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It’s no secret that San Francisco has been rife with homelessness and crime in recent years, but that was tough to imagine during Super Bowl week, according to Pat McAfee.
Granted, the big game was about an hour southeast in Santa Clara, but the Super Bowl fan experience and media row were right in the city at the Moscone Center, and McAfee was impressed with his surroundings.
“I would like to reiterate the fact that San Francisco was good to us out there. It’s a nice city. We’ve been walking around here miles and miles,” McAfee said on his show Monday, adding the city was “good to us.”
McAfee admitted he heard from the critics about his rather upscale amenities, from five-star hotels to private security through “the backstage of a convention center,” which could lead to a positive perception automatically.
“I understand that could be my life, and it sounds pretty sick, actually. But…we walked that s–t,” McAfee said. “We were all over that place.”
“Granted, it was just our area. I assume there are s—-y areas. I mean, it is a city. I think that kind of happens in most cities. But the part we were at was very nice,” he continued.
McAfee admitted that he actually expected San Francisco to be a “s—hole,” as he had heard it was once a “dump.”
“I was actually planning on leading off the show… ‘Can’t wait to have to tell the truth about San Francisco if it is not great,'” McAfee added.
49ers stars Christian McCaffrey, Brock Purdy, and Fred Warner praised the city to Fox News Digital during media week.
“It’s a historic city with so much character. The food, the hills, the homes, the water, the bridge, the whole thing. It’s just such a great city, too, and it’s really cool to see it come to life even more than it already is,” McCaffrey said.
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“Man, I think San Francisco has so much to offer,” the quarterback Purdy added. “Just, obviously, with the restaurants, the experiences, just how pretty it is out here with the Golden Gate Bridge and the ocean. It’s a great city, great people. So to have the Super Bowl out here is really cool.”
Warner revelled in the fact that the city is a “melting pot.”
Just all the different cultures mixing, all the diversity and mixing together,” Warner said. “You can get a little bit of everything that you’re looking for out here, and of course, playing in the greatest stadium in the entire NFL, Levi’s Stadium, you can’t beat it, and so I think it’s gonna be a great Super Bowl Sunday and a great week as well with all the different activities that they got planned for everybody.”
Back in 2023, Buster Posey, the hometown Giants’ president of baseball operations and former catcher, said players and their wives have a negative perception of San Francisco.
“Something I think is noteworthy, something that unfortunately keeps popping up from players and even the players’ wives is there’s a bit of an uneasiness with the city itself, as far as the state of the city, with crime, with drugs,” Posey said to The Athletic in 2023, adding that it affected their pursuit of Shohei Ohtani.
“Whether that’s all completely fair or not, perception is reality. It’s a frustrating cycle, I think, and not just with baseball. Baseball is secondary to life and the important things in life. But as far as a free-agent pursuit goes, I have seen that it does affect things.”
The estimated population of San Francisco is roughly 827,000 people, the 13th-most populous city in the United States. It’s estimated, however, that over 8,000 people are homeless in the city.
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