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Al Kelly hasn’t seen much of the NFL playoffs. In fact he admits he hasn’t seen much football at all this year. But that doesn’t mean he’s not thinking about it—a lot.
“Actually this year, ironically, I’ve been able to watch far less football than I might normally, simply because I’ve been too busy,” the president and chief executive officer of the NY/NJ Super Bowl Host Committee acknowledged with a laugh during an interview with CNY.
On Sunday, Jan. 12, for example, when the San Francisco 49ers defeated the Carolina Panthers and the Denver Broncos downed the San Diego Chargers to advance to their respective conference finals, Kelly was in southern New Jersey at an event at Joint Base Dix-McGuire-Lakehurst. “We did a really terrific thank you to the military and so I saw a little bit of the first game on the television down there and I saw the very end of the second game,” he said.
With the Super Bowl now days away on Feb. 2, things are only getting more hectic for Kelly.
“Well, certainly the intensity has increased dramatically,” he affirmed. “At this point we’re pretty much all out, seven days a week. I was in here Saturday (Jan. 11) from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and the place was bustling all day.”
Kelly was appointed to head the Super Bowl host committee in April 2011 following a long career in financial services, in particular at American Express where he was president from 2007 to 2010. He has held senior positions in private industry and in government, including as head of information services at the White House from 1985 to 1987.
A graduate of Iona College and Iona Prep, where he ran track, he also serves as chairman of the board of the School of the Holy Child in Rye, sits on the Archdiocesan Finance Council, the Board of Trustees of St. Joseph Seminary, Dunwoodie, and the New York Catholic Foundation, among other posts. He and his family are parishioners of Resurrection in Rye.
That résumé of public service presumably made the Yonkers native attractive when the Giants and Jets were looking for someone to head their host committee.
At the time of his hiring, Giants treasurer Jonathan Tisch said in a statement, “We believe we have secured one of the best minds in the business world to guide us as we set out on this historic endeavor.”
“I wasn’t sure I was interested, and Jon Tisch reached out to me. So I sat with Jon and (Jets owner) Woody Johnson and we had a long conversation, and I think we all felt a lot of personal chemistry as well as a common view of what a Super Bowl in this region would mean,” Kelly explained.
As president of the host committee he has, of course, some understandable anxieties about the upcoming fortnight of high-profile public events and the big game itself. But weather isn’t chief among them.
“From the beginning we’ve kind of said to ourselves that we’re going to embrace the weather and not going to shy away from it,” he said. “A large number of events will be held outside, probably the biggest one being Super Bowl Boulevard, which will stretch on Broadway from Herald Square all the way up to 47th Street and be open Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday of Super Bowl week. So having our fan experience be a big outdoor fan fest, almost a winter fest, is certainly evidence of that.”
Two other issues are more pressing than the weather, which is out of his committee’s hands: fan security and transportation.
“You always worry about security,” he acknowledged. “But that said, I’ve always been impressed, and now that I’ve had an inside look, I’m extraordinarily impressed with the NYPD and the New Jersey State Police. These folks are incredible professionals that have tremendous assets and experience.
“They will do everything in their power to make sure that people are safe.”
As far as transportation goes, Kelly wants fans coming to the city to embrace a New York straphanger’s outlook. It is an urban Super Bowl played in a region that has a transportation infrastructure with the capacity to move large groups of people comfortably and easily. According to the MTA one in every three mass transit users in the United States and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in New York City or its suburbs.
So, Kelly wants folks to leave their cars at home, pointing out that MetLife Stadium parking will be at a premium, with many spots turned over to Super Bowl security and communications infrastructure.
“I was at the Super Bowl in Indianapolis two years ago and in New Orleans last year. In both cases I literally walked from my hotel room to the game,” he said. “Nobody, nobody is going to walk from their hotel room to the game at MetLife Stadium. So getting the message across to people that they should very much be looking to going on a bus or by train as two phenomenal alternatives to driving is the message that up until Super Bowl Sunday morning we’re going to be driving home to people.
Kelly says fans coming to New York and New Jersey for Super Bowl XLVIII can expect a different experience in other ways, too, simply because the game is being played so close to the Big Apple.
“There are a lot of things that make this game different,” he explained. “The vast majority (of Super Bowls) have been played in southern Florida, California and New Orleans. But this game isn’t about going to the beach or playing golf. This is really about enjoying the region, and this region is really the capital of everything. It’s hard to come up with something it’s not the capital of: financial services, publishing, shopping, eating, culture, entertainment and professional sports. So we think, and our hope is, that people who come for this long weekend will realize how many things there are to see and do in this region and they will want to come back again.”
