In 50 years, 23 different venues have hosted the Super Bowl. Whether just once, or a record seven times (New Orleans’ Superdome), each has lent itself to the history of the event. Some of those contributions are a bit more cherished than others, however. And that’s how we decipher which venues have been among the best to host the game, versus which ones have not.
Below is a walkthrough of every Super Bowl host venue, ranked from No. 23 to No. 1. While there’s no firm criteria for what makes a stadium great, a lot of these make it pretty easy to spot right away. For those that don’t differentiate themselves well, that’s where the debate inevitably exists.
23. MetLife Stadium (1 game)
Super Bowl XLVIII: Seattle 43, Denver 8
22. Stanford Stadium (1 game)
Super Bowl XIX: San Francisco 38, Miami 19
21. Rice Stadium (1 game)
Super Bowl VIII: Miami 24, Washington 7
20. Levi’s Stadium (1 game)
Super Bowl 50: Denver 24, Carolina 10
19. Ford Field (1 game)
Super Bowl XL: Pittsburgh 21, Seattle 10
18. Metrodome (1 game)
Super Bowl XXVI: Washington 37, Buffalo 24
17. Sun Devil Stadium (1 game)
Super Bowl XXX: Dallas 27, Pittsburgh 17
16. Rose Bowl (5 games)
Not one truly close game in five tries (XI, XIV, XVII, XXI and XXVIII) were all decided by 10 or more.
15. Tulane Stadium (3 games)
Three of the first nine Super Bowls, and all were decided by 10 points or more.
14. Joe Robbie/Pro Player/Dolphin/Sun Life Stadium (5 games)
This venue’s had four times as many names during Super Bowls (four) as it has quality games (one), with Niners 20, Bengals 16 in Super Bowl XXIII being your lone winner.
13. Raymond James Stadium (2 games)
Ignore the 34-7 blowout in Super Bowl XXXV, and focus in on the back-and-forth Steelers-Cardinals Super Bowl XLIII that came down to the final minute, resulting in a 27-23 Pittsburgh win.
12. ALLTEL Stadium (1 game)
Super Bowl XXXIX was different from other Patriots’ Super Bowls because it never felt particularly close. Yet, it still came down to a three-point win, this time over the Philadelphia Eagles.
11. San Diego-Jack Murphy/Qualcomm Stadium (3 games)
It’s unlikely San Diego ever hosts another of these, sadly. But the city did only give us one good one in three tries. John Elway’s crowning achievement, upsetting the favored Packers in Super Bowl XXXII, is its one claim to fame.
10. Tampa Stadium (2 games)
Scott Norwood’s miss at the close of Super Bowl XXV handed the Giants a title over the Bills, in what is still one of the event’s signature moments. The other Tampa Stadium game was a 38-9 win for the Los Angeles Raiders.
9. Mercedes-Benz Superdome (7 games)
On the one hand, the Superdome has the Patriots’ first championship over the heavily-favored Rams, as well as the blackout-assisted Baltimore Ravens win over the 49ers. But looking at the other five games in this stadium, there just hasn’t been much to love. Five blowouts, including San Francisco’s 45-point blowout of the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXIV, mar what could be an interesting case. New Orleans is still one of the best cities to host the game, however, even if the games themselves have largely been poor.
8. Pontiac Silverdome (1 game)
Like the previous stadium on this list, the one game at the Silverdome featured a big halftime lead, a thrilling comeback and one team falling just short. Boiled down that quickly, Super Bowl XVI may have seemed like a bore, but the Cincinnati Bengals were technically on onside kick away from a win against the San Francisco 49ers. It wasn’t meant to be, and the Niners won 26-21 in the first of two meetings between the teams in this game. It also birthed San Francisco’s dynasty of the 1980s.
7. Cowboys Stadium (1 game)
The Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers gave North Texas a memorable Super Bowl XLV that pit two of the game’s most successful franchises against one another. What looked like an early blowout (Green Bay was up 21-3 to start) turned into a very tight finish en route to a 31-25 win for the Packers. While it wasn’t as traditionally exciting as some late Patriots Super Bowls, the one-score game still won over fans with excitement and the opulence of Jerry World.
6. Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (2 games)
At first, a 35-10 Packers blowout and a 14-7 game sound forgettable. But hosting two of the first seven Super Bowls, the L.A. Coliseum was actually a backdrop to quite a bit of history. Super Bowl I was important for obvious reasons, and that nullifies the 35-10 Green Bay win over the Chiefs. However, Super Bowl VII was the crowning moment for the immortal 17-0 Dolphins, the only undefeated team of the Super Bowl era. The nod goes to history here.
5. Reliant Stadium (1 game)
Now NRG Stadium, which will host Super Bowl LI this weekend. The last time the Patriots played in a Houston Super Bowl, they pulled off a three-point win over the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl XXXVIII. This may seem like hedging, but given New England’s recent history of close Super Bowls (all six in the Bill Belichick era have come down to four points or less), NRG is likely building a resume to move up this list over time.
4. Lucas Oil Stadium (1 game)
Another Giants-Patriots classic in Super Bowl XLVI. Underdogs again, the Giants took down the Patriots much like they did four years earlier: with a strong pass-rush and some late-game Eli Manning heroics. It may have just been one game, but it cemented these two teams as the most thrilling matchup the Super Bowl could offer.
3. Georgia Dome (2 games)
There may not be much to brag about when it comes to Super Bowl XXVIII between the Cowboys and Buffalo Bills (a 30-13 Dallas win), but the Georgia Dome’s other hosting gig remains a lasting image of what the Super Bowl can be. After coming back from 16 points down, the Tennessee Titans needed a touchdown to tie the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXIV. With the final seconds ticking off the clock, St. Louis’s Mike Jones stopped Tennessee’s Kevin Dyson at the one-yard line to end the game. A decade and a half of (mostly) close Super Bowls was born.
2. University of Phoenix Stadium (2 games)
Among venues that have hosted multiple games, Glendale’s home to the Arizona Cardinals is the only one to score 100-percent in terms of quality. University of Phoenix Stadium has given us two of the most thrilling finishes in Super Bowl history: the New York Giants’ 17-14 upset of the undefeated New England Patriots, and the Pats’ late victory over the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX. The impact of Super Bowl XLII alone vaults them over nearly every other stadium, admittedly. While the Cardinals have yet to hoist a Super Bowl trophy, their home certainly knows how to hand hardware out.
1. Orange Bowl (5 games)
Miami’s historic Orange Bowl last hosted Super Bowl XIII, but the five games that took place there all mattered. Super Bowl II was a blowout between the Green Bay Packers and the Oakland Raiders, but the game served to continue establishing the game as a national spectacle. The rest of the games all came down to a single score over the course of the succeeding 11 years, each adding to the mythos around the event.
Super Bowls X and XIII were both classics between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Dallas Cowboys, but the Orange Bowl’s most famous contest was a 16-7 win by the New York Jets over the Baltimore Colts. Without one of sports’ biggest upsets (and the Joe Namath guarantee that came before it), there’s no guarantee the AFL-NFL merger would’ve happened when it did (if at all).
