Hear that giant clicking sound? It’s the entire Bay Area buckling up its chinstrap.
Super Bowl 50 is only a month away. You are advised to stock up on canned food, a first aid kit, a flashlight and enough water for a 72-hour emergency period.
Wait, no. That’s for an earthquake. Although in terms of sports and popular culture, playing host to a Super Bowl is kind of the same thing.
“I don’t think any of us has any grasp of how big it’s really going to be,” said Jamie Matthews, mayor of Santa Clara. “I think it’s going to be more exciting than anyone can comprehend until it happens.”
Matthews’ city is where the NFL’s championship game will be played on Feb. 7 at 3:30 p.m. Pacific Time, on the occasionally troubled grass of Levi’s Stadium.
But after covering 32 previous Super Bowls, I can tell you that the scope and breadth of this one— in hashtag language, #SB50 —will encompass far more than just those three hours of football.
As Steve Mariucci, the former 49ers coach who now works as a NFL Network analyst, once described the vibe: “It’s Barnum and Bailey all week long–and that’s whether you go to the game or not.”
A week? Try a month. The circus begins Sunday morning with a “Run The Road To Super Bowl 50” race of 10K or 5K on the streets near Levi’s. And the lunacy won’t end until the teams fly home.
You will discover this fact if, say, you are visiting the “Super Bowl City” along San Francisco’s waterfront and see yourself suddenly turned into a digital avatar on a giant video game screen inside the 40-foot-tall “Fan Dome.”
Or you may discover it when you visit Santa Clara’s Triton Museum and are stunned that the art galleries have been filled by a Pro Football Hall of Fame memorabilia exhibit.
Or you may discover it in downtown San Jose, where one of the competing teams is staying and where plans call for part of San Pedro Street to be shut down and covered with artificial turf where people can toss around Nerf footballs or participate in something called the “World’s Longest Screen Print Pull.”
Or you might be dining anywhere in the Bay Area over game weekend and remark that the guy sitting at the next table sure looks a lot like Kanye West . . . because it will be Kanye West. He’s probably chilling until the Maxim party starts at the hotel ballroom down the street.
Or you may be at a local airport and see the tarmacs jammed with private executive aircraft. Or you may book a hotel room for a visiting relative and find that the usual $89 nightly room rate has been jacked up to $489. Or you may be frustrated by trying to drive down Tasman Dr. in Santa Clara the week of the game, only to find the street blockaded for security reasons.
Or scariest of all, you might be forced to pause at an intersection as large herds of grown men wearing “cheesehead” hats or Tom Brady football jerseys cross the street in pursuit of more beer.
“I think people are going to be surprised by all the things this involves,” said Pat Gallagher, an executive vice-president of the #SB50 Host Committee who spent many years with the San Francisco Giants as a marketing man involved with World Series and All-Star Games.
“A World Series kind of sneaks up on you,” Gallagher said. “An All-Star Game is planned in advance but is more of a regional event. This is a national and international event. And football is just part of it. The Bay Area’s never seen anything like this. Ready or not, here we come. But I think we’re as ready as we can be. This is what the Bay Area is supposed to do. It kind of demands that you do something big.”
The Bay Area intends to meet that demand. Parties connected to #SB50 will stretch from the Embarcadero in San Francisco to Mission College in Santa Clara and various other Silicon Valley hot spots. There will be concerts, museum exhibits, kids interactive displays, celebrity flag football games, food festivals–and any other excuse to drink even more beer.
If executed correctly, this Super Bowl will be the largest and most impressive and most memorable scheduled big event in Northern California history. By my reckoning, it will rank just ahead of the 1939 World’s Fair on Treasure Island — a difficult bar to clear, given that Treasure Island itself was actually built for that event.
No islands will be constructed for Super Bowl 50. But as you may have heard, a youth soccer park adjacent to Levi’s Stadium will be converted into a media center for the hundreds of media members covering the game. A security perimeter will also be constructed around Levi’s Stadium, as well as an immense tent city for corporate tailgate parties. (Meanwhile, if non-corporate folk want to park their cars in stadium lots, it will cost a cool $80.)
Anticipation for #SB50 even has feuding politicians uniting in support of the effort. That includes Lisa Gillmor, the Santa Clara council member who has been jousting with Mayor Matthews about the soccer-park situation, claiming the proper process was not followed for the NFL’s takeover of the park fields this month. Despite those feelings, Gillmor said she is as excited as anyone about the Super Bowl
“I’m nervous but optimistic that Santa Clara is going to come through this with shining colors,” she said. “I want to make sure that we showcase our city to the country and the world.”
It won’t be just Santa Clara that’s showcased, of course.
“Everything is going to be spread out, around the region,” said Scott Knies, executive director of the San Jose Downtown Association. “I don’t know if that will diffuse the energy . . . I know we’re going to have a lot of fun in downtown San Jose and make it a focal point. We really want to put on a great event because we really believe this is not going to be the last Super Bowl at Levi’s Stadium.”
That’s the goal, to cement a spot in the NFL’s regular rotation of Super Bowl sites. But what will #SB50 really mean to average residents of the Bay Area, some of whom have zero interest in any of it?
Both more and less than you think.
It means more because, half a million fans upward will descend on us, thousands of which will have no intention of attending the game but just want to be part of the #SB50 atmosphere. You’ll notice them. They’ll spend money. You might benefit.
