This week, the Marist Center for Sports Communication sent five lucky students to cover Super Bowl Week in New Orleans, LA. This is the second entry detailing the sights and sounds throughout New Orleans before the Super Bowl; read the first entry here.
Wednesday, Feb. 5
Wednesday cannot be recapped without covering the wild, dashing and luxurious party at Mardi Gras World sponsored by the NFL for media members, which we attended the night before.
Walking into a spectacle of Mardi Gras floats and artwork captured memories from the previous 11 Super Bowls hosted in Louisiana, while party guests comprised thousands of credentialed media personnel.
The venue contained rooms the sizes of basketball courts; it took us two-and-a-half hours to migrate from one end of the party to the other. The layout included an opening room with volunteers throwing Mardi Gras beads off of floats, a waterfront deck stretching the size of a football field featuring two live bands along with food trucks, an indoor live music hall with an upper deck, a “grocery store” stocked with staple Louisiana cuisine completely free for the taking, a mini two-story museum with NFL memorabilia and an indoor swamp jungle with an oyster bar.
(Left photo) Hundreds of guests mingle on a deck overlooking the Crescent City Connection bridge and the Mississippi river at the NFL Media Party in New Orleans, LA.
(Right photo): A stream of guests make their way across a bridge located within an indoor swamp constructed at Mardi Gras World for the NFL Media Party.
While experiencing an evening filled with New Orleans culture, we even got to hold a snake and an alligator. Yes, a snake and an alligator. The night ended with a showcase of the current New Orleans band scene, including a special closing performance from Big Freedia.
(Left photo): Former Center Field editor-in-chief Luke Sassa poses with a snake at the NFL Media Party at Mardi Gras World in New Orleans, LA.
(Right photo): Center Field editor-in-chief Dan Aulbach poses with an alligator at the NFL Media Party at Mardi Gras World in New Orleans, LA.
Getting a perfectly responsible amount of sleep, our cohort split up to conquer everything Wednesday offered. While Luke, Cara and Nick went to the Eagles’ second media availability of the week, Eugene and I stayed back to set up shop at Radio Row in hopes of producing more content with whatever available players and media personalities we could find.
If Monday and Tuesday on the row were labeled as organized chaos, Wednesday was more like a war zone.
Everywhere you turned, an NFL player, coach or influencer was featured in a booth, whether promoting a product or simply booking time on one of the most coveted sports shows in the U.S. We arrived at our table to start the day, dumbfounded at what transpired all around us.
Before we got to work, I decided to take a lap around the convention center, filming hosts such as Kay Adams, Shannon Sharpe, Chad “Ochocinco’ Johnson, Pat McAfee and more during the filming of their shows.
Walking back to our table, I caught a glimpse of Lions running back David Montgomery in my peripheral. Escorted by his team behind me, I took a chance and asked to get one question from the running back while he was en route to his next interview. Getting the nod, I whipped out my phone and shot a low-production interview to secure the first player of the day.
Realizing what was available at the row, we proceeded to run around like lunatics, scouting potential interviewees among the crowd. These included former Panthers and Commanders head coach Ron Rivera, Saints quarterback Spencer Rattler, “New York Sports Guy” and influencer Alex Day and sports agent/Marist alum Sean Stellato.
We also interviewed FTN Fantasy’s Chief Analytics Officer, Aaron Schatz, who emailed us a pitch at the beginning of the week. Schatz, who is known as the “Founding Father of Football Analytics” and votes for the NFL MVP award, explained metrics he created over the years. These included DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average) and EPA (expected points added), which were created in response to the baseball analytics movement following the popularity of the movie “Moneyball.”
Eugene and I then visited the PXG golf simulator to test our luck at a “closest to the pin” challenge available to media and fans. After beating me yesterday, Eugene hit a buttery fade with a pitching wedge to get within 10 feet of the green, the second-best shot out of everyone in the entire convention center. He notably conquered former Chicago Bears All-Pro guard Kyle Long, and hall-of-fame running back Erik Dickerson, both in the top 10 on the leaderboard.
