When wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. hauled in the game’s first touchdown, Joey Keenan and Maguire Kelly exploded in joy — even surpassing the exuberance of the other diehard Rams fans surrounding them.
The reason, the two Florida State University graduate students explained, was that they’d both bet on Beckham scoring this Super Bowl’s first touchdown. Keenan had won $140, Kelly, $70.
“That was a euphoric experience, an out-of-body experience,” Kelly said.
Keenan, who grew up in West Hills and traveled from Jacksonville, Fla., to Los Angeles to attend the big game with 20 other sports management students, said he never would have believed that an L.A. team would be playing in the first Super Bowl hosted by the city in nearly 30 years.
“We just got the team five, six years ago,” he said. “But you know what, some dreams do come true.”
Inside and outside SoFi Stadium on Sunday afternoon, thousands of Rams and Cincinnati Bengals fans from near and far converged in Inglewood to party and cheer on their favorite team — and in some cases, make a little money.
Before players took to the field at 3:30 p.m., fans gathered outside the stadium’s west entrance in hopes of scoring a ticket.
Wearing a black-and-orange Bengals jersey, Lisa Houck, 52, sat on the sidewalk curb and streamed the game on her phone, her husband sipping a beer beside her.
Houck said she tried buying tickets to the game but ultimately decided to save her money to pay for her 20-year-old son’s college semester.
“Maybe [prices] will go down in the next half hour,” she said.
Inglewood resident and Rams fan Miles Kula, 30, approached Bengals fan Mohammad Sharta, 21, as he streamed the game on his phone. They didn’t know each other, but Kula suggested temporarily pushing their teams’ rivalry aside to purchase a pair of tickets and split the cost.
So far, Kula found only one ticket for $5,000. He kept refreshing the app on his phone. “It’s us versus the billionaire owners!” he said.
At Tom Bergin’s, one of the oldest Irish bars in Los Angeles and a longtime Rams hangout, Alvaro Nunez raised Vicente Munguia’s hand to force a high-five when L.A. team its second touchdown in the second quarter.
Munguia, a longtime 49ers fan, gazed stoically at Nunez in his Rams jersey. The longtime friends met each other when they studied at Cal Poly.
“I am torn,” Munguia said. “You always want to root for California’s team, but I am a 49ers fan.”
But in the middle of the second quarter, Munguia began talking smack about Rams quarterback, Matthew Stafford, leaving passes hanging long enough for the defense to pick him off. “If Aaron Donald doesn’t get at least two sacks, I think he’s underperforming,” he told his friends.
And when the Bengals scored their first touchdown of the game in the second quarter, Munguia, grinning widely, held up his hands to signal a touchdown.
For the halftime show, West Coast hip hop pioneers Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar took the field in a strong showing of California pride, along with Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent and Eminem — who in a nod to Colin Kaepernick’s long-running NFL protest, took a knee.
On the streets leading up to the stadium, intrepid entrepreneurs held up cardboard signs hawking parking spots for $200. And $250. And $400. And, for the truly desperate, $450.
Residents stood outside their homes selling tacos for $10, Fireball shots for $5, popcorn, chips, bacon-wrapped hot dogs, bottles of cold water, clear plastic tote bags, even phone chargers. Warned one vendor voice of doom: “Your phone’s gonna die, I promise.”
A Pomona resident drove more than 80 miles round trip to sell N95 masks for $3 each beneath a blue E-Z Up shelter. He wanted, he said, to keep people safe as the global pandemic heads into year three.
Stacie McGinty, a wise student of the human condition, opened up her apartment bathroom, allowing football fans to relieve themselves for $10 a pop. Thirty minutes before kickoff, at least 60 people had taken her up on the offer.
Sitting on her front stoop, McGuinty laughed and gestured toward the well-lubricated Bengals fans who’d joined her on this unseasonably hot afternoon.
“I’m from L.A., nowhere near Ohio,” McGuinty said with a laugh. “These are my new friends. They used the bathroom and they’re chilling.”