And it means less because, counterintuitively, traffic on game day almost surely won’t be as bad as a sold-out 49ers game or concert at Levi’s. Most of the game attendees will be corporate types or fans from out of town. They will be taking buses or limousines–many of them utilizing a special dedicated lane on Highway 101 between San Francisco and San Jose–or will ride Valley Transit Authority trains to the game.
“The VTA is going to be ready,” said Stacey Hendler Ross, the agency’s media spokesperson. “I’m not sure the average person will be ready for all that’s going to happen. But organizations like ours have been working hard to be ready.”
Specifically, the transportation blueprint calls for 12,000 passengers–and no more than that–to ride VTA to Levi’s on Super Bowl Sunday. The number will be controlled because people must buy their passes in advance (already on sale at VTA’s website) and must show their Super Bowl game ticket before being permitted to board one of the special SB50 trains. A round trip will cost $20. A combination fare for those riding CalTrain from San Francisco and transferring to VTA in Mountain View will cost $40.
To no one’s surprise, public safety has been the #SB50 element with the most intense planning. Federal agencies, including the FBI and Homeland Security, have been active in San Francisco and the South Bay for the past two months, formulating strategems and conducting table-top exercises to cover various scenarios. Tasman Drive in front of the stadium will be blocked off beginning Feb. 1 as the NFL establishes its security perimeter.
Outside the perimeter, various merchants are working up their own offensive game plans. Economists differ on how much money a Super Bowl truly brings to the region. Numbers are frequently inflated. Last year when the Super Bowl was in Arizona, boosters claimed it produced $719 million in economic impact to the Phoenix area. That seems exaggerated. But we do know this: Some amount of abnormal cash flow will flood in the Bay Area during the first week of February. The only issues are where and how much.To that end, local hotel rooms are still available for the #SB50 period. But they aren’t cheap. Based on travel websites, San Francisco room rates during Super Bowl weekend range from $959 at the four-star Parc 55 near Union Square to $189 at the Outer Sunset’s two-star Great Highway Inn. In the South Bay, you can still book a room at the four-star Hotel Valencia in Santana Row for $899 per night. Or you can spend $312 per night at the two-star Caravelle Inn on North 1st St. in San Jose. (The following weekend at the Caravelle, you can stay for $97 per night.)
As was outlined in the original Super Bowl bid two years ago, San Francisco will be ground zero for most of the big #SB50 parties and fan functions, including the “Super Bowl City” festival near the Ferry Building and the “NFL Experience” expo at Moscone Center. But with the two competing SB50 teams staying in Santa Clara and San Jose, those two cities are also out to grab a piece of the action.
San Jose will seize the spotlight on Monday, Feb. 1, with the nationally televised “Super Bowl Opening Night” at SAP Center with appearances and interviews by all the SB50 players and coaches. Other attractions designed to lure fans downtown include a beer garden at Cesar Chavez Plaza, the outdoor ice rink at Fairmont Plaza, a Super Bowl-themed “First Friday” Art Walk on South First St., plus the San Pedro Square events. A temporary NFL Store with Super Bowl merchandise will move into a vacant building at the corner of First and San Carlos.
Santa Clara will kick off its Super Bowl exposure with a free Jan. 31 outdoor concert by Heart at Mission College. On Feb. 6, a family festival on the Santa Clara U campus will incorporate a celebrity flag football game, food booths and the Huey Lewis show.
That same night, the revelry will peak all around the Bay with large outdoor concerts by Metallica and Alicia Keys in San Francisco, a Wrestlemania show at SAP Center in San Jose and a Warriors’ game in Oakland.
That’s a lot of event inventory–especially when local residents will be counted on to buy a lot of the tickets. Yet at least one savvy observer of the Northern California market thinks it won’t be a problem.
“The Bay Area has never met a humongous party it didn’t like,” said Andy Dolich, the sports executive who has held jobs with the A’s, Warriors and 49ers. “This thing is too big and hyper-organized to have anyone, including El Niño, rain on it.”
Oh, yes. That. Organizers are well aware that a stormy winter could soak the fun right out of Super Bowl week. They’re taking precautions. At Levi’s Stadium, a new field is being installed for the game and will receive 24-hour care, so the playing surface should be fine at kickoff time. But will El Niño affect all the build-up parties? What’s the forecast?
Too early to know, said South Bay meteorologist Jan Null. No prediction beyond seven days is reliable. However, Null checked the records from the last El Niño winter — 1997-98 — and noted that Santa Clara received 6.7 inches of rain during the first week in February that year and three-quarters of an inch on February 7.
“I have a forecasting rule,” said Null. “It goes like this: If you were planning your daughter’s wedding and it was outdoors, would I have you put together an alternate plan to move it indoors? In this case, I would tell them to plan an indoor wedding. You can’t put a dome on Levi’s Stadium, I know. But have the tarps ready.”
On second thought, you might want to find that flashlight. Bring an extra umbrella, too. You can offer both to Kanye West if he needs help getting to his party on a dark, rainy night. At Super Bowl, it’s wise to be prepared for anything. You’ll see.
Read Mark Purdy’s blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/purdy. Contact him at mpurdy@mercurynews.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/MercPurdy.
