If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to let me know. For the SBJ contingent, I’ll be joined by Abe Madkour, Terry Lefton, Austin Karp and Harrison Rich, a decorated Maryland journalism student intern.
Levi's Stadium routinely fits more than 71,000 people into football games, but its Super Bowl's capacity will be lower. Getty Images
The Super Bowl keeps getting bigger by most metrics, but live attendance is one notable exception. In December, an NFL spokeswoman told me they expect about 64,000 people at the game Feb. 8 in Santa Clara, though Thursday she said that figure is growing as plans are finalized. Even if it ends up at 67,000, that would be the sixth-smallest non-pandemic Super Bowl crowd. Furthermore, that would mean that four of the six smallest non-pandemic Super Bowl crowds will have come in the 2020s.
Part of this has an obvious explanation: Most stadiums are smaller than they used to be. Gone are the days of putting 100,000 people or more into the Rose Bowl, or 84,000 in the old Stanford Stadium. If the gigantic AT&T Stadium outside Dallas ever hosts a Super Bowl again, the trend would reverse itself for one year, but most of the NFL’s other options are a lot closer to the mid-60,000s range.
But broad trends in stadium design don’t tell the whole story. After all, Levi’s Stadium packed in 71,088 for Super Bowl 50 a decade ago, and the 49ers averaged 71,177 for their home games this year. The stadium’s design hasn’t changed, but Super Bowl 60’s crowd will be several thousand people fewer.
The official explanation is that the Super Bowl requires more “seat kills” than any other event. Another way to put it: the NFL leverages its biggest event for growth on many fronts. It no longer sees maximizing the live game attendance as a goal compared to other considerations.
Look at media credentials alone. There will be 6,500 media members at the game, 800 more than 10 years ago. Considering the full picture of the league’s global ambitions, using that space to drive interest in American football to the right demographic or country is worth more than the value of a ticket there. That’s particularly true when most of those seats would be relatively cheap, and the league could make it up by pushing up the price on ultra-premium offerings to price-insensitive high rollers.
You might say the same about “seat kills” to make NBC’s broadcast better, or to replace especially low-value seats with a higher-yield temporary club space. Industry experts agree on one thing: It is not creating scarcity for its own sake. Scarcity certainly helps drive prices, but the Super Bowl is such an outlier in demand that each individual seat is still profitable. There’s just a wider definition of value than there used to be, and a more nuanced understanding of what’s most important.
“The Super Bowl is a totally different animal than a regular season game at Levi’s Stadium,” said Tony Knopp, co-founder and CEO of TicketManager, which handles ticketing for major corporate clients. “There’s exponentially more media, [more] security, and there’s unique buildouts at each stadium which can compromise and obstruct views in otherwise habitable seats.”
Levy SVP/Culinary Lou Bastian (second from right) and crew prepare to harvest oysters in Tomales Bay north of San Francisco. Levy
Lou Bastian has worked on Levy’s Super Bowl LX menu for nine months, but its most intriguing items will still be in the Pacific Ocean 48 hours before kickoff, he tells my colleague Bret McCormick.
Like every Super Bowl menu, the concessions at Levi’s Stadium will be influenced by the surrounding region, in this case Northern California. So the Patriots and Seahawks’ Feb. 8 matchup will feature Hog Island oysters and Dungeness crab, caught two days before the game. The oysters come from Tomales Bay, an inlet in Marin County about two hours north of the stadium.
About 20 shuckers will be deployed around the stadium. Two points of sale will be in the Bud Light Club, a 5,000-person premium space that requires a pass but sells concessions a la carte. It’s the first time oysters have been shucked to order in that kind of space, Levy believes.
“I don’t think anyone has ever had local oysters shucked in a concessions environment,” said Bastian, Levy’s SVP of culinary.
A half-dozen oysters from Hog Island’s farm will sell for $30.
Super Bowl LX will be Levy’s seventh since entering the sports industry in the late 1980s. It’s pushing the envelope for Super Bowl LX, said Bastian, who zeroed in on a recipe for a restaurant-quality hangar steak that holds well, allowing it to be served at concessions stands over fries with an au poivre sauce. And the produce derived from Levi’s Stadium’s rooftop garden inspired a collard green-and-kimchi vegan cheesesteak “which is off the charts,” Bastian said.
