SBJ Unpacks: George Kittle takes over Radio Row

Tonight in Unpacks: Whether it’s on the field or cruising around on a high-tech scooter, George Kittle is one of the more colorful figures in the NFL. SBJ’s Harrison Rich speaks with the Niners tight end about San Francisco, the media and more in this dispatch from the Super Bowl.

Also tonight:

• NFL tries a new twist to solve its all-star game problem
• Super Bowl ads see bump in tech, health
• Big Data may push Super Bowl to another viewership record
• Op-ed: Lessons on governance and private capital

Listen to SBJ’s most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcast, where Josh Carpenter closes the week looking at various tidbits for Sunday’s Super Bowl, NBC promoting itself as a year-round home for sports, the Winter Games’ opening ceremonies (which is spread out among four locations) and more.

SAN FRANCISCO — Take a stroll through the Moscone Center, the media hub for Super Bowl LX, and you’re bound to see some interesting sights. But even by Radio Row standards, George Kittle’s Friday appearance was quite the show.

The 49ers tight end, less than a month after surgery to repair a torn Achilles, traversed through the room on a high-tech, Old Spice-branded scooter, maneuvering his way through hordes of onlookers as he conducted eight interviews over two hours to promote his Swagger-themed Old Spice line.

“I’m enjoying myself. I’m just trying not to hit anyone,” he told SBJ.

As a popular player on the hometown team a night after his star-studded “Tight Ends and Friends” party, Kittle was bound to be a standout among the sea of interviews and appearances from current and former players and coaches, wrestlers, influencers, entertainers and anybody else with a product to tout. This year’s Radio Row housed more than 130 outlets from across the world.

“Well, I think you can tell we’re about swagger today,” Kittle said during a sit-down with SBJ, sporting a red Old Spice T-shirt and a bulky boot on his right foot. “That’s our scent today.”

Kittle has been an Old Spice spokesperson since 2021. Last year, he partnered with the company on his “Kittle Can Cook” scent as part of its 2025 NFL collection. The swagger scent, he said, allows you to control the intensity with a bar on the front, depending on the “energy you’re going for that day.”

He said some of his favorite spots for guest appearances in general are the “Pat McAfee Show,” “Pardon My Take” and Will Compton’s and Taylor Lewan’s podcast, “Bussin’ With The Boys.”

Among questions about Old Spice throughout Friday, Kittle talked with McAfee about the rumored connection between an electrical substation near the 49ers facilities and injuries: “If this substation is making you 1% worse, wouldn’t you wanna know about it?” Among other topics, he also was asked about rehab — “I’ll be in a shoe next week — and the Bay Area as host — “A lot of people have been really surprised with how awesome San Francisco is.”

“I thoroughly enjoy this side of the show,” Kittle told SBJ in between appearances. “I definitely talk a lot.”

Kittle said he hasn’t given too much thought to it yet, but the 32-year-old could see a future for himself in sports media. He created a podcast with his family in 2019, launched the “Kittle Things” podcast with his wife in September and was one of five players featured in the Netflix documentary “Receiver” in 2024.

“I don’t really focus on it too much because all I’m trying to do is play football,” he said. “I’m a big believer in whatever doors are in front of me, I’ll knock on all of them and see what I fit in best with.”

Inside the Moscone Center on Feb. 3, the pre-Super Bowl NFL Experience expo was operating at full tilt. Kids were kicking extra points. Fans stood in line at Visa’s print shop to get custom posters. Rocket Mortgage offered pictures with CBS Sports commentator Nate Burleson.

In one out-of-the-way corner, an overhead banner read “Flag Football Fieldhouse.” Underneath, a small set of doors led into a set of metal bleachers. Beyond the bleachers, you could see a sprawling room with massive support arches holding up the 37-foot ceiling. Under the original Bay Area Super Bowl plan, part of this space was going to be the Experience’s back-of-house staging area.

Instead, there was a 50-yard football field laid over the concrete floor, with 88 of the NFL’s most famous players frolicking about. Roger Goodell and several other senior league executives worked the sidelines. ESPN cameras and talent were on scene, and the place was crawling with content creators and marketers.

Welcome to the 2026 NFL Pro Bowl Games, the league’s latest attempt to find a new path for its struggling all-star game property. For a league unaccustomed to retrenchment, the scene represented a dramatic capitulation to negative trends facing the Pro Bowl and all all-star exhibitions in the 21^st century. But it’s also an intriguing new platform for the NFL’s important long-term strategies around flag football, international growth and player marketing.

