Houston
being named the coolest city in the country and the best place to get a
job by Forbes magazine; in the top 10 cities in the world – the only one
in the U.S. that was on this list – that the New York Times even had
Houston on this list for the top 10 cities in the world to visit.
Another great one, being in the real estate business, is that AFIRE, the
Association of Real Estate Foreign Investors, which controls $2
trillion of capital, has Houston for the first time in the top five
cities to invest in in the world for 2013. So we’ve got a whole lot of
things that are really, really helping Houston and will support our bid.
“The
Super Bowl village is something that is really important to the NFL,
and it should be, because that’s the experience the fans get, and we
have come a long way since then. We opened Discovery Green; by 2016
we’ll open the 1,000-room Marriott Marquis, and on the fifth floor of
that hotel, we’ll have the Texas Lazy River, which you’ll be able to
float around and some of the Super Bowl guests I’m sure will be on that.
In 2014, we’ll open the East-West Light Rail, so we’ll have light rail
coming east and west into downtown, plus the regular light rail that we
have now on Main Street that we have now that comes down to Reliant
Stadium. So we have a lot of things going on.
“Clearly,
we continue to host big events: the OTC (Offshore Technology
Conference) is held here at Reliant Stadium, 90,000 people annually
there; today’s sort of a fitting day to have this press conference with
the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo opening tonight. There will be 2.3
million people coming through the Reliant Stadium and Reliant Park.
Between now and 2017, when you think about what we’ve done, we will have
hosted two Final Fours, three NCAA Regional Finals, two NBA All-Star
Weekends, one World Series – and we do have a shot at a couple more
World Series given that we have a few more years between now and 2017,
so we’re really hoping the Astros do well in Spring Training this year –
one Major League Baseball All-Star Game, and one of my personal
favorites, Wrestelmania.
“So
we have a lot to be proud of in Houston. Our entrepreneurial spirit,
our diversity, the assets that we have will compete very, very well with
the other cities for the Super Bowl. So we’re really excited about
getting this kicked off and making our presentation to the owners. Thank
you.”
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