Super Bowl and Short-Term Rentals: Rates Surge for the Big Game

It’s Super Bowl season and the booking calendars know it. 

Crowds from all over the country will descend on Las Vegas on Sunday, February 11. For short-term rentals in the area, it’s like Christmas coming early. 

Data vendor AirDNA’s analysis showed that by January 27, there was an 87% surge in demand for the Super Bowl weekend (Feb 9-11) and a 51% higher average daily rate (ADR) compared to the corresponding weekend last year. 

This year, the ADR for booked listings on platforms such as Airbnb and Vrbo for the weekend of February 9-11 is $353, compared to $234 the prior year. Daily rates for listings available have escalated to $508, compared to $276 the prior year.

Super Bowl Effect on Short-Term Rentals in Vegas

Dates
Booked Nights
Revenue
Booked ADR
Available ADR
Super Bowl '24
21,420
$7.5M
$353
$508
Feb 9-11 '23
11,458
$2.6M
$234
$276
Change
87.00%
182.00%
51.00%
84.00%

Source: AirDNA

Super Bowl Showdown

This year, the demand surge led to a 180% annual increase in Las Vegas’s short-term rental revenue.

And Kansas City Chiefs fans are driving a surge in short-term rental bookings. According to Airbnb data reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, fans of the Missouri-based team are conducting three times more searches for local Airbnbs during the week of the game (Feb. 5-12) compared to individuals in the San Francisco Bay Area. Overall, searches for Airbnb rentals in the Las Vegas Valley for the week of the game have increased by 65% compared to the same period last year.

Comparing Super Bowl-specific daily rates, Las Vegas attracts a 50% ADR hike for the weekend compared to the preceding weekend, which is less than the 78% boost Phoenix had last year.

In contrast to Phoenix, Las Vegas has not witnessed a substantial surge in listings — with only a 15% annual rise as of the end of January. In comparison, Phoenix saw a 62% annual increase in listings in February 2023 — an additional 2,688 properties listed for the Super Bowl compared with the weekend prior. 

“The short-term rental market in Phoenix is just a more expensive product, Las Vegas has most hotel rooms of pretty much any American city, there is a lot of price competition,” said Bram Gallagher, economist at AirDNA. “The premiums we saw in Phoenix last year were very large, and it’s difficult to raise prices that high in Las Vegas, even for the Super Bowl.”

It is very likely that a lot of this demand is attributable to Taylor Swift’s presence at the Super Bowl.