This week, the Marist Center for Sports Communication sent five other students and me to cover Super Bowl Media Week in San Francisco, CA, in anticipation of Sunday’s Super Bowl LX matchup between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots. This is the fourth of multiple entries documenting our journey in Northern California, covering the lead-up to America’s biggest sporting event.
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Radio Row was alive on Thursday. Cameras, athletes, interviewers and noise — so much noise — filled the Moscone Center.
It was the fourth day of Super Bowl Media Week. The end is near, even if no one wants to admit or acknowledge it.
I floated to the Moscone Center in the morning, still riding the high of how incredible Wednesday night was, with Chris Berman-esque name puns rattling through my brain (I subjected the rest of our Super Bowl squad to hearing some of them all day long, so now I’m going to put you through it too… I’m sorry in advance).
On our first day, I wrote that there was no “Super Bowl of (insert your favorite industry here)” this week. Welp, I lied.
“Today is the Super Bowl of Radio Row,” Eugene “barbed wire” Barbieri said as he fenced himself in for another 10 or so hours of editing.
We did a few laps around Radio Row as the morning started to heat up, searching for some run-and-gun interview subjects. We found Ryan Leaf, the 1998 2nd overall pick in the NFL Draft, and asked him to film a quick video with us.
Nicholas “Cage” Chiarito said, “It Could Happen to You,” and I hopped in front of the camera for a change.
I had only been sitting at Radio Row for 30 minutes when an email notification changed the outlook of my next two days: my Sport Beach Clubhouse credential request had been approved.
Sport Beach was created in 2023 as a part of the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, a yearly event held in Cannes, France, to recognize the best communication and advertising companies. While the award shows are held throughout a full week in June in Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, pop-up stations are set up along the Promenade de la Croisette, a boulevard overlooking the French Riviera.
Companies such as Spotify, Meta, Amazon, and Google set up shop there, holding guest speakers, complimentary food, drinks and phenomenal views of the beach. Sport Beach is right there with them, and starting this year, has expanded outside of the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, beginning with a clubhouse at Super Bowl LX.
This past summer, I attended the 2025 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity with 12 other Marist students. I spent a lot of time at Sport Beach. There I listened to legendary athletes, such as Serena Williams, Alex Rodriguez, Billie Jean King and Dwyane Wade speak on panels – I even had a glass of Carmelo Anthony’s wine company, VII(N) The Seventh Estate, poured by Anthony himself.
As soon as I saw their setup outside the Moscone Center, I was going to do whatever it took to get in there.
Before crossing Minna Street to visit the Sport Beach Clubhouse, our crew attended the Super Bowl LX Pregame & Apple Music Halftime Show Press Conference. The press conference did not start until 10 a.m., but doors opened a full 90 minutes beforehand. Everyone wanted to see Bad Bunny.
Jaylen “Rose” Rizzo went much earlier than the other “Fab Five” Marist students to get in a prime position for some pictures of the onstage talent.
It paid off.
Bad Bunny wasn’t the only speaker. Sign language interpreters for the pregame and halftime music took the stage first, followed by Charlie Puth, this year’s singer of the national anthem, Brandi Carlile, who will sing “America the Beautiful” and Coco Jones; she’ll perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
Bad Bunny took the stage a little after 10:30; just about every single person in attendance held their phone or camera up to try and get a good picture of him through a maze of raised arms.
Less than a week ago, Bad Bunny cleaned up at the Grammys. His album “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” became the first all-Spanish album to win the Album of the Year award. It also won the Best Música Urbana Album award, and his song “EoO” won for Best Global Music Performance.
Despite all of the recent success, the superstar admitted that he was nervous for his halftime show. He appeared in the Super Bowl LIV show alongside Shakira, where they sang a cover of the Bad Bunny song, “I Like It,” but his nerves still keep him up at night
“It’s just 13 minutes of doing something I love… I know I’m gonna have fun,” he told the audience, reminding himself that the whole ordeal is supposed to be a good time.
Bad Bunny didn’t produce “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” with the Super Bowl or massive tours in mind. It was a project for himself, something to connect with his roots and express his pride in his Puerto Rican heritage. It captivated the world, even outside of Spanish-speaking countries.
“The world really wants me. I should go and show love to the world,” Bad Bunny recalled thinking.
