JOURNAL SPORTS
Jay Cicero, a Loyola College Prep and Louisiana Tech graduate who got his start in sports administration with the minor league Shreveport Captains baseball franchise, has collected another prestigious honor for his significant presence in New Orleans and statewide.
Cicero, president and CEO of the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation and the president/CEO of New Orleans’ Super Bowl Host Committee, was announced over the weekend as the Biz New Orleans Magazine 2024 CEO of the Year.
Cicero, a 2022 inductee in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame as the winner of the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award, is steering close to 1,000 staffers and volunteers all totalling nearly 7,000 people who are preparing to host Super Bowl LIX on Feb. 9 at the Caesars Superdome.
Work on this year’s Super Bowl began in 2018. Cicero is in his third run as the Super Bowl Host Committee’s president/CEO, having overseen the big game’s non-football operations in 2002 and 2013. He was vice president of operations when New Orleans hosted in 1997.
In his “day job” with the GNOSF, he leads a 12-person staff and spearheads efforts to bring large sporting events to the city and managing a wide array of annual events.
He joined the Sports Foundation staff in December 1990, not long after five years working in his hometown for the Captains, handling sales, marketing and other capacities, and ultimately serving as assistant general manager. In 1993-94, he briefly served as general manager of the minor league New Orleans Zephyrs before they were sold, and he rejoined the foundation. He became its CEO in 1997.
Among the other major events Cicero has helped host in New Orleans are four NCAA Final Fours, most recently the men’s Final Four won by Kansas in 2022, and the 2017 NBA All-Star Game.
In the magazine’s interview with Cicero, he credited his father, longtime Jesuit (now Loyola) coach Frank Cicero, with being the pivotal figure in his life and described lessons he learned from his dad.
“To try and instill a little humor and I think service. I tell our staff that all the time — service, service, service is what we’re here to provide, whether that is servicing the NFL, the state of Louisiana, city of New Orleans, our board of directors, our sponsors or ourselves,” he told the magazine.