How the Super Bowl could bring a super digital future

Winter is coming — a phrase no Minnesotan wants to hear in early June. Still, while we soak up the summer months, business leaders and the Minneapolis community at large are keeping a careful eye on preparations for February's Super Bowl LII. Over the past few years, we have seen the new Minnesota Vikings stadium come to life. Now, we will be able to make that time and investment reverberate across the community.

The Super Bowl LII host committee estimates that the big game will bring in more than $400 million — dollars that will be driven to our small businesses, the tourism industry and every corner of our local economy. While some economists may disagree on the dollars and cents, the bottom line cannot be disputed: The Super Bowl will be an enormous opportunity for the Minneapolis-St. Paul area to create huge economic returns for the immediate future.

And if we plan correctly, we can ensure that these returns also stretch well into the next several decades.

How do we prepare the Twin Cities to leverage the benefits of the big game long after it ends? The answer could rest in digital innovation.

Investments in our digital infrastructure are already well underway as mobile carriers prepare for higher demands in data-intensive services, including faster mobile speeds and seamless smartphone video connectivity, from the upcoming influx of Super Bowl fans.

As a result, we are in a unique position to take advantage of these investments to also build out lasting infrastructure that will allow us to power innovations including connected vehicles, smart trash cans and utility meters, intelligent lighting, and a slew of connected consumer devices down the road.

These types of advancements, which will forever change how people work and live, are particularly encouraging as we think about future generations in the Twin Cities. We have a responsibility to lay groundwork now that will give future residents the best possible leg up in integrating advanced technologies into everyday life. And by working with service providers and other innovators to expand and maintain digital capacity in our area, we will be doing just that.

It's always easy to propose ideas like this that carry such promising potential. It's another to actually mobilize them. That's where our business community and policymakers can come in.

Local leaders must negotiate in good-faith terms that will foster these types of increased investments. The role of the city should not be to provide bureaucratic inertia when it comes to technology and future innovation, but rather to implement a mind-set in which all stakeholders can work together to build a future-ready local economy.

Super Bowl LII is poised to bring needed investments that will be a boon to our economy. But like any major U.S. metropolitan area, we must also think long-term and have our eye on ways to stretch these opportunities well into the future. This will take collaboration not just from lawmakers and businesses but also innovators and even local citizens.

Jonathan Weinhagen is president and CEO of the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce. He will be a panelist at the Digi.City Connects: Twin Cities Roundtable being held at U.S. Bank Stadium at 9 a.m. Tuesday.