DENVER — Of the 76,000 fans at Empower Field on Saturday, the Common Sense Institute estimates 15%-25% will be from out-of-state.
"The beauty of playoffs here is that we get out-of-state visitors to a game. Usually, we mostly get in-state people who are attending a Broncos game," said DJ Summers, Director of Communication & Research Operations for the Common Sense Institute. "That doesn't really create new economic impact, it just shuffles it around."
The impact includes spending money on hotels, restaurants, transportation, retail, parking and game tickets.
"For a playoffs game, you get people from out-of-state," he said. "That's new money to Colorado; that's new money for us here. It's never been here before, and it plops right down into Empower Field."
Denver7 Sports
Broncos Country, local businesses gear up for home playoff game
Denver7 met up with some Buffalo locals who traveled to Denver for the game.
"It's couple grand all day long. Hotel, airfare, we rented a car, tickets, food, drinks — it all adds up. It's not a cheap endeavor, but worth it, absolutely," said Bills fan Jim Hornung. "Well, talk to me on Saturday night. I'll let you know if it was worth it or not."
Another estimate from the Denver Chamber of Commerce anticipates this game and the potential for the next playoff game will generate more than $60 million in total.
CSI bases its estimates on how many people could be traveling to Colorado and common costs for things like lodging, transportation and tickets.
"Our estimates show that all of those 15,000 [out-of-state] fans that are going to be attending the game tomorrow, all told, conservatively, they'll spend about $24 million all told," said Summers. "If you circulate it into the economy, and tally up all of the secondary impacts that it has, that'll be about $46 million in economic impact just from tomorrow."
Denver7 is committed to making a difference in our community by standing up for what's right, listening, lending a helping hand and following through on promises. See that work in action, in the videos above.