Super Bowl 50 is still five months away, but the planning for the event has been underway for years. San Francisco 49ers’ Chief Revenue Officer Ethan Casson, Super Bowl 50 Host Committee CEO Keith Bruce, and NFL Senior Vice President of Events Peter O’Reilly convened Tuesday night at the first event in the Minds Behind the Game: The Road to SB50 series, presented by Chat Sports and the Super Bowl 50 Host Committee. During the intimate panel discussion, they offered unique insight into the planning of the NFL’s crown jewel.
Chat Sports: Minds Behind the Game, a nationwide thought leadership summit founded in San Francisco, has featured the likes of Jed York, Joe Lacob, Charles Woodson, Tiki Barber and Dan Gilbert in the past.
Casson, Bruce and O’Reilly offered tidbits ranging from the construction of Levi’s Stadium and how it was built for a Super Bowl to the NFL’s plan for Super Bowl 50 and beyond.
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Bruce began Minds Behind the Game by revealing just how long the committee had been working.
“The Super Bowl 50 Host committee was actually formed two years ago today,” Bruce said.
The goal for Super Bowl 50 is simple, but challenging.
“Our mission is to deliver the best Super Bowl in the history of the game,” Bruce said. “The 50th Super Bowl will be the most celebrated Super Bowl in the history of the NFL.”
The NFL is abandoning the roman numerals for Super Bowl 50, in part because the league wants this to be a special Super Bowl.
“Super Bowl 50 is going to be a year-long celebration,” O’Reilly said. “Everything we’ve done is building up to 50, something we wouldn’t normally do.”
Every NFL broadcast partner, will spotlight the Super Bowl each week, especially in games that feature previous Super Bowl matchups.
Casson said when the 49ers play the Cincinnati Bengals in the regular season, the 49ers will bring back many Super Bowl veterans from the team’s two victories over the Bengals.
Even the high schools of previous Super Bowl participants will be involved.
“We’re delivering a 3,000 gold footballs to high schools across the nation this year,” O’Reilly said. “Every high school of a player or coach that was involved in a previous Super Bowl will get one.”
While Super Bowl 50 will be a celebration of the past, it will also look forward to the future.
“Super Bowl 50 is celebration of the game, but it’s a fantastic opportunity to look ahead to the next 50,” Bruce said.
The NFL believes that the Bay Area is the perfect location to help push the Super Bowl above and beyond.
“The ability to drive forward to the next 50 was key in giving the Bay Area Super Bowl 50,” O’Reilly said.
The 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium was the focal point of the Super Bowl bid. Casson was heavily involved in the construction of the stadium.
“We were talking about hosting a Super Bowl from the day we started planning a stadium,” Casson said. “We built the stadium to be future-proof.”
Casson and the rest of the team involved in building Levi’s Stadium visited recently constructed NFL stadiums like the Dallas Cowboys’ to learn from their process.
“We went to the newest stadiums to see what works, and most importantly, what doesn’t work,” Casson said.
Casson doesn’t want San Francisco to host just one Super Bowl though.
“The plan has always been for the 49ers to host another Super Bowl in the future.” Casson said.
“We want the Bay Area to want to host another Super Bowl again,” Bruce said.
Much of the promotion of Super Bowl 50 for the Bay Area has been digital, but that will now change.
“Now that we’re 5 months out, we’re moving from planning mode to operating mode,” Bruce said. “Wednesday, we’re launching the ’50 Tour’ and putting out the eight Super Bowl trophies the Bay Area has won … The Road to 50 app launches tomorrow.”
Bruce announced that for the first time, Super Bowl City opens eight days before Super Bowl 50 kicks off. The free-to-the-public fan village is designed to showcase the best of what the Bay Area has to offer.
Bruce, an avid wine enthusiast, said he wants the Super Bowl to highlight the area’s wine, food, art and technology culture. But, he also wants to highlight a feature he feels is often over-looked: the philanthropy of the Bay Area.
“We’re going to make this the most-giving Super Bowl ever,” Bruce said.
One of the last questions focused on VenueNext, the 49ers’ stadium app. Casson said it is the 49ers’ way of merging the at-home experience with being at the game live.
“Every NFL team is competing with the living room, but the Holy Grail of pro sports is being there live,” Casson said. “Venue next is an app that merges the living room experience with being at the game live.”
One of the questions from the audience focused on the report that Bruno Mars had been invited to participate in the halftime show. O’Reilly wouldn’t confirm the report, but did say the halftime show would be a good one.
“There are a lot of fun ideas being thrown around for the Super Bowl halftime show,” O’Reilly said.
Another audience member asked what the Super Bowl’s “unique event” would be. New York had toboggan rides, so what about San Francisco?
“Our feature act focus on physical and digital ways to interact,” Bruce said. “It will involve your device in some way. We’re not ready to announce it yet. We typically do so around Thanksgiving.”
Although much of the night focused on the behind-the-scenes details, the panelists worked in jokes too.
Some of the lights briefly went out, prompting O’Reilly to say “We aren’t the Superdome.”
One of the questions asked was about the panelists’ guilty app pleasure.
Casson confessed that he keeps his Spotify on a constant loop of Justin Timberlake.
O’Reilly’s answer showed his competition problem with the NFL Rush Fantasy game.
“I did the NFL Rush Fantasy game every week, even though it was designed for kids,” O’Reilly said. “At some point during the season, I realized I was in first place and that pushed my competitive button. I finished first against a bunch of kids. I’m a terrible person.”
O’Reilly’s answer drew plenty of laughter from the crowd.
As evidenced by the details revealed on stage at Minds Behind the Game, a Super Bowl doesn’t simply happen overnight. It takes years of preparation and planning from some of the brightest minds in the NFL and the host city.