Super Bowl 2026 LIVE updates: New England Patriots vs Seattle Seahawks in Santa Clara, California
Key posts
- Green Day called ICE agents to quit in pre-Super Bowl party show
- Half-time – Seattle 9, New England 0
- 'Absolute perfection': Aussie punter getting rave reviews
- Why a Patriots Super Bowl comeback would be rolled MAGA gold
- Seattle’s dark side rattles quarterback Maye
- What does Donald Trump think about Bad Bunny?
- 'The Dark Side' pull through for Seattle
- How a punt on the NFL made this former Sydney Swan the best in the business
- Super Bowl ads leading the billion-dollar battle for your eyeballs
With astonishing pay packets for the star players, and eye-watering amounts of money spent on television rights, you might think all the money in American football is either on the field, or locked in the vaults of TV networks around the world. In truth, however, the biggest slice of cash is likely wedged into the commercial breaks.
Super Bowl ads have become an event almost as big as the game itself, with vast sums spent by major US and international brands trying to create 30-second TV ads which can capture the zeitgeist. And the price to get your ad into one of those commercial slots during the Super Bowl telecast? Between US$8 million and US$10 million, per 30-second slot.
Some of the ads remain under wraps, not unveiled until game day itself. But there are some clear trends which have sprung out of the Super Bowl ad world in the last few years, which illuminate not just how brands market themselves, but how audiences respond to the ads.
The biggest take out of last year’s Super Bowl ad slate was that more than 60 per cent of the ads featured celebrity talent, with almost 100 celebrities featured in the ads, and many of them as ensembles. That is, ads featuring more than one celebrity.
And the price tag of signing all that talent? An astonishing US$253 million. Nope, you didn’t read that wrong … that’s a quarter of a billion American dollars shelled out booking A-list talent just for one day’s slate of TV ads.
You can read (and watch) a wrap of the 10 buzziest Super Bowl ads released in the pre-game rush, here. (https://www.theage.com.au/link/follow-20170101-p5nxxy)
Green Day called ICE agents to quit in pre-Super Bowl party show
Enjoyed the Green Day show before kick-off? You should have seen them on Friday (US time)…
The veteran US rockers performed at a Spotify pre-Super Bowl party in San Francisco, singing fan favourites like Holiday – but with a twist.
Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong implored US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to quit, telling them to “come on this side of the line”.
“This goes out to all the ICE agents out there,” he said on-stage. “Wherever you are – quit your shitty-ass job. Quit that shitty job you have. Because when this is over – and it will be over at some point in time – Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, J.D. Vance, Donald Trump, they’re going to drop you like a bad f—ing habit.”
The band also dedicated their song Holiday to the people of Minneapolis, and changed some of the lyrics from “the representative from California has the floor” to “the representative from Epstein Island has the floor”.
They may have played it safe during the pre-game entertainment today, but their explosive Friday performance still echoes.
Half-time – Seattle 9, New England 0
That’s half-time and the Seattle Seahawks are holding a 9-0 lead.
The Seahawks had another good chance to drive for a touchdown ahead of the break, but a long pass from Sam Darnold to star receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba was broken up by Christian Gonzalez on the goalline.
They settled for a third field goal from Jason Myers.
It hasn’t been a free-flowing game so far and that’s because both sides are giving the other absolutely nothing in defence.
The pressure at the line has been smothering for both quarterbacks, and there have been very few yawning gaps for running backs either.
Defensive coverage in the backfield has also been good.
It is the first time all season that the Patriots have been held scoreless in the first half.
A nine-point lead usually isn’t enough to feel confident in the NFL but this Super Bowl doesn’t feel like it will suddenly break open ... so who knows?
Could Michael Dickson join Jordan Mailata as the second Aussie to start and win a Super Bowl?
Kendall Jenner and white plastic chairs: What is Bad Bunny’s award-winning album about?
The cover of the album DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS – two white plastic chairs in front of a lush tropical backdrop – has sparked an online trend about the conversations had on them in backyards across the world.
Benito’s songwriting about Puerto Rico has always been political. When he is not singing about a studious, quiet girl with a propensity for partying and drugs, he turns to the state of his beloved island.
Bad Bunny dives harder into the theme of gentrification. In Lo Que Paso A Hawaii (“What Happened to Hawaii”), he states: “They want to take my river and my beach as well, they want my neighbourhood and for my grandma to leave”.
