New Orleans Saints make massive $11.4 Superdome renovation payment ahead of Super Bowl 59

In exactly 260 days, Super Bowl 59 will be played in front of somewhere in the neighborhood of 75,000 fans inside of the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. It will be the 11th time that New Orleans has played host to the biggest game in all of professional sports, and the 8th time the game will be played inside of the Superdome, the home of the New Orleans Saints. Now, given how popular the NFL is, and what the Super Bowl has come to stand for over the last six decades, Hell could literally freeze over on February 8th, and I’m confident that the game would still be played on February 9th, 2025.

However, that doesn’t mean that a public standoff between the New Orleans Saints and the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District (LSED) wasn’t going to, for at least a brief moment, complicate matters and make things messier than they ever needed to be. A much-needed $550 million renovation project, agreed upon by the two sides in 2019, was supposed to be finished by this summer. However, since December, the Saints had neglected to make their final $11.4 million payment because of, as Saints President Dennis Lauscha stated per the Associated Press, “dissatisfaction over the state’s posture in parallel negotiations toward a long-term Superdome lease.”

On Wednesday, the LSED went public with their issues regarding their negotiations with the New Orleans Saints, stating, “That is a completely separate and independent agreement. There is no legal basis to withhold payments under the Superdome Renovation Project Development Agreement based on efforts to negotiate a longer-term extension.”

Just a day later, following a call between New Orleans Saints owner Gayle Benson and Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, the two sides appeared to be ready to start working together again, and on Friday, Lauscha and LSED board chairman Rob Vosbein had, “a productive call.”

“The New Orleans Saints made an $11.4 million payment toward Superdome renovations Friday, diffusing a public standoff between the NFL club and state officials who oversee the stadium that will host the next Super Bowl.”