SAN DIEGO SUPER BOWL XXII : Super-Sized Symbol for Super Bowl Party

Call it the football that ate San Diego.

It’s a four-story-high, inflated football that will bob in San Diego Bay as the centerpiece of a laser and fireworks extravaganza that could draw as many as 100,000 viewers downtown on the evening of Jan. 29, the kickoff event for Super Bowl weekend.

The extra-large vinyl football, which will include lighted stitches and which is being made by Bigger Than Life Inc. of El Cajon, could also symbolize the Super Bowl mania expected to grip the city in the days before the game Jan. 31 at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

The harborside event to start at 6 p.m. is billed by the task force as a “thank you” gesture to the city for hosting the game, said Phil Blair, a member of the San Diego Super Bowl Task Force, a civic group coordinating events leading up to the game.

The 28-minute light show and fireworks display Jan. 29 are also viewed as a prelude and “focal point” to several downtown festivities that night including at least two huge public parties, one at Horton Plaza, the other in the Gaslamp Quarter, Blair said at a press conference Tuesday.

The $100,000 cost of the football to float about 20 feet offshore opposite Seaport Village is being shouldered by Great American First Savings Bank. The ball will be transported and reinflated for public view outside the stadium the day of the game.

Seaport Village, radio station KCBQ and television station KGTV (Channel 10) are also helping sponsor the light show and fireworks display. The production is to be orchestrated by Steenhoven Production Group of Newport Beach, the same firm that produced the New Year’s Eve fireworks display at Horton Plaza.

The fireworks display will include more than 3,000 rockets. One of the two lasers will be mounted on the Great American First’s office building on B Street. The lasers’ power will be 37,000 watts, enough to power a “small community,” John Steenhoven of Steenhoven Production said Tuesday.