He even sings about a girl who left him feeling “colonised” in Kloufrens. Although she is not named, it would be hard not to look at his last public relationship … Kendall Jenner.
DtMF is where he gets nostalgic, like he’s telling his audience to hold their loved ones tight. In the NUEVAYoL music video – set on the fourth of July in the US – a voice that sounds a lot like President Donald Trump speaks from a radio and says: “I made a mistake, I want to apologise to the immigrants of America … this country is nothing without the immigrants”.
Because in the end, what really matters when your home is levelled by a natural disaster and your community is left without power for weeks? You just gotta pull out the cheap plastic chairs, a few beverages and be with your loved ones.
Hundreds protest ICE and Trump outside Super Bowl
Hundreds are said to be protesting against the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and Donald Trump’s immigration policy outside Levi’s Stadium. The protesters are holding signs that read “killer ICE off our streets” and “no more detentions, no more deportations, abolish ICE”.
Some of the group marching towards the stadium are members of Latinos Contra Cancer and Patient Organising Committee, a non-profit that advocates for more accessible healthcare for the Latino community.
$180 for a burger?!
When it comes to the Super Bowl, go big or go home. This applies to food at Levi’s Stadium too, which includes a burger to end all burgers.
The “LX burger” is a colossal braised veal shank with blue cheese sauce (made up of a Mire Poix demi-glace and Point Reyes Blue fondue, Reuters reports), all served on a house-baked brioche bun. It’s so big, it could feed four.
The price-tag is also massive … This burger is sold for a whopping $US180 ($256). It’s the most expensive concession item at the Super Bowl today, equivalent to buying about 18 hot dogs … And if you’d like to wash it down with a refreshing beverage, you can shell out $US36 for a double tequila sunrise. I hope punters have been saving up.
Duolingo ad teaches Bad Bunny fans the Puerto Rican slang for twerk
We’re getting closer to half time and our resident Bad Bunny expert, Kayla Olaya, has a guide on some Puerto Rican slang for you. Just in case you need it.
Even if you have the Spanish basics down, it’s likely you haven’t come across the vocabulary of Mr. Benito.
In Puerto Rico, much like Australia, there is a plethora of slang words that has in itself become a bit of a national identity.
So much so that Duolingo has seized the opportunity to create an ad just to teach Puerto Rican slang.
The ad asks for the translation to the words perreo and titi me pregunto (“twerk” and “aunty asked me”, respectively) before Mr Owlingo himself starts to twerk.
Other words Bad Bunny uses in his songs include: bichote (drug lord), bellakeo (flirt, hook-up … etc) and pichear (forget it!).
'Absolute perfection': Aussie punter getting rave reviews
There hasn’t been much danger of a touchdown so far but that usually means the punters are heavily involved ... and Aussie punter Michael Dickson is having an outstanding game for the Seahawks.
The former Sydney Swans academy member just landed another punt on the sideline and deep in the Patriots’ territory, meaning New England had to start their drive from on their own line.
This was the ESPN commentary: “That is absolute perfection. Dickson is having a tremendous game and it’s no surprise he is one of the best in the world.”
Patriots coach Mike Vrabel’s face says it all
Why a Patriots Super Bowl comeback would be rolled MAGA gold
By Emma Kemp
Thanks to Melania, there isn’t even a need to infer the association. That should be thanks to Melania, the documentary internationally panned as “unredeemable”, a “gilded infomercial”, an “accidental mockumentary” and a work of propaganda so artistically poor it would make Leni Riefenstahl squirm, among various other anti-compliments.
But the premiere in Washington, at least, did provide further evidence that Robert Kraft’s billionaire bromance with Donald Trump is back on. Because there the New England owner was, sitting right next to him in the presidential box at the Kennedy Centre, then joining in a standing ovation as if he had never not been a rusted-on ally.
As if he had never felt so upset by the January 6 insurrection that he’d distanced himself from a “social friend” dating back to the early 1990s, around the time he purchased the Patriots.
Until recently, it seemed as if the Kraft who donated $1 million to Trump’s 2017 inauguration had ceased to exist.
Finish reading the full story on New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft here. (https://www.theage.com.au/link/follow-20170101-p5o01m)
