COVID-19 protocols and fan cutouts are some of the changes to see at Super Bowl 55

All the usual preparations for a Super Bowl are taking place at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa.

But this year’s game comes with a unique twist: it’s the first Super Bowl played with COVID-19 protocols in place.

Super Bowl 55 comes about a year after the novel coronavirus pandemic began dominating the world and RayJay will see safety protocols for both players and fans from keeping it from becoming a super spreader event.

“We are very confident in what we’re doing here,” NFL Head of Live Event Production Jon Barker said in a press conference this week. “Making sure that we have physical distancing, making sure we that are watching our vertical movements. Every fan, every guest, every person working at the stadium when they arrive will receive a KN95 mask, will receive bacterial wipes, will receive hand wipes, will receive sanitizer, will receive a safety card. And everybody will be in masks.”

Barker said there are other precautions that people won’t see such as the cleaning and sanitizing of the stadium every day and making sure the air filtration is safe.

“We’re taking every step possible,” Barker said.

The Super Bowl, which takes place Sunday, Feb. 7, will also see fan cutouts occupying empty areas that are filled in past years.

But beyond COVID-19 safety guidelines making this year’s Super Bowl unique, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers became the first team to play the Super Bowl in their home stadium when they beat the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship.

The Super Bowl, though, is a neutral site game, with the NFC and AFC champions receiving a “home” and “visitor” designation.

“The way that the Super Bowl works is it alternates year after year as to who the home team is for the game. And it just happens that this happens to be an NFC year, so the Bucs are the home team in their own building under Super Bowl rules,” NFL events planning senior director Eric Finkelstein said at a press conference this week.

Typical things such as the pirate ship inside Raymond James Stadium firing its cannons for a Bucs touchdown is an item that the NFL’s gameday presentation team will review.

“Both clubs, they will put in a request of what they like to do ritual wise within the game,” Finkelstein said. “And then we will review it and make sure whatever it is that we’re doing it’s done equally for both teams. That has not been finalized yet for this year.”

Due to COVID-19, many of the activities for fans in the days leading into Super Bowl Sunday were altered. Players won’t be on hand to sign autographs like past years and some of the hands-on activities won’t be quite the same due to safety guidelines. However, the NFL Super Bowl Experience tickets, which are free, quickly nearly sold out shortly after the Bucs booked their spot in the Super Bowl.

There are still limited tickets available from the one-pass app, NFL director of events Nicki Ewell said in a press conference this week.

The halftime show featuring The Weeknd will still take place in the stadium on game day and while only 24,700 fans will be in attendance, that number will balloon up through virtual two-dimensional cutouts.

“We will have a group that will be part of the showtime cam that has been quite popular all season in terms of celebrating touchdowns in the endzones,” Finkelstein said. “We will have one setup in each endzone, which we will have fans from the teams that will be able to celebrate along virtually as their teams score. .... We also have some fans that we’re looking to have in the stands in a cardboard format, so a cutout that we will have. We will have representation equally from both clubs.”

For more information on purchasing a cutout for the Super Bowl, visit SuperBowl.com.