The decision to fold the Pro Bowl into the Super Bowl Week — and abandon major venues in separate markets — started as a problem-solving exercise. With declining viewership and relevance, the traditional Pro Bowl is increasingly seen by business partners, fans and players as a hassle. It’s been played just seven days before the Super Bowl, often nowhere near the Super Bowl, at a time when all the real energy is going to the Super Bowl.

“We wanted to take a fresh look at that this year,” said Alex Brooke, NFL vice president of global events and business strategy. “We looked at where we were from a commercial standpoint, looked at where we were from a media standpoint, looked at where we were from a fan engagement standpoint, and we thought that there was a real opportunity here.”

The NFL has staged the Pro Bowl at the Super Bowl venue before, most recently in 2015, but ruled it out this year over concerns about the playing surface. With dozens of Bay Area options and the Moscone Center already rented, there was no additional venue cost.

Cost management mattered, because for all the criticism of the Pro Bowl, it still drew more than 54,000 fans last year in Orlando. Any plan that effectively makes the game a made-for-TV event has to at least minimize the gate revenue hit. (None of the 2,000 or so people watching the Pro Bowl Games in person paid for a ticket directly; they were friends and family of players; sponsor guests from Visa, Breitling and Snickers; and Super Bowl Experience attendees who happened to line up when there was space.)

“Certainly, financials are a factor in terms of making sure we’re being efficient and we’re driving a good return on what we’re doing, both financially and strategically,” Brooke said.

After they settled on the Moscone Center plan, momentum built quickly. Once word got out there would be an NFL-quality flag field inside the convention center, USA Football asked to stage a USA-Mexico competition there two days later, with Toyota and Nike both activating around that game. Sponsorship leads saw the field as an ideal home for the NFL-YouTube celebrity creator flag football game.

“There got to be more excitement for what we thought we could do, programming-wise, this week around flag at the center, inclusive of Pro Bowl,” Brooke said.

The Pro Bowl is now one element of a broader plan to promote flag football, build the sport internationally and attract younger fans.

Those goals are shared by Los Angeles 2028 organizers and the Olympic industry generally; key sponsors such as Toyota and Nike; ESPN, NFL teams and youth-oriented media companies.

Ann Miller, executive vice president of global sports marketing at Nike, said the move has “brought a surge of visibility” to flag. Nike is a major sponsor of NFL youth flag efforts, and this week sponsored the British, Mexican and Canadian flag teams. “Nike and the NFL have been building the game of football together for years, so this spotlight strengthens everything we have been working toward, from youth participation to girls’ access to global growth,” Miller said.

Dan Porter, CEO of Overtime, the Gen Z-focused sports media brand, said the NFL’s tactic of folding the Pro Bowl into Super Bowl Week makes sense in an era when it’s far easier to incrementally grow an already-successful property than build (or rebuild) something on its own.

“In a way we’re trained to think about spreading tentpole events out, but there’s so much competition for attention that doubling down on the biggest moments is a new strategy everyone’s going to go after,” Porter said.

Under a deal with the NFL, Overtime enjoys special access to major NFL events such as the Pro Bowl and Super Bowl, and Porter said this week they’re already seeing the advantages of co-locating them — if, for nothing else, efficiency’s sake.

“Our audience expects to get to know the players, and see the players as they are,” Porter said. “They don’t need us for highlights and hot takes and breakdowns, so when you’re able to consolidate all the players who are in the Super Bowl, and now all the other good players in the league are in San Francisco for one week, it’s 2X the number of players we’re able to get to.”

The NFL is not considering simply killing the Pro Bowl altogether, Brooke said. Owners and league executives think it’s important to honor the selected players in a meaningful way that’s centered on the sport — and there’s commercial value to it too, one way or another.

“There’s real, real meaning there, and there’s a real belief that that’s worth doing beyond just naming the roster by really pulling those guys together and creating that community,” Brooke said. “And we’ve seen really good results on how these guys and this content, when their helmets are off and they’re in a more relaxed setting, how that performs.”

Also, Brooke said, the “Flag Fieldhouse” is an incubator for ideas on how to produce made-for-TV elite flag football competitions. Questions such as camera placement, crowd management, and educating players and fans on the unique aspects of flag are being answered for the first time, with possible implications for a future pro flag league, NFL Flag youth competitions, Olympic related events and other properties. (Omaha Productions president and co-founder Jamie Horowitz was on the sidelines.)

Betches Sports, a young women-oriented media brand, also has an access deal with the NFL and covered the Pro Bowl practices this week. Kyle Moffatt, vice president of sports, said this year’s format worked better for them.

