Twenty-nine years after the Super Bowl was last played in the Los Angeles area — or XXIX years ago in Super Bowl speak — the big game finally returns to the Southland on Sunday, with the hometown L.A. Rams playing the Cincinnati Bengals at SoFi Stadium.
Bill Clinton was just settling into the White House when the Dallas Cowboys throttled the Buffalo Bills in that Jan. 31, 1993, Super Bowl, which was played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Michael Jackson was the halftime entertainment that day. The pregame coin toss came courtesy of O.J. Simpson. The land where SoFi Stadium now stands was a horse racing track.
Yes, it has been a long time.
But Super Bowl LVI will mark “the culmination of football’s comeback in L.A.,” as Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a recent interview — referring to the Rams’ return from St. Louis and the Chargers’ move from San Diego.
“It started with one and then suddenly two teams,” Garcetti added. “And then the most glorious stadium ever built in sports history, and now the biggest show that there is.”
Indeed, few cities do “big” better than L.A., and Sunday will be no exception. The big game will be stocked with big storylines — here are XVII of them.
— This will mark the second straight year a Super Bowl team will play in its home stadium, following the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last year.
— The Rams will be making their fifth Super Bowl appearance overall and third representing L.A. Their only Super Bowl victory came in Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000, when they were based in St. Louis.
— It’s going to be HOT on game day, maybe the hottest kickoff in Super Bowl history. With the Southland under a heat advisory through Sunday night, the 3:30 p.m. kickoff could come amid temperatures in the mid- to upper- 80s. According to the Southeast Regional Climate Center, the warmest Super Bowl kickoff occurred in 1973 — at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum — when it was 84 degrees.
— COVID remains a factor. Every fan attending Sunday’s game will be issued a KN95 mask, with face coverings still mandated by the county at large outdoor events. Stadium officials insist they will enforce it, unlike two weeks ago in the NFC title game at SoFi, when the vast majority of spectators were spotted maskless, including Garcetti and Gov. Gavin Newsom.
— Maybe Garcetti will be a lucky charm for the Rams. As the mayor said during this week’s Super Bowl welcome news conference, an L.A. victory would mean the city won every major sports championship available during his nine years at City Hall.
“Since I’ve been mayor, I’ve been lucky enough — we’ve got a Stanley Cup, we’ve got Major League Soccer Championship, we were able to win the WNBA, World Series and an NBA championship,” Garcetti said. “All that’s left is this Super Bowl, and I’ll have been lucky enough while being mayor to win every major sports championship.”
— While the Rams technically won’t be the home team Sunday, with the Super Bowl site officially “neutral,” the halftime show will have a distinctly L.A. flavor. Southland music icons Dr. Dre, Kendrick Lamar and Snoop Dogg will be rocking SoFi Stadium, along with Eminem and Mary J. Blige.
“The opportunity to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show, and to do it in my own backyard, will be one of the biggest thrills of my career,” Dr. Dre said last year, when the lineup was announced.
Dr. Dre and Lamar are both Compton natives, while Snoop Dogg hails from Long Beach.
— Country music star Mickey Guyton will sing the national anthem, while eclectic R&B songstress Jhené Aiko will sing “America the Beautiful.” Guyton recently earned a Grammy nomination for best country album for her debut release, “Remember Her Name,” the first for a Black artist, plus nominations for best country song and best country solo performance.
— Actress Sandra Mae Frank will perform the national anthem and “America the Beautiful” in sign language on behalf of the National Association of the Deaf.
— Pregame festivities will also include the contemporary gospel duo Mary Mary, accompanied by the L.A. Philharmonic’s YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles), performing “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” conducted by Thomas Wilkins, principal conductor of the LA Phil’s Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.
— In honor of the Air Force’s 75th anniversary, the service will conduct a first-of-its-kind flyover during the national anthem. The Air Force Heritage Flight will be a formation of a P-51 Mustang, A-10C Thunderbolt II, F- 16 Fighting Falcon, F-22 Raptor, and a F-35A Lightning II.
— DJ and producer Zedd will act as the official pregame DJ during player warmups.
— Security will be tight. The Los Angeles Police Department has increased deployments, and they will last through Monday to guard against rowdy celebrations and other disruptions. Chief Michel Moore said the LAPD began planning two years ago and will be coordinating with federal, state and local partners. There will also be extra security screenings and vehicle checks on game day.
— Security will be tight in the air, too. The Federal Aviation Administration has issued a Temporary Flight Restriction from 2:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Sunday, effective in a 30-mile circle around SoFi and stretching up to 8,000 feet, with violators facing hefty fines. The North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, will be part of the security force enforcing the restrictions.
— Betting is a big part of any Super Bowl, and local dignitaries are not immune. Garcetti has a friendly wager with Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval on Sunday’s outcome, with the losing mayor vowing to wear the winning team’s jersey during a public appearance.
— Even the archbishops of L.A. and Cincinnati are getting into the spirit. Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles is putting a batch of baked treats from the famed L.A. bakery Porto’s on his hometown Rams, while Archbishop Dennis M. Schnurr of Cincinnati is wagering a case of Cincinnati’s own Graeter’s ice cream on the Bengals.
— The game will feature a pair of compelling quarterback stories. The Rams traded for star QB Matthew Stafford during last offseason after Stafford languished for 12 years with the sad-sack Detroit Lions. Now Stafford is hoping for a true Hollywood ending. The Bengals, meanwhile, feature young Joe Burrow, who’s taken the long-downtrodden Bengals to the big game in just his second NFL season.
— It won’t be another 29 years for the Super Bowl to come back to Los Angeles. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said as much this week when he told reporters, “I would be hard-pressed to think (Los Angeles is) not going to be at the top of everybody’s list every opportunity we get.”
“One of the things I’m really confident about sitting here and feeling it this week is that we really landed in the right spot,” Goodell said. “We have a state-of-the-art stadium, which I think reflects this great community and the entertainment capital of the world. …
“And we have what I think is really the ultimate event, which is a Super Bowl here. To me, it’s sort of surreal that we’re here in many ways after all these years — 29 years since we had our last Super Bowl (in the L.A. area).”
