TAMPA, Fla. — Leonard Levy, a local sports pioneer who was instrumental in bringing the Bucs and several Super Bowls to Tampa, died Thursday while in hospice care. He was 89.
Levy headed up Tampa Bay’s expansion committee in the early 1970s and was extremely instrumental in bringing the expansion Bucs to the area to begin play in 1976. In addition, he ran the Super Bowl committee in the 1980s and Tampa Bay was awarded Super Bowl 18, which it hosted at Tampa Stadium at the end of the 1984 NFL season.
“It is with a heavy heart that I announce that my husband, J. Leonard Levy, passed away this afternoon at 2:30 p.m.,” Levy’s wife, Pat, said in a statement. “Leonard was a friend to many professional sports team owners, the father of the NFL franchise here in Tampa and the driving force behind getting the first Super Bowl in Tampa in 1984. We will miss him dearly.”
