NFL connects Las Vegas minority owned businesses to potential Super Bowl LVIII contracts

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - The 2024 Super Bowl will pour millions into the Las Vegas economy and lift up local businesses. For the last eight years, NFL Business Connect has brought a diverse group of local business owners to be suppliers for the game and the events surrounding the Super Bowl.

“The subcontractors here in Las Vegas bring the labor force, they bring the nuts and bolts of everything we need to produce a Super Bowl,” NFL Business Connect lead B.J. Waymer said. “We bring the ideas. They come in with all the talent to make it happen.”

More than 200 Las Vegas business owners are invited into the Super Bowl LVIII Business Connect program. The local businesses must be over 50% diverse business owners. That includes veterans, women, minorities, LGBTQ+ and those with disabilities.

These are the businesses that will support the 10 major events around the Super Bowl and the game itself.

Businesses like Denette Braud’s funnel cake shop at Town Square that has been catering in Las Vegas for more than a decade.

“It gives Braud’s so much more exposure not just for the Super Bowl, but I like the fact that it carries over to other things,” Braud said. “We’re able to connect and network with a lot of different people.”

Not every business owner is guaranteed to land a contract to work the Super Bowl, but dozens will.

The connect program also comes with workshops to help grow their businesses. The couple hundred business owners all met at the Las Vegas Raiders headquarters in Henderson to network Wednesday.

Organizers said in previous years some business owners used the exposure to grow food trucks into restaurants and flower stands into brick-and-mortar.

“Not everyone will get to live that story, but everyone will get an opportunity to become more competitive,” Waymer said.

The Raiders are taking notice of these businesses too.

“Even if they don’t get a contract with the Super Bowl, we’re going to use the database and those resources for events for the Raiders and at Allegiant Stadium,” Raiders Chief Financial Officer Michael Crome said.

“It creates opportunities that we wouldn’t have had in the past, so helping us grow and expand our capacity going forward,” owner of G3 Electrical Tiesha Moore said.

The businesses selected as suppliers will be announced by the end of March.

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