Those who could shelled out big bucks for the privilege of watching Super Bowl LVI in the comfort of the $5-billion arena — many of them Bengals fans who’d made the pilgrimage to Los Angeles for what they hoped would be the first Super Bowl win in franchise history.
Sanjiv Patel, a lifelong Cincinnati resident, made the last-minute decision Thursday to take his 10-year-old son, Aarav, to the game. Patel, 49, said he snagged a pair of tickets that were just under $5,000 apiece.
“I wanted to take my son to something he’s going to tell his grandkids about,” Patel said after snapping a selfie with his son in front of SoFi Stadium in Bengals regalia — for Patel a Chad Ochocinco jersey, and for Aarav a quarterback Joe Burrow shirt.
Patel said his team’s last Super Bowl showing, a loss to the 49ers in 1989, still stung. “It means a lot to the whole city, just to get to this point,” he said.
The Los Angeles Rams had never won a Super Bowl and have made only two previous appearances, most recently a 13-3 loss to the New England Patriots in 2019 in what has been described as one of the most boring bowl games ever.
The team was based in St. Louis for two decades, from 1995 to 2015. It was the St. Louis Rams that won the Super Bowl in 2000, beating the Tennessee Titans 23-16.
Nelson Quintanilla bought his Super Bowl ticket back in August. The 52-year-old Rams fan had no idea if his beloved team would be vying for the championship, but he would be there, whether they made it or not.
That they’re competing for a title Sunday made it all the sweeter, he said. And he needed a little sweetness Sunday morning.
The ticket he bought six months ago put him out $8,500 — a few months’ rent on an L.A. apartment. Compare that to the ticket his cousin bought this weekend — a just-in-time purchase of $3,500.
The drop in price, Quintanilla said, underscored the apparent indifference of many Angelenos when it comes to supporting the hometown team. But a Rams win on Sunday, he said, would grow its fan base and win the allegiance of a city that values results over anything else.
“L.A. is about winning. The Kings, the Lakers, the Clippers — they have to be on top,” he said. Quintanilla was standing in front of the SoFi Stadium lake Sunday afternoon, surrounded by crowds of people sporting Rams blue and gold, just like him.
“It’s beautiful,” he said. “Perfect weather. Perfect people.”
Perfectly expensive.
Now, if you had only $875 to spend on your Super Bowl experience, you could still get your game day crowd on at nearby Hollywood Park Casino.
That’s what it cost to get into the Player’s Tailgate event, which drew a healthy contingent of Bengals fans Sunday morning, their cheers drowning out the Rams faithful during a DJ-led call-and-response.
Clusters of people dotted the venue’s red carpet, and shade from the sun was hard to find.
“Hot,” said Julie Wirtz when asked about her first impression of Los Angeles.
A Cincinnati resident, Wirtz was on a family vacation in Florida when she made a spur-of-the-moment decision to get in on the action. She left her husband in charge of the children — the youngest, age 1 month, the older sibling, 5 years old. She packed her Bengals jersey and hopped on a plane.
“I left my family on the beach in Naples, Fla., boarded a plane last night and got in at 10 p.m.,” she said. “I stay ‘til tomorrow morning when I board the plane hung over.”
Mary Becerra is 56, the same age as the Super Bowl, she noted Sunday as she waited for the game to begin. It’s a “lucky number,” she joked.
Resplendent in a blue wig and a Rams jersey, Becerra came to the game with her good friend Stuart Guidry, 57. They posed for selfies, making sure to capture the stadium with its soaring silver canopy in the background.
“We’re going to kick the Bengals in their ass,” Guidry said.
Becerra is a season ticket holder and has been a Rams fan since she was little.
“I traveled everywhere to watch the Rams play so as soon as they moved to L.A., I got season tickets,” she said. She won the sweepstakes for ticket holders to come to the game and got two tickets.
The two Rams fans were wearing masks to protect them from the coronavirus. Becerra said she feels safer doing it, even though she saw a lot of other fans who didn’t.
“This is huge,” she said about the Super Bowl here. “Bringing people together, uniting people, especially through all we’ve been through the past couple of years? It’s huge.”
