Not An Ordinary Year

Next Sunday, Super Bowl LV will be held in Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium featuring the defending World Champions Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccanneers. This will be the first time that a team will be playing in their home stadium in the Super Bowl. I have already made my prediction for the game. I have the Chiefs winning 34 to 31 with Patrick Mahomes being the MVP.

There will be only 25,000 fans at the game because of COVID-19 restrictions. The Chiefs will not be in Tampa until Saturday and most of the media week will be done via Zoom or video conference. Radio Row that has been a staple of Super Week will only have 35 radio stations there. The main cause of athletes and other celebrities being at radio row is to endorse a product or movie they are doing. This year it will be done via phone call or zoom. The media covering the game will not be down in Tampa until Thursday or Friday.

Some of the biggest sponsors have passed on doing commercials in this Super Bowl. Pepsi is concentrating on their halftime show. Avocados from Mexico and Coca-Cola will not do any ads this year. Budweiser will not do a commercial for the first time in 37 years. Instead, they are donating their ad money to help COVID-19 vaccine awareness and vaccine education initiatives.

I am hoping for a great game and maybe next year I can be a part of something important. Right now it is about being hopeful and maybe find something to be happy about.