Latest / Rittener Reflections / 24: Super Bowl LX – An Unforgettable Day at Levi’s
Transcript
- Jeff Rittener (00:03) Welcome to Ritner Reflections, episode 24. This is Jeff Ritner and I am so excited to bring you this special edition ⁓ as I reflect on and experience Super Bowl 60 here at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California. Tonight is February 7th. I'm recording this on the evening before the Super Bowl, which will take place tomorrow. And I thought I would just kind of kick off this ⁓ episode with some thoughts in my mind as I look forward to what will be certainly ⁓ an amazing day tomorrow. I do plan on attending the Super Bowl with my daughter Kat Belmar. She is a huge football fan, primarily a San Francisco 49er fan, and the two of us... ⁓ often go to the games together. And so it's going to be very special to be able to go with my daughter and experience this ⁓ epic ⁓ extravaganza, I will say, of Superball 60. I'm so excited because this year the game is being played in my hometown here in Santa Clara, California, in my home stadium. And in fact, I even have my own. seats for the game tomorrow. So I am so excited. This will be my fifth Super Bowl and it is a special one because as I said, it's here close to home. Unfortunately, it is not ⁓ going to be played by my favorite team, which ⁓ we missed ⁓ the opportunity through what was a very difficult year. And the two teams that will be playing ⁓ are not exactly my go-to teams, my favorite teams, but I am really looking forward to a ⁓ good football game, a good pregame Super Bowl party, a good halftime show, and ultimately ⁓ watching the champion raise the Lombardi Trophy and all the excitement that goes with that. ⁓ As I said, this is ⁓ my fifth Super Bowl, and ⁓ It's very special to me. ⁓ I think I recorded back last year in episode four. And if you listen to that, you heard me describe my experience at last year's Super Bowl, which was held in New Orleans, where I went with my son. I described everything that happened there. And then if you listen to episode 14, this is where I kind of began this journey ⁓ towards ⁓ tomorrow. If you recall, I was standing at ⁓ the training facility of the San Francisco 49ers, which happens to be right at the base of Levi Stadium. And I stood there and looked at that stadium. And I said in my podcast, ⁓ it all begins and ends here. And at that moment, you know, there was just such a hopeful anticipation that my team would make it, that they would be playing right there. But there was also a realistic view that there would be two teams, maybe my team, maybe not, but there would be two teams out of 32 that would show up. And here we are, 192 days later, and we know exactly who those two teams are, the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks. And both of those teams, I never would have imagined. that I'd be seeing them play tomorrow at Levi's. I also had an opportunity during that episode to interview my good buddy fellow 49er season ticket holder and 49er faithful Abhay. And ⁓ we both sat and stood there and dreamed of what could be. And we both gave our predictions, which did not come to pass. So for tomorrow, We will ⁓ go early, get in line, and then we will enter the stadium. And there is, like I said, a pregame party, lots of music, bands, food. And then we'll get into the stadium, as I always do, nice and early, because I love to see all the activities and things going on. And during the entire day, I will, as much as I can, I will try to record live. ⁓ what's going on for my reflections, ⁓ the experiences that we're having. I'll even try to see if I can get my daughter to share her thoughts and then hopefully very shortly after the game within a couple of days I hope I can get out episode 24 so you can hear very quickly the not only our experience but also my reflections on those experiences so stay tuned for that. And I will just close here by just saying that, you know, tonight is the reflection, tomorrow is the experience. Episode 24 starts Jeff Rittener (05:57) Super Bowl Sunday and we are here at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, February 8th, 2026. It is Super Bowl 60. We are standing here, my daughter Kat and myself, looking at Levi's Stadium and waiting to get into the stadium probably in another hour. And I have with me here Kat, my daughter. Hey Kat. Hey. Welcome to your first Super Bowl. I'm so excited. Are you excited? What are you excited about? Benito Bowl! I'm excited for the halftime but also I just hope it's a really good game and it's not like a blowout. know, Here for the vibes. Which team do you want to win? That's a hard question. No team. No, just kidding. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see when I get in there and what the vibes are like but I'm kind of leaning towards the Seahawks just because of Darnold but we'll see. Yeah. Well I just hope it's a good game. ⁓ And I would be nice if it kind of came down to the end and we will see who actually wins the game. I'm also, I'm excited because in about an hour we're going to go in through security and we're going to go to the on location Champions Club free game parties. That should be fun. And then from there we'll go into the stadium. So right now outside of the stadium there are, I would say primarily Seahawks fans. see a whole lot of Patriots fans but it is early and we'll see. Okay well we'll be back talking again soon. Thanks a lot Kat. Yeah thank you. Jeff Rittener (07:29) Okay, we are now inside the stadium area at the party that's being put on by On Location. You probably can hear the music in the background. We've been able to get ourselves