Super Bowl Live Updates | Gates are open, fans arriving
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Live updates from the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. Kickoff is set for 6:30 p.m. ET, and the game will air on CBS and Nickelodeon:
Reba arrives, set to perform national anthem
Reba McEntire walked into Allegiant Stadium for the Super Bowl about 3 1/2 hours before kickoff Sunday wearing a puffy, gray faux fur coat and holding hands with her partner, Rex Linn.
McEntire is due to perform the national anthem before the Kansas City Chiefs play the San Francisco 49ers in a rematch of the Super Bowl four years ago in Miami. She will have a lot to live up to after Chris Stapleton’s performance last year in Arizona received high praise.
Some NFL fans pass on expensive tickets and just have ‘a good time’ in Vegas
Super Bowl ticket prices remain out of reach for many fans who made travel reservations months ago to come to Las Vegas this week, so they’ll likely be watching on TV like millions of others.
To buy tickets days before the game can be costly. This year they’re going for roughly $7,700 — though that is about $2,000 less than they were two weeks ago.
Carl Bray, a Cincinnati fan, booked his trip to the Super Bowl two months ago and came even though the Bengals didn’t make it.
“I don’t have tickets yet, but I got the hotel, flight, and I thought ‘Welp, if I lock into something, I’ll go,’” Bray said. “If not, I’ll just go to MGM or someplace and watch it.”
Patrick Mahomes looks ready for b
usiness in Super Bowl arrival
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes paid homage to the team that calls Allegiant Stadium home when he showed up for the Super Bowl on Sunday wearing a jet-black suit and silver tie that made him look like a fan of the AFC West-rival Las Vegas Raiders.
Mahomes appeared to be all business behind his black shades as he wheeled along his matching black Louis Vuitton luggage through the corridors of the stadium. He is trying to move into a tie for fourth behind Tom Brady, Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw by picking up his third Super Bowl ring.
Super Bowl gates open, fans arriving in Las Vegas
Gates to Allegiant Stadium opened just after 11 a.m. local time, unleashing a flood of fans in red. Five San Francisco 49ers fans were the first let through the gates.
“Woo!” They yelled. “First ones in! We’re the first ones!”
Tony and Susan Chiosso traveled to Las Vegas from the Bay Area to watch their first-ever Super Bowl and, they hope, witness their team defeat the Kansas City Chiefs.
They think their luck so far this morning is a good indicator of which team will come out on top.
“I’m only seeing good signs today,” Tony Chiosso said.
Taylor Swift reached LAX in her journey from Tokyo to the Super Bowl, online sleuths say
Will she make it in time? Intrepid flight trackers online seem to think so.
On social media, fans of Taylor Swift and aviation journalists believe they’ve identified Swift’s private jet, labeled “The Football Era.” It arrived from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport to Los Angeles’ LAX airport just after 3:30 p.m. local time Saturday.
Her transportation plans onward to Las Vegas, where her boyfriend, NFL star tight end Travis Kelce, will play in Sunday’s Super Bowl, have yet to be revealed.
Why will the Chiefs win the Super
Bowl? Their vast experience
If the Chiefs beat the 49ers for their third Super Bowl title in four trips over the past five years, it will be for one simple reason: experience.
The Chiefs can lean on what they learned and endured over a dominant six-year run with Patrick Mahomes at quarterback. In fact, when the Chiefs beat the 49ers in Miami for their first title during this run, San Francisco quarterback Brock Purdy, wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk and many others were still in college.
Throw in the fact that Chiefs coach Andy Reid will be in his fifth Super Bowl, the third most in NFL history, and has a chance to win a third ring, and the knowledge on the Kansas City sideline will be an advantage too big for the 49ers to overcome.
Why else will KC win? Read more
Why will the 49ers win the Super Bowl? Improved QB play
The 49ers had Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs on the ropes four years ago in the Super Bowl before everything fell apart, leading to a 31-20 loss that still stings today.
The difference when the teams meet in the rematch on Sunday? This time, the 49ers will have a quarterback in Brock Purdy who is capable of making a big play down the stretch.
Purdy has gone from “Mr. Irrelevant” as the final pick in the 2022 draft to the franchise quarterback who has elevated coach Kyle Shanahan’s offense in less than two years. He led the NFL in passer rating (113) and yards per attempt (9.6), with his ability to throw deep and scramble adding new wrinkles to the offense.
Purdy also has a far better group of playmakers than the one that surrounded Jimmy Garoppolo four years ago.
