Taylor Price, 49ers.com

The 50th anniversary of the most prestigious game in professional sports will take place in the San Francisco Bay Area. Following a vote by 32 NFL owners on Tuesday, Super Bowl L will be played at Levi’s® Stadium, the future home of the San Francisco 49ers.

The San Francisco Super Bowl bid committee was selected over the South Florida committee to host the league’s championship game in 2016.

“Today’s vote is the culmination of hard work from a number of dedicated individuals,” 49ers CEO Jed York told 49ers.com moments after the big game was awarded to the Bay Area. “Our bid committee should be commended for putting together a proposal for NFL ownership that accurately depicted how memorable a Bay Area Super Bowl will be.”

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Levi’s® Stadium, set to open in 2014, will be the most technologically advanced venue to ever host a Super Bowl. It also figures to be the first cashless, ticketless venue with WiFi capability for 75,000 people in Super Bowl history.

The Super Bowl’s 50th anniversary game will return to the Bay Area for the first time since Super Bowl XIX, a 38-16 victory by the 49ers that was held at Stanford Stadium in 1985.

The 49ers still stand as the only team in league history to have won a Super Bowl in the same year their region hosted the championship game. Tuesday’s bid victory was another win for the Bay Area which continues to be one of the most prosperous sports regions in the nation.

NFL owners, along with commissioner Roger Goodell, filed into a boardroom in a Boston hotel to decide the fate of both Super Bowl L and Super Bowl LI with a secret ballot vote. Following a 15-minute presentation from the San Francisco and South Florida bid committees and five-minute presentations from the owner of the NFL team in each respective market, San Francisco’s bid was victorious over the South Florida region.

Once the votes were tabulated by NFL senior vice president of events Frank Supovitz, Goodell officially announced the Bay Area region’s victory on NFL Network.

The Bay Area’s bid committee, led by San Francisco philanthropist Daniel Lurie, spent countless hours on building the most attractive proposal since April of 2010, when the NFL’s Super Bowl Advisory Committee first announced the region’s eligibility to host the game. Lurie enlisted the Bay Area’s top figures in politics, business and philanthropy to serve on the bid committee, a group that may now be referred to as the “host committee.”

“The vision of a Bay Area Super Bowl is now a reality,” said 49ers President Gideon Yu, a member of the Super Bowl bid committee. “I am extremely proud to be working alongside such great leaders in our community on this bid. We are confident our region will see great economic prosperity by hosting the Super Bowl. The bid committee has committed to turn 25 percent of the funds it has raised back into the community.”

In 2016, Levi’s® Stadium will be in its third year of operation. The host stadium will stand as the embodiment of the region’s emphasis on technology and sustainability. Bay Area weather, culture and winning sports atmosphere were all key components in the bid committee’s Super Bowl selection.

The 49ers future home will also allow the NFL’s showcase game to highlight the best of West Coast. Super Bowl L will be the league’s first championship game in the state of California since San Diego hosted Super Bowl XXXVII in 2003.

The long Super Bowl drought in California was not lost on York, who is eager to showcase the Bay Area region’s passion for the game to football fans all over the world.

“Even before breaking ground in April of 2012, the vision for Levi’s Stadium has always been to build a venue that showcases all that is special about the Bay Area,” York said. “Innovation, sustainability and fan experience are the pillars of which we designed and constructed this facility. 

“We look forward to NFL fans from around the globe enjoying our region and our stadium, the likes of which cannot be found anywhere else in the world.”

The 49ers future home will be the first professional football stadium to open with LEED certification, the recognized standard for measuring building sustainability. The stadium’s infrastructure will also allow fans to enhance their in-game experience with personal devices (cell phones and tablets) and with an in-game mobile application currently in development by the team’s technology department.

In addition, Super Bowl L will benefit from the stadium’s sustainable vision. Home games at the stadium will be net zero to the power grid from the energy collected throughout the year. A green roof and solar energy design elements will also be the first of its kind in a Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl L announcement is just the beginning of great things to come for the future home of the San Francisco 49ers and the team’s CEO is eager to continue watching it all unfold.

“Every year, football fans celebrate this great game on Super Bowl Sunday,” York said. “Now, our region has a tremendous opportunity to be celebrated on an international stage, as we play host to the Super Bowl.”

It’s fitting that the region made famous by the Gold Rush will now host the Super Bowl’s Golden Anniversary. 

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