“The energy definitely felt more collaborative and content-aware,” Moffatt said. “Practices felt designed not just for competition, but for connection. Players understood the moment and leaned into it, whether that was engaging with media, joking with teammates or participating in more interactive elements.”

The game itself was competitive, and players appeared to be trying. The crowd reactions seemed subdued, with a game that dragged at times. It’s not clear whether the curiosity factor of the unusual basement scene would draw people to the convention center by itself, but there were plenty of Experience attendees who wanted to check out the Pro Bowl.

One obvious shortcoming: It wasn’t on broadcast television. This year’s game, planned for Tuesday night of Super Bowl Week relatively late in the game, was only broadcast on ESPN and DisneyXD, not simulcast on ABC. Look for them to find a way to get it back on network TV.

In short, the NFL believes there’s still value in hosting some kind of exhibition featuring its best and most marketable players, and over time, it could take on a major role in the new personality-driven, short-form content universe, where young fans are won. But exactly how it is produced to maximize that value, while preserving what traditional viewership it can, is a work in progress.

“Strategically, there’s the flag piece, and the engagement metrics we can track and things like that are really foundational to what we think this platform is doing,” Brooke said. “So there’s a focus on all of that for sure. That’s where we will have to sit down and see how everything shakes out this year and continue to build on it.”

Super Bowl LX kicks off on Sunday, and along with the game comes a new batch of ads as brands look to get their products and services in front of viewers.

Among the many brands that spent big to be featured during NBC’s broadcast -- with a 30-second spot reportedly costing on average $8M -- two categories stood out with a slew of new advertisers: tech and health.

The tech category will see a major push behind AI with this year’s spots. Amazon and Google both return, but with both highlighting their AI assistants in Alexa and Gemini, respectively. Also showcasing their AI assistants will be OpenAI, which made its Super Bowl debut last year, and Super Bowl newcomer Anthropic. Beyond that, a group of tech companies will make their Super Bowl debuts showing viewers how AI features within their products, including Genspark AI, Wix’s Base44, Ring and Oakley Meta (which will run two in-game ads).

The health category will see continued growth, as two returning brands will be joined by three newcomers. Telehealth will be represented by two companies during the game as Him & Hers, which debuted last year, will be joined by Ro. The pharmaceutical company ranks also will grow, as Novartis returns from its debut last year alongside Boehringer Ingelheim and Novo Nordisk.

Other newcomers to the game across other categories include Liquid IV, Grubhub, Fanatics Sportsbook, Kinder Bueno and Svedka.

The chart lists preliminary plans for national Super Bowl ad spots on Sunday during NBC’s airing of the game.

The Super Bowl has set new viewership records in each of the past three years, and despite the fact that the Super Bowl LX does not feature a matchup that “experts predicted for this year,” that does not “mean it can’t set another ratings record,” according to Stephen Battaglio of the L.A. TIMES. The popular Chiefs will not be in the game for the first time in three years, having been a part of the last three record-setting games. But the NFL has experienced higher viewership this year in part because Big Data viewing information is “now included in Nielsen’s audience measurement.” In addition, history is “on the side of a robust audience number” for Super Bowl LX. The last time the Patriots faced the Seahawks in 2015, the NBC telecast of Super Bowl XLIX set a viewership record at the time of 114.4 million. NBCUniversal Chair/Global Advertising & Partnerships Mark Marshall said that the company “does not expect the announced alternative halftime show presented by Turning Point USA to have an impact on the ratings” (L.A. TIMES, 2/6).

STEERING THE SHIP: VARIETY’s Brian Steinberg noted NBC Sports Coordinating Producer Rob Hyland will oversee production of the Super Bowl “for the first time in his career,” while Mike Tirico will make his Big Game play-by-play debut as well. And while “all eyes will be on Tirico,” there will be a “substantial amount of pressure on Hyland.” He will have to “monitor the weather at an outdoor stadium” and guide Tirico “through a crucial ten-minute process that gets him from the broadcast booth after the end of the game to the football field, where he will start hosting the Winter Olympics.” Hyland has worked at the Super Bowl before, but “never in a command capacity.” He and director Drew Esocoff will have “80 cameras at their disposal” -- which is a “big jump from the 30 typically used” for “Sunday Night Football.” NBC will be able to “give viewers real-time data about the wind or the chances for precipitation” -- which are “hard-to-ignore elements at an outdoor facility.” Hyland: “We want to make sure we have the ability to visually show how wind is affecting the game -- especially with kickers” (VARIETY, 2/4).