Why else with SF win? Read more
Three longtime friends have attended every Super Bowl — and don’t intend to stop
As long as they still have each other, they’re still going to go to every Super Bowl.
That’s the sentiment shared by three friends who say they are the final fans who can claim membership in the exclusive “never missed a Super Bowl” club. And they’re back again for number 58 — Super Bowl 58 — this year.
The three fans, all in their 80s, are Don Crisman of Maine, Gregory Eaton of Michigan and Tom Henschel, who splits time between Florida and Pennsylvania. The three are gathering this weekend in Las Vegas for the big game, and they’re hoping they can all make it to the sixtieth edition of the game two years from now.
Taylor Swift’s connections to sports go back to her early days performing the national anthem
Before Taylor Swift grew into a global superstar and the talk of this Super Bowl, she got her singing career started by performing the national anthem at sporting events as a young child and teenager.
She sang the anthem before 45,900 fans at Game 3 of the 2008 World Series. The U.S. Open. NASCAR. The World Series. Yes, even the Double-A Reading Phillies.
Swift was an unsigned artist who looked for any kind of break by belting out the song about the land of the free and the home of the brave in front of as many packed crowds as she could find.
For Native American activists, the Kansas City Chiefs have it all wrong
Dozens of Indigenous activists have traveled to Las Vegas to gather outside the Super Bowl and demand the Kansas City Chiefs change their name and ditch their logo and gametime rituals.
Rhonda LeValdo founded and leads a group called Not In Our Honor that is calling for the changes. The Acoma Pueblo journalist and faculty member at Haskell Indian Nations University has been in the Kansas City area for more than two decades.
Everyone hopes the Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl won’t come down to an officiating call
One of the biggest fears when it comes to football’s biggest games is that a high-profile officiating mistake will play a role in the result.
So the seven on-field officials will get plenty of screen time when the Kansas City Chiefs face the San Francisco 49ers in Sunday’s Super Bowl.
The referee in charge of the crew in black-and-white unforms will be Bill Vinovich. He was also the referee when the Chiefs beat the 49ers in the Super Bowl four years ago — and when the Rams beat the Saints in the 2019 NFC championship game after an infamous missed call.
For more:
-Read about some of the Super Bowl’s most memorable calls
-How do officials prepare? Here’s what you need to know
Here’s what you can expect from Super Bowl commercials this Sunday
Advertisers will be pulling out all the stops on Super Bowl Sunday — enlisting the biggest actors, investing in the most dazzling special effects and, they hope, going for laughs as they seek to win over viewers.
Most companies appear to be doubling down on flights of fantasy or light humor, often with a dose of nostalgia and a lot of mini-reunions of TV characters.
Big names like Jennifer Anniston, Christopher Walken, Arnold Schwarzenneger, Ice Spice, Jenna Ortega, Lionel Messi, Tom Brady, “Judge Judy” Judy Sheindlin, Super Bowl Halftime Show headliner Usher and more will appear during game breaks. And as always, there will still be some gameday surprises.
The game. The ads. The music. The puppies. Here’s why millions are excited for Super Bowl Sunday
Millions of Americans will find something to be excited about when it comes to Super Bowl Sunday. That’s before even factoring in the influence of Taylor Swift.
Four in 10 U.S. adults are extremely or very excited for at least one part of the Super Bowl day’s festivities. That could be the game, commercials, halftime show or the Puppy Bowl, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
49ers All-Pro offensive tackle Trent Williams savors his first Super Bowl trip in his 14th season
Trent Williams’ accomplishments are already worthy of a Hall of Fame career with 11 Pro Bowl bids, three first-team All-Pro selections and near universal recognition as the best left tackle of his generation.
All that was missing for the San Francisco 49ers star was something he never envisioned would be possible as he spent the first decade of his career mired in the dysfunction and ineptitude in Washington.
Williams has gotten that missing piece with his first chance to play in the Super Bowl this week against Kansas City.
High school football gave hope after deadly Maui wildfire. Team captains will be at the Super Bowl
Captains of a Hawaii high school football team whose town was destroyed by a deadly wildfire are at the Super Bowl as guests of the NFL.
The four students and three of their coaches are serving as honorary coin toss captains before the game.
A little more than two months after the Aug. 8 fire, tickets for the Lahainaluna High School homecoming game sold out in minutes. That was an indication of how badly Lahaina residents needed a glimmer of hope amid a tragedy that claimed at least 100 lives.
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