Our Super Bowl 50 NFL Experience
Next Sunday, the Broncos and the Panthers will play in Super Bowl 50 in Santa Clara. So this past Saturday, our family headed down to San Jones to revel in a bit of the frenzy before the big game.
In anticipation of the madness, I purchased tickets for the NFL Experience way back when they went on sale in November. This allowed us to take advantage of buying NFLXtra passes for the day, which are essentially “fast pass” tickets that let you jump to the front of most lines in the convention center. It was an extra $25 cost to the regular ticket, but they’re sold in a limited amount each day. For us, it was well worth it to just enjoy the day and attend everything without any worry about lines. Even with the fast passes, we still spent 7 hours at the NFL Experience!
Upon arrival at Moscone Center, we went to pick up our tickets at will call and browse through the merchandise at the NFL Shop. The shop was filled with everything Super Bowl 50: shirts, hats, sweatshirts, etc. Unfortunately, if your team did not make the Super Bowl, there wasn’t a lot to offer. Oh wait, they did have $110 kid’s NFL jerseys for every team. But despite the puppy dog eyes from Miss L for her own authentic Jets jersey (kid… I don’t even own a real jersey!), we left the store with only one purchase: a small Super Bowl 50 football ripe for autographs. Oh… and I saw Joe Montana and met Left Shark!
We crossed the street, went through security, and officially entered the gauntlet that is the “NFL Experience.” Outside of the pavilions, there were agility games from the NFL Combine set up for your enjoyment. And by enjoyment, I just mean an opportunity to laugh at yourself while you realize how sub-par you are athletically in all of these categories.
Out of those offerings, we decided to run the 40-yard dash against Miss L. First time through, Mr. M let her win. The next time, I ran as fast as I could and beat her… which, if you realized how slow I run, was actually an accomplishment in my book.
Once inside, all of our senses were accosted by ALL THINGS NFL. Truly. At one point in the day, Mr. M said he was going to go find a quiet spot and relax. Turns out that quiet spot was a quick game of football target throwing… which, to his credit, was in a relatively quiet corner.
So here are just a few of the things we did:
We took silly photos and put them on old Super Bowl tickets. (We picked the palm tree one because it was pretty).
Miss L tested her skills in a variety of games throughout the convention center floor.
Then she signed up for a 30-minute skills exercise (with current NFL players Roy Helu and Marcus Smith) on the Play-60 kid’s field.
Mr. M bought a customized Jets football from the Wilson booth.
And we got our very own “Smith” autographed football. Mr. M and Miss L got autographs from the Super Bowl winning Smith brothers: Marcus and Steve. And I got to meet Alex Smith!
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And we got to see this year’s Lombardi trophy!
All in all, it was an exhausting but extremely fun day where we got our NFL and Super Bowl 50 fill!
