NEW ORLEANS : When It Comes to Throwing Super Bowl Parties, the City Gives No Quarter--French or Otherwise

NEW ORLEANS —  Outside, on the corner of Bourbon and Toulouse, you can hear the plucking of bass guitar strings, the uneven wailings of a saxophone, the funky rap of a break-dancer’s stereo. A bar barker yells to a trio of potential patrons, “Yo, the three wise men! C’mon!” Shoeshine boys confront anyone wearing leather. And in shop windows are banners and signs, many proclaiming the arrival of another Super Bowl, this one complete with double Xs.

Richard Booth glances at the street life. He has time to talk. The night is young, the business slow and his lone customer, the fat lady who ate two steaks, the garnish and possibly parts of her dinner napkin, has just waddled out of Original Papa Joe’s Restaurant and Music Bar and into the early evening charm of the French Quarter.

“Naw-lins?” he says, hugging his serving tray while considering the inquiry about his city. “All you have to think of is sin.”

Booth then rattles off enough sin to keep Hades busy for months. In general, enough revelry to fill any police blotter. In specifics, nothing you could print without first checking with the boys on the vice squad.

“I’ve seen women take off their clothes and jump from that balcony over there and into the crowd,” Booth says. “There’s nothing that surprises me anymore. Listen, people come down here, get drunk, carry on and then go back to their homes and be good. I mean, if you’re offended by sin, this isn’t the place to come.”

Offended? Heck, the National Football League is addicted to this city. Can’t get enough. If NFL owners had their druthers, they’d probably name New Orleans the permanent site of their prized championship. As it is, they’ve selected New Orleans seven times for Super Bowls, including Sunday’s game between the New England Patriots and Chicago Bears at the Superdome and another one in 1990. No other city can claim such NFL popularity.

Not that New Orleans minds. To the contrary, this is a city of commerce, politics and perhaps most of all, a city entirely comfortable with the idea of entertaining. How many other cities invite 1 or 2 million of its closest friends for an intimate party called Mardi Gras?

This week New Orleans becomes more selective, limiting its invitations to, say, 65,000 who can actually watch the game in person.

“While I wouldn’t describe the Super Bowl as a drinking orgy,” says Dave Dixon, who helped bring an NFL franchise to New Orleans and who later founded the United States Football League, “I would say it’s the equivalent of an outdoor block party that goes on for six or seven days. I’ve heard it said by many (NFL) owners that if not for the politics of the situation, they would vote for the Super Bowl to come here every year.”

Dixon, warning that his friends may scoff at him, says he’d even rate the Super Bowl at least an equal with the sacred Mardi Gras. “But I’m such a football fan,” he says.

Booth, who has witnessed both events and the carnage they bring, says, “Mardi Gras just has more people. But it’s the same thing.”

No one gets drunk here, just over-served. In the French Quarter, the working motto seems to follow George Bernard Shaw’s observation that alcohol “is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.” If so, they pour a mean anesthesia here.

New Orleans never met a party it didn’t like. It has adopted the Super Bowl as one of its own. What with the hapless Saints, a 19-year-old franchise that has yet to qualify for postseason play, New Orleans residents are just happy to have someone in town who knows how to win.

“None of this upsets the city of New Orleans,” says Brooke Duncan, past captain of Rex or king of Mardi Gras. “We do it with tolerance and experience. We are used to events and we are used to having a good time. But we also are a hard-working city.”

When former Raider defensive lineman John Matuszak, a hard-working guy himself, decided at Super Bowl XV that curfews were for teen-age girls on their first car date, not professional football players, he was hailed as a hero by Bourbon Street veterans. Under the guise of “enforcer,” Matuszak took to the French Quarter allegedly to prevent teammates from disrupting their delicate training regime.

The Raiders thanked him with a $1,000 fine.

“We didn’t have curfew on Sunday or Monday or Tuesday,” he said, “but I didn’t go out on any of those nights. Then I said, ‘If it’s Wednesday, it must be “Tooz-day.’ ”

Matuszak said he arrived at one of his favorite clubs at 1:30 a.m. and tried to present two Super Bowl tickets to the owners. Problem was that the owners still were a tiny bit upset at a previous visit from Matuszak and a lady friend who had damaged some of the property.

“I said, ‘Chris, where’s Saul? I’ve got some tickets for you.’

“She said, ‘Saul’s dead and I don’t want any tickets.’

“Oh,” Matuszak said.

By the time he was through enforcing, it was 9:30 and Matuszak was late for a morning press conference. He hitchhiked to the media gathering where a Raider official promptly informed him of the fine. Matuszak said it was worth the expense.

“I had a wonderful time,” he said, securing his Super Bowl legacy.

For what it is worth, Matuszak offers personalized tour suggestions for Bear and Patriot players:

“Well, I would ask, ‘How do you feel personally? How’s your health?’ I say make sure you start your evening with a couple of friends. Get some gumbo, by all means get some gumbo, and stay off the streets. You need your legs. Say hi to a some pretty ladies if you want. But get home at a reasonable hour. You have a responsibility to your teammates. Get transportation to Bourbon Street and back. But mostly spend time with your game films.”

Get the feeling Matuszak may have mellowed?

No matter. By the end of February, New Orleans will have housed, fed and entertained tens of thousands of Sugar Bowl fans, conventioneers, Super Bowl fans, Mardi Gras visitors and Matuszak-like partygoers. You need a court order to get lodging this week. All 26,000 New Orleans-area hotel rooms are taken.