Afterwards, we met with Marist adjunct professor Bailey Carlin, who runs Bad Brain Digital and works for Stephen A. Smith as his social media liaison. While catching up with Carlin, Long walked up to our table to greet him. We all chatted about Radio Row and the busy day over some crawfish that Eugene and I had picked up from a nearby stand. After talking to Long, we exchanged contact information for a potential interview set for our final day.
Sitting around our table grinding out our content, we received the news from Carlin that we had a potential opening to snag Smith for a quick interview behind the Sirius XM Radio setup at the back of the row. As if it were breaking news, the five of us scurried to gather our equipment and made our way over, to where Smith was on air with Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, recording a podcast.
After meeting with Smith’s team, we created a quick plan to interview the sports media titan. Luke got seven minutes with Smith, and the topics ranged from his consideration to run for president to how Giants fans could cope with the loss of Saquon Barkley.
Capping off the day with our biggest get of the week, we packed up to work in the media workroom, where we prepped Smith’s content for the next day’s post. The day ended with some Cajun food near Jackson Square in celebration of our hard work.
Thursday, Feb. 6
To start the morning, we attended the Super Bowl halftime and pre-game press conference, which featured halftime performer Kendrick Lamar, who came in fresh off winning five 2025 Grammy awards. After taking photos and capturing some video of the presser, we dove right back into the madness of Radio Row.
More and more celebrities continued to pile up on the list of attendees: Joe Burrow, Drew Brees, Travis Hunter, Shadeur Sanders, Jayden Daniels, Micah Parsons, Bryce Young, Jordan Love and more.
Experienced with how the row operated, we swung and missed on a few asks for player interviews, but I got in a minute-long question with Fox Sports analyst Nick Wright and conversed with the reporter a little after.
We continued to split up and soak up as much potential content as possible for the day: Cara took photos of surrounding player interviews to add to her extensive catalog, Luke and Eugene edited and posted our social clips, and Nick and I walked around the center to scout out more potential interviews.
Attempting to make contact with four potential contacts, our first goal was to get a question in with former NFL tight end and Fox commentator Greg Olson, who we had briefly talked to on Wednesday. Meeting his agency, they said we would have to find them after his next podcast appearance, but were unsure where the site was located.
Unable to contact his team after dispersing, four of us went on an hour-long scavenger hunt across hundreds of radio stations and podcast setups. We finally tracked him down and asked the essential questions: his advice to young commentators, and his favorite bagel spot in New Jersey.
Meanwhile, Luke interviewed a StubHub representative to get information on the changing ticket sales in Super Bowl LIX.
In the meantime, we prepared to interview Long, who I searched for at the convention center in the early afternoon. The retired offensive lineman is also an analyst on CBS Sports, who was studio hosting most of the morning at Radio Row for his network.
Sure enough, Long followed through, the 6-foot-5 analyst greeting three of us at our table. While I asked more personal questions to Long (his weirdest fan interaction, how he met Bailey Carlin, his favorite road cities), Nick turned to asking questions related to Long’s expertise, such as Chiefs offensive guard Joe Thuney’s transition from guard to tackle. We interviewed Long for ten minutes, topping the interview off with Eugene one-upping Long’s golf skills.
Before wrapping up our interviews for the day, we saw notorious Philadelphia sports fan Jamie Pagleili (@phillysportsguy) pass by our table, to which Cara and Luke proposed a quick video with the superfan. A charismatic and fun interview, we wrapped up our final interviewing session of the week, got to work on producing content and took in the final sights of Radio Row before enjoying the city one last time.
There’s no doubt about it; the five of us will never forget this incredible opportunity to cover Super Bowl Week, especially given the access and networking opportunities we benefited from. With any luck, we’ll each return to cover another Super Bowl before long.
Edited by Luke Sassa
Photos from Cara Lacey, Dan Aulbach and Luke sassa
For more coverage of Super Bowl LIX, follow @cfmarist on Instagram, X and TikTok.