Super Bowl parade organizer Barry Kern has estimated 800,000 people were in attendance at the Saints’ rolling party, the largest figure for any New Orleans parade. Kern will provide a final number Wednesday after looking at aerial footage from helicopters flying over the route.
Traffic in the city was impossible to navigate, while supermarkets in outlying areas were reported to be empty. That’s no surprise. If the estimate is close to accurate, practically the entire region was at the parade.
New Orleans’ population is somewhere just over 300,000 and the greater New Orleans area is around 1.1 million.
The Saints didn’t say goodbye to their fans Tuesday. Tom Benson, Sean Payton, and Drew Brees are among the many Saints prominently involved in Mardi Gras parades over the next week.
In the press area after the Super Bowl, someone asked Pierre Thomas how long the party would last. Like all his answers, Thomas took about 15 seconds to respond, shaking his head in disbelief the whole time.
“Forever, man,” he said.
This is going to be some Super Bowl hangover.
