NFL Moves Super Bowl Opening Night Over Turf Concerns, Leans Into Music

The list of events for the week of Super Bowl LX in the Bay Area is out, and music will have a sharply heightened role in the festivities.

The league on Monday released the set of supplemental events leading up to the Feb. 8 game at Levi’s Stadium, and as the NFL continues to assume an elevated status in U.S. culture, a series of concerts with top-tier names lining the week. Among the planned events:

• A two-night concert series developed and promoted by NFL hospitality partner On Location on Feb. 6 and 7. The first night will be headlined by Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Sting playing at the Palace of the Fine Arts, a famed San Francisco venue overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. The second night’s headliner has yet to be announced. 
• A three-night concert series developed and promoted by the Bay Area Host Committee on Feb. 5–7 at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. The closing night will be headlined by country superstar Chris Stapleton and singer-songwriter Sierra Ferrell, with further announcements coming for the initial nights. 
• A series of other concerts around the Bay Area that are not directly affiliated with either the NFL or the host committee. 

Those concerts will lead up to the featured performance in the Super Bowl LX halftime show by Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny. Despite pushback on the selection from U.S. President Donald Trump and other segments of conservative politics, the league is standing firmly behind Bad Bunny.

Those plans also follow the previously announced shift of the Pro Bowl Games to Super Bowl week, with that flag football event to be held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center on Feb. 3.

A Different Opening Night

The NFL, meanwhile, has altered its plan for Super Bowl Opening Night, where the two competing teams have their media availability with credentialed press, and the event is ticketed for the public as another fan engagement vehicle.

Typically held in the Super Bowl stadium, the plan for Super Bowl LX is to hold Opening Night instead at the San Jose Convention Center. The shift is designed to protect the grass field at Levi’s Stadium. Other recent Super Bowl host stadiums either have artificial turf fields where this isn’t a concern or have a tray system in which the field can be removed earlier in the week and returned for the game. 

Because of the much smaller capacity at the convention center compared to Levi’s Stadium, the American Football Conference and National Football Conference sessions at Opening Night will be ticketed separately. That shift will help the league cycle through a greater number of fans at the event, said NFL EVP Peter O’Reilly. 

“With a grass field surface, we really want to be focused on the main event there,” O’Reilly said of Levi’s Stadium.