I'm calling this my first Super Bowl experience even though it will probably be my only Super Bowl experience. We got the tickets through work and when they arrived in the mail, I was surprised by the ticket value printed on the actual ticket. These tickets were listed as $800 a seat. I could not even begin to imagine paying that much money for one seat to see one game. That being said the game was amazing. It was a close game and both teams were keeping everyone on their feet.
The day started by heading down to Tampa to take part in the "NFL Experience." I had no idea what all this was going to include. The gates opened at 11 and we were there for the opening. Once inside we started making our way around all the different set-ups. The first one we stopped at was sponsored by Bridgestone. This had you trying to throw footballs through tires for 30 seconds. My dad and I got to throw against each other and to my surprise I got 2 footballs through the tire, while my dad failed to get any. That got a big laugh out of both of us. Our next stop had us trying to kick a field goal. The goal posts were set to the same height as they are on the field but I have no idea how far back we were actually kicking. My first kick was pretty laughable. The second kick however just barely sailed over the bottom part of the goal. I was pretty stoaked about making the goal. Unfortunately for my dad, he didn't make any goals. Girls 2 - Boys 0 :)
Beyond those 2 games you could try doing some of the exercises that the players do to get in shape, they had the punching bag shaped things that you run through and a few areas where you could see how far you could throw a football and still get it into one of their nets. There was also a huge tent set up for memorabilia and another was the NFL Store. The NFL Store was like a sauna there were so many people in there. Another tent had a band playing; I have no clue who they were; I'm guessing they were probably locals. We had lunch outside by the Mega Screen where we watch the live performance of John Legend. He was actually performing there at the Super Bowl but it was in a closed off location for a private party, so I didn't get to see him in person. :(
We headed into the Stadium around 3:30 to look around and take more pictures. We also took this time to get some souvenirs (I got long and a short sleeve T's). Our seats were great! We were on the Cardinals end zone about 13 rows up from the field. I feel like I got some amazing pictures to really capture the experience of being at the Super Bowl. Our plan was to root for the Cardinals, seeing as how they were the underdogs going into the game. This plan was hard to execute since we were sitting in a sea of Steelers fans. If I had to take a guess I would say that the stadium was probably 85% Steelers fans and every single one of them had a Terrible Towel. Now before yesterday I had no clue what a Terrible Towel was but now I will always be able to picture the entire stadium twirling these things above their heads. I will say this for the Steelers fans, for the most part they were well behaved. We did have one over-zealous fan sitting just to our right who yelled most of the game.
Pre-show was pretty outstanding. Faith Hill came out and sang America the Beautiful and Jennifer Hudson sang the National Anthem. One surprise was when they announced that the entire crew of flight 1549 was there and they brought them out onto the field. The game of course started shortly after that. The Steelers came on strong and for a few minutes I was worried that this was going to be a shut out. Fortunately enough the Cardinals got their feet under them and got back into the game. During the course of the first quarter as I was looking around/watching the game when I noticed that the Steelers didn't have any cheer leaders. I asked one of the many Steelers fans sitting around us where their cheer leaders were and they informed me that their team didn't have cheer leaders. They seemed to think this was mainly due to the fact that many of their games are played in freezing cold weather. Makes sense to me. First and second quarters seem to fly by and before we knew it they were setting up for the half time show. Bruce and the E-Street Band were performing. Now I'm not a Bruce fan so this part of the Super Bowl was lost on me. It was also disappointing that they set up their stage where half of the stadium could not see the performance without looking at the tv screens.
Second half was very intense. I don't think we ever sat down except maybe during time outs. When the Cardinals scored and took over the lead, I thought the Steelers fans were going to come unglued. Unfortunately they redeemed themselves shortly after that to win the game. It was really quite exciting having the winning touch down scored right in front of our seats.
We didn't really stick around long after the game ended. We saw the confetti blasted into the air and some of the fireworks but that was it and we were booking it out of there. When we got out of the gates there were people actually standing around trying to buy ticket stubs. Why on earth would you want to buy a ticket stub to a game you didn't attend. I mean do you plan on lying and saying you were there? Are these considered collectors items? I have no idea, I didn't sell mine b/c it's going in MY scrap book. :) I was also surprised to see a couple of protesters sitting outside of the gates at the end of the game.
Overall this was an awesome experience and I feel very lucky that I was able to take part in it.
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