Tod Leiweke, the chief operating officer of the NFL, was no stranger to Minnesota when he came here for the Super Bowl, having once served as Wild team president.
He had told league officials to expect a world-class, unique event, and he said that looking back on the experience, that was exactly what they got. More than one million people from Minnesota and outside the state visited Super Bowl Live on Nicollet Mall and 1.4 million visited the Mall of America, site of the NFL Fan Gallery, according to estimates by the Minnesota Super Bowl Host Committee.
“I was the one who said, ‘This could be spectacular.