“I have gotten so many desperate calls,” says Laurie Smigielski of the Hyatt Hotel. “As far as bribing me, I haven’t gotten calls like that, yet.”

Says Mickey Holmes, director of the Sugar Bowl: “Try to get a hotel room in this town. I’ve been calling in due bills, but no luck. And I’ve got a couple of friends in the hotel business in this town. What the Super Bowl does is unreal.”

Local travel agents tell callers there are plenty of hotel rooms available . . . in Baton Rouge (80 miles) or Biloxi, Miss., (90 miles).

“I had a guy who was in the oil business and wanted 10 rooms at one of the downtown hotels,” travel agent Lowell McKee says. “He had cash in hand for rooms that cost about $150 a night. Uh, he’s down in Morgan City (La.).”

The NFL estimates that the Super Bowl will generate about $70-$100 million worth of tourist revenue for New Orleans. Visitors will spend about $200-$250 a day, which is about four times the average. Almost every rental car available is expected to be used. Compare the numbers to 1981 and Super Bowl XV where the economic impact was about $40-$50 million.

“(The Super Bowl) is probably the best one-date piece of business that a community can have,” says Moon Landrieu, the former New Orleans mayor.

In more real terms, Booth says he’ll make about $2,000 this week waiting tables. During the Mardi Gras festivities, he says he earns $3,000-$5,000. New Orleans taxi drivers say there is no week better than the seven days the Super Bowl is in town.

The relationship between the NFL and New Orleans is a happy, sincere, back-slapping affair. The league loves the Superdome and its television capabilities. Last year at Stanford Stadium, site of Super Bowl XIX, it seemed more cable was used there than for the trans-Atlantic telephone lines. And at the Superdome, weather is controlled by a thermostat, not by the whims of nature.

Also, the city is compact and well-intentioned. Everything is within walking distance, unless, of course, you’re in Biloxi.

“It’s a good change of pace from cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami,” says Joe Browne, director of NFL communications.

“New Orleans is such a tight-knit city,” Dixon says. “I almost think of New Orleans as a person. Let me tell you, the people of this city are really delighted to have the Super Bowl. It’s all that anyone is talking about.”

Says Landrieu: “It’s the same as if you had a heavyweight championship fight or the Kentucky Derby. It certainly enhances your prestige and your image.”

Truth is, New Orleans could use a little image boosting after last year’s World’s Fair. Attendance was less than expected, financing came under public scrutiny and media acceptance of the Fair was lukewarm.

Now comes along the Sugar Bowl, which pumped about $25 million worth of revenue into the city, the Super Bowl (another $100 million or so) and then Mardi Gras. “The World’s Fair was an economic failure perhaps,” Dixon says. “I think there was a little bit of a psychological reaction. Maybe the city got a little down on itself. But then, boom, boom, boom. All this has made people forget any of the problems of the World’s Fair.”

Says Duncan of the World’s Fair memories: “It’s turned to a pillar of salt, I believe the Bible says.”

About those Bibles. Only one other out-of-town convention will attract more visitors than the Super Bowl. That would be the Charismatic Renewal Services, a religious function scheduled for the Superdome in 1987. According to the Superdome convention sales department, about 75,000 CRS members are expected to attend.

Lions International and its 20,000 conventioneers come to New Orleans in July. The Seventh-day Adventists and its 40,000 convention members have come and gone. “It was like church here almost every single day,” says Jamie LoCoco of the convention sales staff, whose office is located in the Superdome. “They took out the Coke machines, the cigarette machines. Bourbon Street? I don’t think they were out there.”

Don’t count on the same abstinence this week as fans from Chicago and New England arrive. The French Quarter was built for speed and abuse.

But back in 1969, when New Orleans civic leaders petitioned the NFL in Palm Springs for Super Bowl IV, the French Quarter was a minor selling point. League owners were more concerned about weather and stadium accommodations. There was talk of making Miami and the Orange Bowl, what with its appealing climate and facilities, the Super Bowl’s permanent address.

New Orleans already had been rejected for Super Bowls II and III. So when the city’s delegation, led by former New Orleans Times-Picayune editor George Healy Jr. and jazz musician Al Hirt, arrived in Palm Springs, it came prepared with several key enticements, including use of 82,000-seat Tulane Stadium--free.

The story goes that on the night before the owners’ vote, Hirt entertained the crowd by playing “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans,” and “All of Me.” At the end of a duet with Hoagy Carmichael, Hirt turned to the audience of owners and promised a Super Bowl IV halftime concert . . . if New Orleans was the site.

New Orleans received the bid.

“Our original pitch was that the game ought to rotated among cities,” says Bob Roesler, executive sports editor of the Times-Picayune and vice chairman of the New Orleans Super Bowl task force.

As for warm weather, Roesler said he consulted an almanac which indicated New Orleans would receive fair weather for the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Minnesota Vikings. “I looked it up: 47 years and no precipitation,” he says.

On game day, Roesler got out of bed, peered out his windows “and saw icicles hanging from the trees. Later, Kansas City comes to town,” he says. “They drive up and the fountain in front of their hotel is frozen.

“Still, the NFL came back,” Roesler says. “Looking back, I wonder why.”

Why, that’s easy. There’s the city, the Superdome and the sin--no waiting.