Downtown Rooms Already Booking Up For Super Bowl 50The Palace Hotel. (Image: Google Street View)
Geri Koeppel
Published on October 06, 2015

We heard a rumor recently that rooms at one FiDi hotel would start at $2,800 a night during Super Bowl 50. That turns out not to be true—at least, not so far.

An employee of a popular Fisherman's Wharf hotel told us that some local hotels hold back inventory for special events like the Super Bowl. "People could be holding out inventory with the idea that the closer-in they book, the more expensive it’s going to be,” she said. "Some could be holding back; some could be sold out. You don’t really know." 

Before a city can even land a Super Bowl, it has to prove it has enough hotel inventory to cover all of the NFL's needs, including affiliates like corporate sponsors, the media and more. The rates are locked in with cost-of-living increases, our source said.

But each hotel also retains a certain amount of rooms it can sell at market rates. Some sell those blocks of rooms in advance to groups (like tour companies offering packages), which guarantees the number of rooms sold, typically for longer stretches of time. Others, though, bide their time and hope that after the two competing teams are decided on Jan. 24th, avid fans will pay through the nose to make the trip. (The game itself will be played at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara on Feb. 7th, 2016, with a week of events held in advance of the big day.)

Though the Super Bowl is still months away, it's getting less likely by the hour to find a room anywhere downtown, where the Super Bowl "fan village" will be held at Justin Herman Plaza. Most hotels in the FiDi and SoMa, from The Embarcadero to Powell north of Market Street and over to Fifth Street south of Market, are already sold out (or so they say) for Feb. 4th–8th, according to a map on Hotels.com.

One of the few hotels with current availability is the Palace Hotel, charging $1,800 per night for check-in on Feb. 4th and check-out on Feb. 8th. (By comparison, a Thursday–Monday stay there in late October runs less than $300 per night.) Mystic Hotel (417 Stockton St.) has advertised stays for $999 per night, but there was only one room left as of Monday. Some hotels, like Le Meridien, have rooms on some nights (Feb. 4th, 6th and 7th, ranging from $625–$671), but not others (Feb. 5th is sold out). 

Mystic Hotel. (Image: Google Street View)

Airbnb and VRBO rooms near downtown are virtually nonexistent, too, though there are plenty of affordable options on the Peninsula—until you get closer to Santa Clara, where prices rise sharply. We saw one home for $6,250 per night for Feb. 4th-8th, which, with fees and taxes, would work out to a price tag of nearly $30K for the four nights (it can accommodate up to eight guests). Then again, we did see a few not-so-shocking rentals, like this one for $230 a night or this one for $300 a night.

Notably, some rooms by the airport—more central to both downtown and the stadium—are running more than $1,300, according to a search of Hotels.com. A search of the Starwood Hotels & Resorts site shows that rooms in Cupertino and Sunnyvale will set fans back at least $1,500 per night. Even the Best Western Plus Grosvenor Airport Hotel and Hilton San Francisco Airport Bayfront are more than $1,000 per night, making this one of the few times that staying outside of the city is pricier than having downtown digs. You could, after all, book the Super 8 near the Marina for $455 from Feb. 4th–8th.

San Remo Hotel. (Image: Google Street View)

A few beds are available for far less, not all with less-than-stellar ratings. The San Remo Hotel in Fisherman's Wharf, with a 4.1 out of 5 guest rating, is just $134 a night—provided you're willing to share a bathroom. Public transportation from there to the stadium, while possible, will take a good while.

Aldrich Hotel. (Photo: Brittany Hopkins/Hoodline)

But no matter how desperate football fans get, they should beware the bargain-basement Aldrich Hotel (439 Jones St.) in the Tenderloin, which starts at the remarkably low price of $77 a night—for a good reason. Its reviews are a laundry list of complaints: "Worst hotel I have ever stayed in," says one customer, while another cites "bad customer service, dirty rooms, bad neighborhood, filthy bathrooms with urine-soaked floors, broken lock on bedroom door. I do not recommend this place to even my own worse [sic] enemy." Vomit and bedbugs round out some of the multilingual complaints on TripAdvisor.

As for locals, we'll be bracing for booked-up reservations and restaurants, long waits to get a drink at our favorite bars, packed Muni and BART trains and buses, and inexperienced drivers on the streets, among other temporary inconveniences. But for those who want to help the influx of visitors, the Super Bowl 50 Host Committee is seeking volunteers.