This is Bastian’s fifth Super Bowl and the fourth he will lead for Levy. His first, in 2003 at Ford Field, was held during what could only be described as a simpler time.
“2003, I don’t remember any social media or anything like that,” he said. “Back then, it was just getting everybody fed. That was a massive challenge. Today, it’s how do we finish the Dungeness crab nachos with chives right at the end, with a hit of lemon, so the level of detail has massively changed. Social media and everybody taking pictures puts pressure on us in a good way to make sure we execute every dish. I don’t want to see something we spent nine months creating on social media that doesn’t look perfect.”
Bastian’s co-leader on the Super Bowl effort is Levy Division President Jim Kohler, who’s working his third Super Bowl. While Bastian oversees everything related to the food, Kohler handles logistics, supply chain, and staffing, essentially serving as a good fullback paving the way for Bastian and his team to, as the kids say, “cook.”
Levy has already begun feeding crews at Levi’s Stadium, with hundreds of workers that will swell to upward of 7,000 people by the middle of the Super Bowl week.
The staffing Kohler oversees includes more than 2,500 team members and 40 Levy executive chefs flown in from around the country. That includes a handful of up-and-coming chefs. It’s almost like a reward for them to be invited to work the event, “although you get your butt kicked the whole week,” Bastian said. “But then you’re like, ‘Hey, I just did the Super Bowl.’”
Bud Light's "City of Kegs" promotion includes Super Bowl tickets for those that find the right kegs in Seattle and New England. Bud Light
Bud Light’s Super Bowl campaign this year centers on the classic keg, and this weekend the brand will be extending the concept with labor-intensive activations at both Lumen Field in Seattle and Gillette Stadium in Foxboro. It’s calling it the “City of Kegs” event.
On Sunday, workers will haul 300 kegs into both stadiums and situate them in Section 116 in New England and Sections 108, 109 and 110 in Seattle. A limited number of fans will be granted access to the kegs, where they can choose one out of the 300 to win prizes. Some will contain cash (“a keg’s worth of beer money”) or the grand prize — two tickets to the Super Bowl.
For the Patriots, the Bud Light activation will be part of an official team sendoff on Sunday in Foxboro. Also this week around New England, Patriots sponsor Dunkin’ will be working with a former Pats player to engage fans, and other activations are coming from Netflix, Hood, Plymouth Rock, Toyota, TK’s Sports Bar, Keches Law, Cisco and Hellmann’s.
In Seattle, team sponsor Snoqualmie Casino and Hotel on Friday will sponsor a big Seahawks drone show above the Space Needle, to be broadcast by KING-5, the team’s local media rights holder. On Feb. 6, Delta Air Lines will be hosting an event at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for fans going to San Francisco. Giveaways include co-branded Seahawks/Delta clear totes and rally towels.
On the ground, Starbucks is sponsoring a two-day road trip south to the game with the mascot Blitz, who will be stopping at Starbucks stores between Seattle and San Francisco.
The Broncos placed first in overall game-day experience in this year's NFL fan survey. Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
I’ve written twice in the past year about the rejuvenation of the fan experience at Empower Field at Mile High, first after last season and then at the end of the 2025 regular season. It’s a classic tale of an on-field resurrection coming as the business side doubled down on the game day production in the new Walton-Penner ownership era.
Now come this year’s final results from the NFL’s Voice of the Fan survey, a customer-satisfaction questionnaire that is given to everyone who attends an NFL game.
In this week’s SBJ Facilities newsletter, Bret McCormick checks in with the Bills to discuss their redevelopment options for the old Highmark Stadium, which is slated for demolition in 2027.
The Chiefs narrowed their architect search for their upcoming $2.2 billion stadium in Kansas to two firms, writes McCormick: Manica and Populous.
This week’s SBJ Sports Media Podcast sees Austin Karp break down viewership numbers from the AFC and NFC title games. He also evaluates the prospects of Seahawks-Pats breaking any Super Bowl records.
Karp also reports on ESPN’s plans for “The Handoff,” a one-off initiative shortly after Super Bowl LX on Feb. 8 that will see the company begin the path to its first Super Bowl in 2027.
Variety looks at why the NFL has become so popular and how it’s fandom is changing, spurred by Taylor Swift and years of “helmets off” investment from the NFL into showcasing its players.
