49ers Blog and Q&A

At around noon on Tuesday, the Bay Area will learn whether it's hosting Super Bowl L, Super Bowl LI or neither.

Here's how it will play out. All three regions in the running for the two games - the Bay Area, South Florida and Houston - will give 15-minute presentations to the NFL owners who are holding a league meeting in Boston next week. The Bay Area and South Florida are bidding for Super Bowl L, which will be played in February 2016. The loser of that bid will take on Houston for the right to host Super Bowl LI in February 2017.

The NFL owners will vote by secret ballot and the ballots will be tabulated by NFL vice president of events Frank Supovitz. On the first vote, a region must get 75 percent of the votes to win. (In most years, there are three regions vying for the Super Bowl). If neither the Bay Area nor South Florida gets 75 percent, it goes to a second vote in which 75 percent also is needed. If that threshold still isn't met, a third vote is taken in which a simple majority is needed for the win.

At that point, Supovitz will hand the results to commissioner Roger Goodell, who will announce a winner. Then the voting will begin anew between the losing region and Houston. I'm told NFL Network will air the event.

It will be an upset if the Bay Area doesn't get Super Bowl L, the 50th game played and one that has more prestige than other recent games because it will reflect on all the past Super Bowls. It will be a colossal upset if the Bay Area gets shut out entirely.

The 49ers and the Bay Area took another step toward securing Super Bowl L today when Florida lawmakers could not work out a deal to provide taxpayer support for a $350 million upgrade of Sun Life Stadium. The Bay Area and South Florida are competing to host what is expected to be the marquee Super Bowl in recent years - the 50th game played - and the renovations are seen as key to South Florida winning the bid.

NFL owners will meet in Boston May 21 to award Super Bowls L and LI, which will be played in February 2016 and 2017 respectively. The Bay Area and South Florida are in the mix for Super Bowl L while the loser will take on Houston for the right to host Super Bowl LI.

The non-deal in Florida likely means that a referendum on the renovations scheduled for May 14 will be called off.

Meanwhile in the Bay Area, mayors from a number of area cities, including San Francisco, San Jose and Santa Clara, were on hand two months ago to check on the progress of the 49ers' new $1.2 billion stadium and to show that they are in lock step in trying to secure a Super Bowl.

Bid committee chairman Daniel Lurie would not put a figure on the economic impact to hosting a Super Bowl, but he noted that other cities that have held the event have reported a boost of anywhere from $250 million to more than $500 million. "We don't want to over promise," Lurie said at the time. "What we see is that every city that's had a Super Bowl wants it back."

The first Super Bowl was played in Los Angeles in 1967, and there would be a nice bit of symmetry if the 50th game were played in California as well. The state hasn't hosted a Super Bowl since the Raiders and Buccaneers squared off in San Diego in 2003. The last game in the Bay Area was in 1985.

The 49ers have long felt they will win one of the next Super Bowls to be awarded. The 50th game, of course, holds the most prestige, and that's the one the 49ers are gunning to get. Their new stadium is on track to be ready in 2014. Two full seasons must be played at a new facility before it hosts a Super Bowl.

-- Matt Barrows

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night ...

General manager Trent Baalke today cited Phil Dawson's bad-weather prowess as one of the reasons why the 49ers thought so highly of the 14-year kicker and why the team signed him to a one-year deal. Indeed, Dawson spent his career kicking on the shores of Lake Erie and in other nearby cities - Pittsburgh, for instance - where the weather turns nasty starting in the late fall.

He hasn't, however, had a lot of practice inside Candlestick Park. Dawson, in fact, is 1-2 in two appearances in San Francisco in 2011 and 2003. One of the questions he asked team officials during his recent visit was weather the stadium was accessible in the offseason. The answer is yes, and Dawson said he'd monitor the weather reports as soon as he brings his family to the Bay Area.

"And when it's supposed to be bad days, you can find me in there," he said. "Because I want to get in there and I want to start hitting balls and I want to see what's going on and get a game plan. That's part of my job. I don't necessarily have an opponent across the line of scrimmage I have to study and be prepared for but I do need to know the conditions I'm going to face."

The City of San Francisco may have felt jilted when the 49ers decided to build their new, $1.2 billion stadium 40 miles to the south in Santa Clara.

San Francisco is over that now.

That was the theme during a media event at the stadium today where San Francisco mayor Ed Lee, San Jose mayor Chuck Reed and Santa Clara mayor Jamie Matthews spoke about the regional effort for - and regional benefits of - landing a Super Bowl at the new stadium. The game would be played in Santa Clara but San Francisco would be the focal point for the week's festivities.

The San Francisco Super Bowl Bid Committee will make its pitch for hosting Super Bowl 50 or 51 at the NFL owners meeting in Boston on May 21.

"I've already turned the page on the Niners building a stadium here," said Lee atop the stadium's northwest promenade. "... The strength of the bid will be in the collaboration of the region."