Super Bowl Week Spending Flows With Food, Bev, Parties Before Big Game Is Played Sunday; Agent Steinberg Holds 36th Party Saturday
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Story by Alan Snel Photos by Jeff Goulding
SCOTTSDALE, Arizona — Sorry Las Vegas. You will have to pipe down with all the “sports capital of the world” chatter. At least for this weekend.
Metro Phoenix is rocking the sports industry in the U.S. these days.
While Las Vegas 2024 Super Bowl organizers soak up the the Super Bowl 57 scenes in downtown Phoenix and at State Farm Stadium out in Glendale, the raucous golf party known as the WM Phoenix Open is going crazy in Scottsdale. Hell, throw in the monster NBA trade of superstar Kevin Durant to the Phoenix Suns and you have a blockbuster weekend here in the Phoenix area.
The economic impact of the PGA event that still goes by the Waste Management Open is not too far from the Super Bowl spending and the locals here in Phoenix give just as much news coverage to the funny streaker incident on the wild 16th hole at the golf event as they do to the fourth Super Bowl being hosted by the metro Phoenix area.
Talk about spending — there are millions of dollars being spent on food and beverage at the Open and at the Super Bowl.
There are so many related parties that it would be hard to render an accurate analysis of the exact spending linked to both sports event.
When it’s Las Vegas’ turn to host Super Bowl 58 next year, they will see there will be a litany of corporate parties and social events during the week leading about Super Bowl Sunday.
Few will be bigger than the super bash thrown by former 41-year sports agent Leigh Sternberg, who has represented eight NFL overall number one draft picks and many other athletics in professional basketball, baseball, boxing and the Olympics.
The 73-year-old Sternberg threw his 36th Super Bowl party Saturday at the Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, the MLB spring training center for the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies. You never know who might show up at a Sternberg party given the wide connections of the agent often linked to the inspiration
He was on stage set up near home plate of the baseball diamond for a discussion on athletes’ health issues and also leadership awards.
Sternberg has negotiated more than $3 billion worth of sports contracts, so he had some cash to throw a Super Bowl party that looked like it attracted maybe 3,000 people or so to the spring ballyard.
The truth is Super Bowl week is about parties and socializing with a football game on Sunday. Everyone is always hungry for a ticket to the Taste of The NFL, while dozens of companies — especially those sponsoring the NFL, players or even teams — throw soirees to have a good time in a warm-weather clime when most of the continental U.S. is shivering in February.
Catering big bashes is in Las Vegas’ sweet spot, so expect the beer, wine and booze to flow easier and faster than car fuel in Sin City. Las Vegas has three major convention centers at Mandalay Bay and the Venetian, plus the expanded Las Vegas Convention Center not too far from Resorts World.
Steinberg’s party organizers should have no shortage of places to throw the agent’s 37th Super Bowl party, especially when the Las Vegas Aviators’ ballpark in Summerlin can replicate the job that the Diamondbacks/Rockies ballpark did today.
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All types of stadium workers from food and beverage employees to grounds crew guys were in the house Saturday at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, about 35 miles west of Scottsdale off the same Loop 100 highway.
The State Farm Insurance folks hit the jackpot this weekend with the Super Bowl with two of its TV commercial stars — Chiefs coach Andy Reid and MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes — playing in a stadium with the State Farm naming rights deal.
LVSportsBiz.com contacted State Farm about this commercial sports convergence and received this response for the company’s PR contact man:
Lots of marketing jargon in this one: “State Farm is doing even more to maximize their presence in AZ this weekend and leveraging its naming rights to engage fans. Pivoting away from an upper-funnel TVC campaign, State Farm’s 2023 Big Game approach signals a new era of Big Game marketing, utilizing targeted, creative digital marketing tactics and big-name influencers to reach Gen Z and Millennials, leveraging media consumption trends to prioritize TikTok as a key platform.
“Checkout the TikTok post here that has amassed over 165MM views. . . Additionally, Jake from State Farm has been on the ground at various events, including a visit to the State Farm hub in Phoenix.”
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From the NFL, here are the pool reports on the Eagles and the Chiefs before both teams go at it Sunday at 4:30 PM locally here in Phoenix and 3:30 PM in Las Vegas.
By Conor Orr, Sports Illustrated
Pro Football Writers of America
TEMPE, Ariz. — The Chiefs completed their final practice of Super Bowl week with a celebration.
In a post-practice huddle, the team and coaching staff saluted departing strength and conditioning coach Barry Rubin. Rubin, 65, a former running back and punter for the LSU Tigers, has been coaching alongside Reid for decades. The pair first started working together in Green Bay back in 1995 when Reid was the Packers’ assistant offensive line and tight ends coach.
“[He’s meant] a lot. Great guy,” Reid said. “He’s been with me, jeez, since Green Bay. I’ve known him forever. Isn’t that crazy when you think about all those years? He’s a little bit older than I am, he’s at that age. He’s got a nice place in Florida. But he means a lot to the guys. They love him.”
Reid was also pleased with the fact that none of his players will carry any injury designation heading into Sunday’s game. Each and every member of the team’s active roster and practice squad was present and working on Saturday for a very brief walkthrough that lasted from 10:58 a.m. to 11:24 a.m. here in Tempe, just down the walkway from Sun Devil Stadium.
“I’m happy for the guys,” Reid said. “We’ll make it work with whatever we got but I mean, I’m happy for the guys to have this chance. It’s special. To play in the Super Bowl. It’s a great opportunity that doesn’t come around very often.”
Reid said that Saturday’s practice was called a “Mock Game” practice, which works “all the situational stuff.” He wanted to make sure the team was able to substitute players in and out smoothly under various circumstances.
Below: Andy Reid impersonator Matt Black
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And the Eagles:
By Nicki Jhabvala, The Washington Post
Pro Football Writers of America
TEMPE — The Eagles’ motorcade and six buses pulled up to the Arizona Cardinals’ practice bubble promptly at 10:30 a.m. for the team’s final walkthrough ahead of Super Bowl LVII.
For 45 minutes, Coach Nick Sirianni — with help from administrative assistant Scott Kaniecki on a megaphone — led the Eagles through a set of situational plays, covering all three phases.
“We have a situational list that we keep adding to and we keep saying, ‘We need to walk through that, we need to walk through this,’” Sirianni said. “… Anything that can pop up—we’ve been doing these for 20 weeks and some of them haven’t popped up at all. Some of them have. It’s just studying the film, adding to your situations, trying to get better at it, trying to get better at the process and that’s why we have the plays in that we had today.”
Much of the work was focused on game-opening plays, and various situations, including two-minute, punts, fourth downs and so on.
Although it was only a walkthrough, backup quarterback Ian Book played the part of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
“He was good. I think on every play he just throws an interception to the other team,” Sirianni said jokingly.
After the session, Sirianni gathered his players at midfield to relay some of the messages he’s issued throughout the week.
“Sometimes good coaching is just reminding them of things they already know,’ he said. “So just reminding, ‘Stay in routine. Stay in the moment. Don’t let distractions happen,’ and we’ve really been talking about that all year. But what really makes that possible is we have good leaders, we have guys that care about the team and stay in moment.”