ON THE FIELD: On Long Island, Joe Manniello wrote Sunday will feature a “rare journalistic feat” with two female sideline reporters for the Super Bowl. Melissa Stark, working her second Super Bowl, will be joined by Kaylee Hartung, making her Super Bowl debut. NBC also had an all-female sideline reporting team for its last Super Bowl in 2022. Fox also had two female sideline reporters in 2014 (NEWSDAY 2/4). Hartung, on covering her first Super Bowl, said, “It feels like such a cliche statement to say this is a dream come true. But it actually is.” She added, “It’s wild that it’s the truth” (N.Y. POST, 2/4).

HOME BASE: In San Jose, Michael Nowels reported 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan and LB Fred Warner will “appear on NBC’s pregame show” and will be joined by former NFLer Aaron Donald and Steelers DT Cam Heyward. The show will be anchored by Maria Taylor and include analysts Tony Dungy, Jason Garrett, Rodney Harrison and Devin McCourty, as well as Chris Simms. Multiple segments of the show will “air from Alcatraz Island” (SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, 2/4).

• Medium Rare is handling a trio of Super Bowl parties this weekend, such as Shaquille O’Neal’s annual “Funhouse” gathering, generating over $20 million for the events operator, reports SBJ’s Chris Smith.
• Friday’s SBJ Betting newsletter from Bill King has more on the Super Bowl party plans and more from the online sportsbook operators.
• The NFL’s newest innovation competition will seek ideas to improve the protectiveness of facemasks, writes SBJ’s Joe Lemire. Commissioner Roger Goodell announced the mission of the annual HealthTech Challenge with $100,000 of available funding.
• While fresh data shows that ticket prices for Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium on Sunday have “fallen by nearly” 30% from $5,969 to $4,350 since the matchup was set, it still “remains one of the most expensive Super Bowls on record.” (TICKETNEWS.com, 2/5).
• Broncos season-ticket holders next season will see an “average 9% [price] increase” compared to 2025. Tickets on the secondary market this year “sold for more than 50% above the season-ticket rate in 2025,” a big jump over recent seasons. (DENVER POST, 2/5).
• A small subset of Super Bowl LX ad space for streaming-only commercials on Peacock is “gaining traction and granting smaller brands time” during TV’s biggest night (CNBC.com, 2/4).
• Santa Clara “enacted a last-minute policy” ahead of Super Bowl LX that will “prevent federal agents from using city-owned property for immigration enforcement activities” (San Jose MERCURY NEWS, 2/5).

When Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) cautioned Big Ten presidents about opening Big Ten Enterprises to an outside investor whose “primary goal is to make money” and would be “unlikely to align with the academic mission of your universities,” her warning was a critique of profit versus purpose.

There’s not a university board that doesn’t view institutional mission as its North Star when evaluating private capital. There’s also not a university that’s indifferent to revenue growth in this era of declining enrollment, rising costs and unprecedented financial pressures. University leaders live at the intersection of both realities.

The difference between the Big Ten Conference’s stalled discussions with UC Investments and the Big 12 Conference’s emerging partnership with RedBird and Weatherford reveals how the governance model of any proposed deal with private capital will determine whether the outcome will be successful. These conferences ran parallel experiments in privatization. Both explored monetizing aggregated media rights. Both engaged sophisticated capital. Only one produced a deal. Why?

Private capital is not new to higher education

I challenge the notion that private capital is inherently incompatible with charitable mission. More than two decades ago, in IRS Commissioner v. Redlands Surgical, the court was asked whether a nonprofit health care system could partner with private, for-profit participants, share in economic upside, and still preserve its tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3) organization. The answer was yes ... provided the nonprofit retained operational control.

The Redlands holding shaped how health care systems engage with private capital. It also established a framework for public-profit partnerships that has permeated the nonprofit sector, including in higher education. For decades, university endowment and real estate development foundations have invested in partnerships with for-profit interests. Research foundations hold stock in startups, sitting alongside private investors as co-owners. University boards aren’t newcomers to private capital. They’re experienced stewards who know how to invite it in, price it appropriately, and keep authority where it belongs.

That sophistication explains why the Big Ten effort stalled and the Big 12 deal advanced. It also explains why today’s debate feels oddly behind the curve.

The Big Ten: Centralization without consent

In the fall of 2025, the Big Ten pitched a minority investment at the conference level, tied to the creation of Big Ten Enterprises and the monetization of aggregated media rights. Rather than allowing individual universities to pursue capital on their own, the conference would raise capital centrally through one investor and deploy it across the league. The Big Ten sought to capitalize the conference itself, treating the league as the primary economic actor instead of secondary to its members.

