The “Super Bowl” of indoor football is coming to Tucson.
The Rio Nuevo board of directors voted unanimously Friday, Nov. 1, to bring the Indoor Football League championship game to Tucson. Starting in 2025, the next three IFL title games will be held at Tucson Convention Center. The date for the ’25 game is Aug. 23, and it will be televised on CBS Sports Network.
Las Vegas has hosted the game the past three years. Three cities were considered for the next cycle: Vegas, Tucson and Nashville, Tennessee.
Hosting the event for the next three years will cost about $1 million. But the economic impact is expected to be four to five times that, according to figures presented during the board meeting.
In advocating for Tucson to host the game, Edmund Marquez, vice chairman of the Rio Nuevo board, said:
“This is a hell of an opportunity for us. This is an economic juggernaut. We take this event from Vegas; Tucson beats Vegas for this event. We have three years of the indoor Super Bowl at our TCC. This gives us national TV spots. This puts us on the map.”
A Sugar Skulls fan gets cell-phone video of the goings-on during a timeout of the Indoor Football League game against the Frisco Fighters on June 15, 2024, at Tucson Convention Center.
The Tucson Sugar Skulls are one of 14 members of the Indoor Football League and one of three franchises based in Arizona. Sugar Skulls owner Cathy Guy and her husband, Kevin, president and head coach of the Arizona Rattlers, participated in the meeting and played an integral role in pushing Tucson as a host for the championship game. The Tucson ownership group is one of three on the league’s executive board.
“We learned that we had an opportunity to compete with Vegas and Nashville this year for the championship,” said Kevin Guy, whose Rattlers won the title this year. “I had a conversation with Edmund and I really felt like it was something that would be really good for Tucson.
“We want everyone talking about Tucson in the sports world. We have the Arizona Bowl here. And now we have a chance to have the IFL national championship game here.”
After a three-year run in Vegas, IFL owners wanted to hold the championship game in a new city, Guy said. Nashville does not have a franchise. Those two factors gave Tucson the advantage.
Kevin Guy, president and head coach of the Tucson Rattlers, helped push for Tucson to become the host of the Indoor Football League championship game from 2025-27. Guy’s wife, Cathy, owns the Tucson Sugar Skulls.
“The owners felt like supporting a market that has one of our existing teams in the league was a smart way to go,” Guy said.
Some board members expressed reservations about devoting about one-third of Rio Nuevo’s annual $1 million marketing budget to the IFL championship game. That money would be diverted from local events Rio Nuevo has promoted.
But the board member who first raised those concerns, Jannie Cox, was the first to present the motion to approve the deal with the IFL.
Earlier this year, the Rio Nuevo board approved a similar-sized incentive package ($240,000 annually) to ensure that the American Hockey League’s Tucson Roadrunners will play at least 30 home games at TCC through 2026-27.
The IFL championship game is a multiday event that includes the league’s Night of Champions, Hall of Fame inductions, press conferences and celebratory festivities. It falls during a time of year when tourists typically aren’t planning trips to Tucson. The game itself would be one week before the University of Arizona football season kicks off (Aug. 30 vs. Hawaii).
Bones leads the team onto the field for the kickoff of the Sugar Skulls’ last home game of the season against San Antonio on July 13, 2024.
Per the board’s presentation, estimated annual economic impacts include $112,500 for hotel rooms; $720,100 for dining; $415,390 for shopping; $50,000 from the IFL for advertising; $118,082 for game tickets; and $150,000 in other game-day expenditures (parking, concessions, etc.). Sugar Skulls season-ticket holders will have priority access to tickets for the championship game, Guy said.
“This is a point where ... you can’t look at ROI,” said Fletcher McCusker, chairman of the Rio Nuevo board. “This is a chance to put Tucson on the map internationally, to be in the same breath as Nashville and Vegas. For them to even consider us, I think, is a huge compliment to the work that we’ve done.”
As the meeting concluded, a board member noted that the weather is cooler in Tucson than Vegas or Phoenix.
“Yeah, it’ll be 70 degrees in August,” another cracked.
That gave McCusker an idea for a promotional campaign:
“It’s 70 degrees inside.”
