LAS VEGAS — 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:
A huge roar went up when Kansas City won the toss. Either Chiefs fans felt that was unusually crucial in this game — or a lot of people had bet on heads.
KC deferred its choice to the second half, meaning the 49ers get the ball first.
Reba McEntire made quick but majestic work of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The “Queen of Country” sang the national anthem moments before kickoff, backed by a recorded track of a country band with a horn section. Flag-bearing service members stood behind her, a huge U.S. flag covered most of the field, and military jets flew over Allegiant Stadium as she sang.
She got through the song in about 1 minute 40 seconds. That’s a good 10 seconds longer than the over-under from oddsmakers, but still the quickest version of the anthem at the Super Bowl since Kelly Clarkson sang it 12 years ago.
Grammy-nominated musician Post Malone sang “America the Beautiful,” bringing his unique vocal tone — most frequently paired with his idiosyncratic approach to pop-rock-rap — to the Super Bowl.
Wearing a bolo tie and playing acoustic guitar, Malone’s take on the song was twang-y, his Texas roots taking a front seat. Mid-song, cameras cut to Taylor Swift and Blake Lively holding each other and enjoying the performance. Earlier this week, Malone’s breakout hit, “Sunflower,” with Swae Lee — released for the “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” soundtrack — was named the first-ever double-diamond single in Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) history.
Andra Day gave a stirring, gospel-flavored rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a song that has become known as the Black national Anthem, before kickoff.
Day, wearing a gray suit, was backed by a choreographed choir. Day told the AP during the week that she planned to calm her nerves with pregame prayers.
Hers was the first of three anthemic performances. After the teams take the field, Post Malone will perform “America the Beautiful” and Reba McEntire will sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The Chiefs are set for their fourth Super Bowl in five seasons. A win against the 49ers will make the Chiefs the first team to repeat since New England did it in 2003-04. That’s the longest stretch without a repeat champion in NFL history. With a win, Patrick Mahomes will become the fifth QB to win at least three Super Bowls and Andy Reid the fifth coach to win at least three Super Bowls.
The 49ers are back in the Super Bowl seeking their record-tying sixth championship. The Niners haven’t won it all since the 1994 season, losing in their past two trips in the 2012 season and 2019 against Kansas City. Brock Purdy has gone from the last pick of the 2022 draft to becoming the third youngest quarterback to start a Super Bowl and is seeking to join Hall of Famers Joe Montana and Steve Young as QBs to lead San Francisco to a title.
This Super Bowl comes with bottle service, at least for those willing to pony up six figures to sit in some of the NFL’s most exclusive seating located on the field just beyond the north end zone.
There are 29 booths, each seating up to 15 people. Fans who occupy those booths receive wait service, access to private bars and a special entrance.
Former Raiders Super Bowl MVPs Fred Biletnikoff, Jim Plunkett and Marcus Allen “lit” the Al Davis Memorial Torch before the game.
It’s a Raiders tradition for someone of note to light the electronic torch during Las Vegas home games. Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson and recording artist and actor Ice Cube were among those who turned on the torch this season.
The torch is 92 feet high, the world’s tallest three-dimensional printed structure.
Biletnikoff was the Super Bowl 11 MVP, leading the Oakland Raiders to a 32-14 victory over the Minnesota Vikings. Plunkett quarterbacked the Raiders to a 27-10 win over the Philadelphia Eagles four years later.
Allen was the MVP of the Raiders’ lone championship when they were in Los Angeles. The Raiders defeated the Washington Redskins 38-9 in Super Bowl 18.
Running back Jerick McKinnon and wide receiver Skyy Moore were active for the Kansas City Chiefs for the first time in nearly two months for their Super Bowl showdown with the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.
McKinnon and Moore, who both played a crucial role in the Chiefs’ win over the Eagles in the Super Bowl last year, have not played since Dec. 17 in New England. McKinnon had surgery for a core injury in early January and was considered questionable to play against the 49ers, while Moore spent a stint on injured reserve with a lingering knee injury.
Wide receiver Kadarius Toney, who also had a TD against the Eagles, was not active on Sunday.
Brock Purdy’s meteoric rise from final pick of the 2022 draft to Super Bowl starting quarterback is complete.
Purdy is getting ready to start in the Super Bowl 11 months and one day after undergoing major elbow surgery. Purdy’s comeback from the injury to his throwing arm suffered in last season’s NFC championship loss to the Philadelphia Eagles has been part of the storybook start to his career that started as Mr. Irrelevant as the 262nd pick in the 2022 draft.
The 24-year-old Purdy is the third youngest quarterback to start a Super Bowl, behind only 23-year-olds Dan Marino and Ben Roethlisberger.
With a win Sunday, Purdy would join Hall of Famers Joe Montana and Steve Young as the only QBs to lead the Niners to a title.
Taylor Swift’s arrival at Allegiant Stadium even drew the interest of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who visited her in a luxury suite before the game.
Goodell spoke glowingly Monday about the pop star’s effect on the NFL.
“Taylor is obviously a dynamo,” he said. “Everything she touches, there are people following. We count ourselves fortunate, and we welcome it.”
Kelce’s brother, Jason, hugged Swift in the suite, and Swift introduced him to Ice Spice. Jason Kelce plays for the Philadelphia Eagles but has fully supported his brother during the playoffs. The two faced each other in last year’s Super Bowl.
Kristin Juszczyk arrived at the Super Bowl in a snazzy jacket that includes her husband Kyle’s 49ers jersey and his Harvard shield. Kyle is a fullback out of Harvard who plays for San Francisco.
Kristin has become a star after designing a coat worn by Taylor Swift that looked like a jersey of her boyfriend, Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce.
Taylor Swift finished her epic trek from the Tokyo Dome to Allegiant Stadium for the Super Bowl on Sunday. She arrived with Blake Lively and a few others wearing a black top with black pants and a red jacket slung over her shoulder.
Swift is on hand to watch Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, whom she has been dating since the first couple of weeks of the season. She performed in Japan on Saturday night before a flight across nine time zones and the international date line to reach the U.S.
The mother of Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce arrived for the game wearing a jacket with “SUPER BOWL LVIII” and “MAMA KELCE” on the back. In last season’s Super Bowl, Travis Kelce’s Chiefs defeated his brother Jason Kelce’s team, the Philadelphia Eagles.
Instead of a matchup between two brothers, the Kelce family is in the spotlight this year because of Travis’ relationship with pop star Taylor Swift. Donna Kelce has appeared in a suite alongside Swift this season.
The San Francisco 49ers are 2 ½-point favorites against the Kansas City Chiefs ahead of their Super Bowl matchup, according to FanDuel Sportsbook.
The 49ers are -134 favorites to win the game, while the over/under sat at 46.5 points.
Despite being the underdog, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is the favorite to win Super Bowl MVP at +150, followed by 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy at +210.
Travis Kelce played against Jason Kelce last year, when the Chiefs beat his big brothers’ Eagles in the Super Bowl in Arizona. But Jason was fully behind the Chiefs on Sunday, wearing red and yellow plaid overalls over a T-shirt that read, “Big Yeti,” his nickname for Travis.
The brothers host “New Heights,” one of the hottest podcasts in the country. And once the Eagles were knocked from the playoffs, Jason began following the Chiefs. He famously took off his shirt during a celebration in Buffalo, and he watched the Chiefs win the AFC title in Baltimore.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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.
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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.
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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.
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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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AP Super Bowl coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/super-bowl
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