NFL

ESPN to make Scottsdale Fashion Square its home during Super Bowl XLIX in Arizona

Tuesday at a media event in Scottsdale, Ariz., ESPN unveiled its site plans for Super Bowl XLIX before local, civic and business leaders (see photos above).

With more than 120 hours of TV and radio coverage on tap, ESPN will make Scottsdale Fashion Square its home from Jan. 26 through Feb. 1, 2015.

ESPN will have three outdoor stages and a demo field overlooking scenic Camelback Mountain. The set will also be steps away from Fan Fest Scottsdale, a week-long celebration of food, fashion and football that is sure to attract big crowds to ESPN shows leading up to the game.

Senior coordinating producer Seth Markman, who oversees ESPN’s NFL studio shows and is tasked with selecting the broadcast location each year, attended the Scottsdale event. He shares his thoughts with Front Row on this year’s destination:

“The Arizona Super Bowl host committee invited us to do a site visit about two years ago to determine what our plans would be. We made several visits to both Scottsdale and Phoenix. Both cities had really nice options and treated us great. In the end, we chose Scottsdale based on the incredible backdrop and the space available to us there. It also helped that we’ve been in Scottsdale before, and we really do love that town.”

On the thought of returning to a warm weather Super Bowl city, Markman added: “I love it. It just makes the week so much better. If fans are spending their money to go to the Super Bowl and taking time off work to visit for a long weekend or a week, it should be a place that has a vacation kind of atmosphere. Arizona is just an ideal setting.

“The city of Scottsdale is doing an amazing job of creating a Fan Fest event around our set to draw in people. Our announcers and our staff feel energized when people are around and they have a chance to interact with the public and do shows in front of a live audience. It’s going to be great.”

This is the second time ESPN has made Scottsdale its home for Super Bowl week in Arizona. In January 2008, ESPN was based at The Mix at Southbridge for Super Bowl XLII.

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