The Big Ten ignored the reality that each school isn’t the same. There was no meaningful way for institutions to express risk tolerance or strategic preference.

The deal reflected the nature of the investor involved. UC Investments is the centralized investment office for the University of California system, managing its endowments, pension, and capital reserves. It operates as a fiduciary, accustomed to returns appropriate for public-trust portfolios.

From UC Investments’ perspective, the Big Ten proposal averaged returns across a diversified array of institutions. But the deal depended on uniform participation. If any marquee brand exited, the return profile would deteriorate quickly. The structure required consensus the Big Ten couldn’t deliver. The deeper problem was the conference was behaving like a corporation instead of an alliance of sovereign universities.

The Big 12: Capital enters where invited

The Big 12 took a different approach. Its proposed private capital partners are RedBird Capital and Weatherford Capital. RedBird is an operator-aligned investment firm focused on sports, media and entertainment assets. RedBird is comfortable working inside complexity, partnering with rights-holders, and structuring investments around differentiated participation.

The partnership with RedBird and Weatherford was opt-in. Participation was voluntary. The Big 12 didn’t attempt to fund itself. It created a structure that allowed its university members to decide, individually, whether to invite private capital into their athletic operations.

Where UC Investments required league-level uniformity, RedBird was prepared to engage selectively. The Big 12 didn’t ask RedBird to accept the conference as a single enterprise. It allowed governance to translate institutional diversity into investable form. Capital enters only where it’s invited.

What’s a conference supposed to do?

Underlying these case studies are questions conferences have largely avoided. Is a conference a corporation dedicated to growth, capitalization and enterprise value? Or is it an alliance designed to create a healthy environment for its members? Those are not the same thing.

If a conference exists to fund itself, centralized capitalization makes sense. Capital sits at the top. Universities conform below. Growth becomes the organizing principle.

If a conference exists to serve its members, the role of governance changes. The conference doesn’t need to raise capital itself. It needs to create structures that allow universities to decide for themselves whether to invite private capital into their athletic enterprises. As conference realignment discussions arise from time to time, these are lessons to be remembered.

What these two outcomes actually tell us

These two outcomes reveal how universities think about private capital. Universities are not resisting capital. They’re resisting structures that dilute their agency and right of self-determination.

The Big Ten deal failed because it asked institutions to subordinate individual choice to centralized ambition. The Big 12 succeeded because it respected the sovereignty of each university to decide whether to engage. Governmental regulators, pundits and private capital should pay attention to this lesson.

This is also why Cantwell’s warning resonated across the Big Ten. Not because universities fear capital, but because they’re wary of governance that weakens university control.

The blueprint for the future of college athletics is Redlands Surgical. Private capital can earn returns while athletic departments retain control. This model doesn’t require a university to sell its soul. It allows each institution to decide whether to open its athletic house to one investor, ten thousand or none at all. Conferences that support this evolution, rather than resist it, will serve their members well.

Clay Grayson is an attorney who advises universities on governance and capital-structure issues in college athletics and is the author of the forthcoming book “Semi-Pro.”

• SBJ’s Rachel Axon runs down the bonuses different nations are providing athletes for medals at the Winter Games, such as how South Korea waives mandatory military service for men who find their way to the podium.
• Axon also writes about IOC President Kirsty Coventry’s approach to her first Winter Games leading the organization.
• SBJ’s Tom Friend, who once worked at the Washington Post, reflects on the loss of the newspaper’s sports section amid the devastating layoffs the publication suffered this week.
• Tickets for NASCAR’s San Diego race at Naval Base Coronado are “selling like hot cakes,” according to EVP and Chief Venue and Racing Innovations Officer Ben Kennedy, telling SBJ’s Adam Stern that he expects a sellout soon.
• The USMNT will use the Great Park Sports Complex in Irvine, Calif., as its team base camp training site during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, sources tell SBJ’s Alex Silverman.
• Silverman also writes about the Coachella Valley Invitation, an event that draws 22 pro soccer teams, and how it’s adapting to the change in the MLS schedule.
• The SAP Center and Sharks launched TealReimagination.com this week, a website offering a digital view into the $400 million-plus renovation project that the team and venue commenced last fall, notes SBJ’s Bret McCormick.
• SBJ’s David Broughton reports on the findings from Pro Sports Assembly and Navigate’s research into the first industry-wide benchmark to examine how team, league, union and venue leaders perceive and manage government relations and public policy,