some amazing Bay Area food. So Kat, what do they actually have? What did we eat? which I had some fried rice, some hot stickers, we had some spring rolls. Fisherman's Wharf. I had a nice crab Louie salad and they had, oh my gosh, had amazing sourdough bread, which is really good. What else did we try? Then there was a grill where they had burgers and hot dogs, course. And then of course for dessert here in Bay Area, you gotta have churros. Churros! So we had the churros. They were really good. So right now we're just watching all of the people mingle around and counting all the different jerseys from different teams. We have found a jersey from every team but five so far. It's kind of fun. And we're waiting for the Chainsmokers to come on stage and entertain us before we go into the stadium where the field is. So we'll talk again to you real soon. Jeff Rittener (08:47) seats section 316 35 yard line we are ready for this game to get started let's ⁓ Jeff Rittener (09:03) Wow, we just experienced an amazing halftime show here at Levi's Stadium as we watched Bad Bunny perform an amazing performance. Kat, what'd think? ⁓ my gosh, I was almost crying. That was so powerful, it was so good. was, yeah, it was amazing. The energy was amazing, and just to see everybody, not a single empty seat almost. And everybody was just having such an amazing time dancing with the music, and the way they set up the field, just amazing so we're so glad we got to experience that. was totally good. Alrighty, thanks. Jeff Rittener (09:41) Well there you have it. We just watched the Seattle Seahawks lift the Lombardi Trophy. After 192 days, the Seahawks have claimed that championship, the Super Bowl Champions of 2026. Quite a game. Not exactly as exciting as we thought, but at the end of the day the Seattle Seahawks prevailed as victors. Catch! What'd you think? ⁓ the game was alright. Honestly, think just watching how the Super Bowl is, being in your home stadium, it's weird when your home team isn't here, but it was really fun to spend time with you and watch the Keyhawks win, I guess. But yeah, I really liked the halftime show and the pregame was really fun too. Overall, it a great experience. ⁓ I know I would do it again. How about you? Yeah, I would do it again. ⁓ Well for now I'm going to sign off. I will be back to wrap up this episode 24 of Rit and Reflection here at Super Bowl XVI at Levi's Stadium. I will have one more ⁓ chance to talk with you before I post this in a couple of days. We'll talk again soon. Thank you. Jeff Rittener (11:00) Wow, well what a day yesterday was at Super Bowl 60 and today it's Monday the day after. I am back at home and just having a nice quiet day and a lot of time to kind of reflect on all the activities from yesterday. If you're listening up to this point you will have heard my opening remarks and then about five or six ⁓ snippets anywhere from 30 seconds to a couple minutes that were recorded live throughout the day yesterday with my daughter Kat. ⁓ we, so now I think for this ⁓ final segment, I will just go ahead and close with some of my reflections on the experience and the day at hand. You know, it was a beautiful day ⁓ yesterday. The sun was out. It was short sleeve weather until the evening when it got a little cool. And there are a number of things that as I think back that I really appreciate. I have to say that just the opportunity to go to my fifth Super Bowl, I just was amazed to experience that. And I think primarily at my own home stadium, I think that was just a highlight to be able to be. ⁓ to go through the same rituals to get to the stadium, to go in the stadium, to watch the game, et cetera. So that was something I really appreciated. I think second, I appreciated the seats that I had. ⁓ I worked with ⁓ Liz, who's the person who works for On Location and is responsible for helping me obtain my tickets. And she has helped me the last three years now and we had both agreed per my request. last year that since the game was going to be at Levi's that we would, she would do everything she could to help me secure the same seats that I have for my season tickets for the 49ers and sure enough we did. In fact, I was actually one row closer to the field and slightly over more towards the middle of the field. So the seats were amazing and so I really appreciate Liz and her effort to make sure that happened. And then I think probably the thing I appreciate the most about the day and the experience was being able to spend it with my daughter, Kat. We just had such a wonderful time from the moment ⁓ we got together in the morning, got coffee and made our way to the stadium through the entire event that I have chronicled for you as you listen to this. But it was just a wonderful experience and I was so glad to be able to share it with my daughter. And I know the two of us will always remember the time we spent there at Levi's Stadium this year for Super Bowl 60. You know, to just kind of wrap up ⁓ this episode 24, I think I'll just kind of reflect on three different things. ⁓ First of all, I think I'll talk a little bit about the game itself. You the reason we went to Levi's and to the Super Bowl was because there was a football game. And you would hardly know with everything else that went on, but there was a football game and there were two teams that had battled all year to reach this point. And one of them was going to stand on a stage with confetti blowing everywhere and ⁓ actually, you know, accept the trophy as the champion of the league for this year. ⁓ you know, we, you know, we unfortunately didn't get a chance to see a super exciting game. The game was, the