The NFL’s selection of Bad Bunny to be this year’s performer was met with immediate backlash from fans baffled by the fact that the halftime show would be strictly in Spanish; although he speaks English fluently, none of his songs contain it. On Saturday Night Live in October, he joked that Americans had four months to learn the language.
I can hardly speak, write or comprehend Spanish when I hear it. Hablo un poco, pero muy mal. Muy mal. But, I personally still love his music. Understanding what each word means is not essential, as the rhythm and vibe each song elicits is almost universal.
“I know I told them that they had four months to learn Spanish,” he said on Thursday, walking back his previous statement. “They don’t even have to learn Spanish. It’s better if they learn to dance.”
I made my way over to the Sport Beach Clubhouse after the end of the press conference, where I sat down just a few moments before Christian McCaffery and Todd Meleney, co-founders of the clothing brand, “while on earth.”
What I loved about Sport Beach in France, and now in San Francisco, is that the panels take a more business-like approach to sports. McCaffrey wasn’t talking about his three-touchdown game against the Arizona Cardinals earlier this year. He wasn’t talking about where he was when he found out he was being traded to the San Francisco 49ers in 2022. He wasn’t talking about his welcome to the NFL moment.
Instead, the discussion was about his clothing brand. McCaffrey left his Nike endorsement deal this past August in favor of joining the upstart performance wellness brand.
“When your career is over, you don’t have a Nike deal,” he said. “I wanted something that transcended my career.”
McCaffrey gifted his 49ers teammates and coaches with while on earth gear, and they loved it – seeing them wear it on their own time inspired him that the brand did have a future. McCaffrey started wearing unreleased gear around the facility, and the team started asking him where they could get some, because they couldn’t find it on the website.
“That’s right where we want them,” McCaffrey laughed.
I returned to Moscone after McCaffrey’s session ended, and Will “Hunting” Rosen said, “Do you like apples?” I responded yes, and he said, “Well, I’m interviewing Sauce Gardner. How do you like them apples?”
I went upstairs to catch up on some writing before heading back to Sport Beach, this time to see Victor Cruz speak on a USA TODAY Ad Meter panel. Again, in a stroke of nostalgic luck, 14 years ago today, Cruz and my beloved New York Giants topped the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI.
As a seven-year-old living in Connecticut, my life was on the line that day. All of my friends were Patriots fans. Had the Giants lost, I probably would’ve had to move.
But they didn’t. Cruz scored a touchdown and did his patented salsa dance. That’s what I loved about him; not just how good he was as a player, but the fact that he knew he was playing a kid’s game. He always smiled, he always danced.
As a kid, I loved that. After his panel discussing the impact of Super Bowl ads came to a close, I told him that. I didn’t have the guts to try to do my salsa in front of him, but I told him I used to do it in my front yard after catching imaginary touchdowns from my Dad.
William “Chosen” Rosen made our evening decision once more, this time convincing us to attend the Bay Area Host Committee Super Bowl LX Kickoff Party at Dolby.
It took place at Dolby’s corporate headquarters, a futuristic building with state-of-the-art theatres and speakers. I’m not a tech guy at all; William could write this part better than I.
The event was lovely, far fancier than what was probably in our league. We stayed for a while and spoke with former San Francisco Giants fan favorite Hunter Pence for a few minutes before heading back to the hotel around 7:30 p.m.
There, we met Bailey Carlin at the rooftop bar and restaurant, which had a stunning 360-degree view from the 46th floor overlooking San Francisco. Carlin is an adjunct professor at Marist who founded Bad Brain, a digital consulting firm. He’s a social media wizz; even his personal Twitter account has over 30 thousand followers.
Carlin’s in town for the Super Bowl as well, working with Stephen A. Smith. He set aside some time in his maddening schedule to talk to us for a few hours. Most of us have had him in class, and for any Marist students reading this – take one of his classes. Carlin is a great guy and someone who really understands the modern communication field, with expertise in social media; his knowledge has rubbed off on all of us.
As I pressed my hotel key up to the censor on the door, it started to hit me. This was our last night in San Francisco. With a redeye home scheduled for late Friday evening, as much as I tried to keep myself busy to hide from it, the week was coming to a close.
It made me sad for a moment, but after reflecting a little longer, I felt much more grateful than I had all week. I’ve given these past few days everything I had. I didn’t want to leave any stone unturned, whether that be lap after lap on Radio Row or visiting every different event that I could, making the most of every single day.
And then there was one…
Photo by Jaylen Rizzo
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