first half in particular, was quite slow, very defensive. You know, it seemed like the offensive side of the ball, they were not able to really get into the end zone and resulted in, primarily in the first half, just field goal kicks. And then the second half, it did kind of pick up a bit. And by, I would say that the last quarter of the game, it was pretty obvious that the CLL Seahawks were in dominant control of the game and would actually win the game. One of the things if you're into football and you follow you would by now I'm sure have heard all the discussions around the quarterback. His name is Sam Donald. He used to play for the San Francisco 49ers as a backup, but he had a rough career and ⁓ this particular win for him was just an amazing journey from coming into the league and playing for five different teams and ultimately winning the Super Bowl. as the quarterback. And so that was kind of fun to be able to see that fun for him and for his family and for the team there. Although the game was not the most exciting Super Bowl ever, it was ⁓ quite an experience to be there and to watch the game unfold to where ultimately the Seattle Seahawks won. The second thing I'd like to just reflect on is the stadium experience itself. I think my daughter might have referred to this in one of her comments, that it was a bit strange being in your own stadium and your team's not there. We go to the game, we go several times a year to the games and we have kind of our normal ritual. We go into the stadium, we go down to the field to watch the players warm up and then we make our way up to our seats and we were able to do all that yesterday but it was very different because our team wasn't there and so it did seem a bit strange. I will tell you though if you've ever had an opportunity to go to a football game or more importantly to a Super Bowl, it is fascinating just to people watch and the people that you see from TV personnel to celebrities to ex. football players, mean, you know, politicians, I mean, it's amazing the people that show up for these. And so part of being there early and being on the field is you're able to kind of witness all that. We kind of enjoy that ritual. And that was kind of fun. You know, it was kind of, ⁓ I think, difficult for the Seattle fans who won ⁓ because they really didn't have... a lot to cheer about, honestly. I I compared to last year when I went and watched the Philadelphia Eagles. And what I noticed was different is they scored points ⁓ often and early and gave the fans a lot to cheer about and clap and sing their fight songs. But in this particular instance, there were no touchdowns until into the second half. And I think just field goals. it's awfully hard to get excited about a field goal. So that was something I noticed that was different. It was a little bit more ⁓ lower key than perhaps ⁓ the game I went to last year in New Orleans. ⁓ I think the other exciting part of the stadium experience was just seeing and meeting actually met quite a number of people that had come from all over the world. ⁓ We met people from Canada who sat behind us. We met people from the East Coast, from Philadelphia. saw people right across from us. They were clearly looked like they were from Puerto Rico as they held up their Puerto Rican flag and just it was just kind of exciting to see people from all over the country and even the world attend the stadium and all having just a great time. guess maybe the last thing I'll just reflect on was was all the extras that went on. You know the the singing of the national anthem, the bands that played prior to the game, the actual Super Bowl. extravaganza, all of those things add to the experience and to the wonder of it all. You know, the halftime show, know, and although in a number of circles it has created a lot of controversy, I will say just being there as a participant and watching it, it was an amazing show. Just the music, the vibe, the pyrotechnics, the storyline, all of it was, and just watching the fans thoroughly enjoy themselves. So to me, that halftime show was was definitely a highlight of the event and really was glad that I was able to be there. I I didn't get a chance to really fully comprehend every bit and piece of it because I was filming it, but it was great to be there and experience that. And I will say that at the end when the game actually finished, there was a lot of... celebration and they blew up from the field up all the confetti and this year just like last year all the confetti was green because those are the colors of the teams that won and so it was kind of fun just to see that confetti cover the entire field and just to see the various players celebrate and the fan the ⁓ I'm sure there was family, friends that came down. And so just standing up there from our seats to be able to watch the whole thing. And then of course, the presentation of the trophy was quite exciting. Jeff Rittener (20:02) So to wrap up this episode, let me just remind you that I started this conversation back in July when I posted an episode that talked about Levi's Stadium and I said it all ends and begins here. And now we know how it ends. We know that the team that ultimately came to Levi's and conquered and took home the trophy. are the Seattle Seahawks. And so congratulations to them and to all of the fans. This has been a very, very fun recording to do. I hope you enjoy the thoughts and the real time reporting, I will say, from the event. And hopefully maybe we can do this again next year. ⁓ So for now, I will say thank you for listening. This has been Written in Reflections, episode 24. And we will talk again. real soon.