A Fan’s Primer

Denver, 16-3 and wearing blue jerseys, versus Green Bay, 15-3 and wearing white.

Site: Qualcomm Stadium, formerly known as San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

Kickoff: 3:24 p.m.

TV: Channel 4

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National anthem sung by 23-year-old San Diego-area resident Jewel. “San Diego was very supportive of me when I was living in my car and playing the coffee shops,” said Jewel, born with a last name of Kilcher. Added trivia note: Jewel sang the national anthem before the Baltimore Oriole game in which Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played. Tony award winner Phyllis French will sign the national anthem.

Pregame show: “NewsRadio’s” Phil Hartman will host the salute to the history of California, which will be highlighted by the singing of the 5th Dimension and Lee Greenwood. “Actually, I don’t think Super Bowl pregame shows are meant . . . for one person to watch every minute. If you watch all of the pregame show and then the Super Bowl, you need to get a life,” said NBC’s Greg Gumbel, the pregame host.

Coin toss: Joe Gibbs and Doug Williams, the coach and quarterback MVP from the Redskins’ Super Bowl XXII winning team, which beat Denver in San Diego in 1988, and retired Grambling coach Eddie Robinson.

Halftime show: A celebration of Motown’s 40th anniversary, including appearances by the Temptations, Smokey Robinson and the Grambling University Band.

Ticket price: $275. Scalpers’ going rate: $2,000.

Ticket distribution: Each team received 17.5% of available Super Bowl tickets, the Chargers as host team received 10%, the remaining 27 NFL teams each received 1.1% and the NFL league office received 25.3%.

Attendance: Although San Diego paid $78 million to expand Qualcomm Stadium to more than 70,000 seats, only 68,500 fans are expected to be admitted because some seats were deemed unacceptable for a Super Bowl.

No shows: El Nino.

Commercials: Your bathroom break is costing advertisers

$1.3 million for a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl. Royal Caribbean Cruises spent $5 million to be the sole sponsor of the halftime show.

A first-timer: This is the first Super Bowl played in a corporate-named stadium.

Lombardi Trophy: Carried around by NFL officials wearing white gloves, it costs $10,000, and is made each year by Tiffany’s.

The ring: The NFL pays for up to 90 championship rings at $4,000 per ring. The NFL also pays for 90 loser rings at half the cost of the winners’ rings.

The winner’s share: A player on a wild-card team (like Denver) that wins the Super Bowl will take home $103,000 for his postseason work, including $48,000 for winning the Super Bowl, a serious pay cut for players like John Elway, who make more than that per regular-season game. A player on a division-winning team (like Green Bay) that wins the Super Bowl will take home $108,000. Players on the losing team in the Super Bowl receive $30,000 each.

Team mascots: He wears a cowboy hat, boots, barrel and well, little else. Tim McKernan, a.k.a. the Barrelman, has gone through 16 barrels and uses at least three sets of suspenders a year as the Broncos’ most identifiable mascot. He once was offered $500 to drop the barrel so folks could see what he was wearing underneath, but he said, “I couldn’t afford the fine if I did that.”

The Packers have a bunch of people willing to put a block of cheese on their heads. A spokesman for Foamation Inc., which makes the Cheeseheads, said the company sold 380 to a wedding party; as a bonus, the wedding party received Cheesehead bow ties.

Last meeting between the teams: Dec. 8, 1996--Green Bay won, 41-6, at Lambeau Field, but the Broncos did not play Elway or seven other starters because they had clinched home-field advantage a week earlier, while the Packers needed to win the game to gain their own home edge.

Lack of pregame hype: “Neither team will provide bulletin-board stuff,” Packer safety Eugene Robinson said as the week began. “We don’t even own a bulletin board.”

Still looking: The NFL made available 167 pages of player quotes from the Broncos and Packers at this week’s media sessions.

Take note: Team scoring first has won 23 of 31 Super Bowls.

Coach comparisons: Both are offshoots of the Bill Walsh system, emphasizing discipline, organization and short passing games. Green Bay’s Mike Holmgren is 72-35 overall (.673), including 9-3 in the postseason. “I think a win would catapult Mike Holmgren into the Lombardi type of proportion, particularly in Green Bay where everything is Lombardi, Lombardi, Lombardi,” Robinson said.

Denver’s Mike Shanahan is 43-28 (.603), including 3-1 in the playoffs. “I don’t care how much they pay me, I’m not saying ‘I’m going to Disney World,’ ” Shanahan said. He won’t have to worry about it.

Denver team owner: Pat Bowlen.

Green Bay team owners: 1,915 fans who paid $25 a share for the team in 1950. The team is currently selling an additional 400,000 shares for $200 each.

Big winner: Seattle. If Green Bay wins the Super Bowl, Holmgren might feel he has accomplished all he can in Green Bay and accept a new challenge as coach/general manager of the Seahawks.

Pregame highlights: Four women were chosen as Miller Lite cheerleaders to promote the announcement of the Miller Lite NFL player of the year. Each had a letter on their sweater and they were supposed to line up and spell “Lite.” They lined up out of order, however, and spelled “Tile.”

Packer stats: Indianapolis quarterback Paul Justin threw a 17-yard touchdown pass to Marvin Harrison with two minutes remaining in the first quarter against Green Bay on Nov. 16, and no one since has thrown a touchdown pass against the Packers’ defense--a string of 31 quarters. “Fritz Shurmur [defensive coordinator] has been drumming it into our heads all week,” Packer safety LeRoy Butler said. “Do you want to be known as the guy who gets beat for a touchdown in the Super Bowl?”

Bronco stats: In three previous Super Bowl appearances, Elway has thrown two touchdown passes and six interceptions.

Super Bowl stats: The underdog has won 10 of the previous 31 Super Bowls, but eight of those wins came during the initial 18 games. The Broncos were three-point favorites over the Redskins in Super Bowl XXII in San Diego and were crushed, 42-10.

NFC streak: The AFC hasn’t won a Super Bowl since the Raiders were good--a lifetime ago--in Super Bowl XVIII--making it 13 wins in a row for the NFC.

MVP candidates: This one’s easy--it’s going to be either Brett Favre or Dorsey Levens for the Packers or Elway or Terrell Davis for the Broncos. The past two years the Super Bowl MVP has been a player about to become a free agent--Larry Brown of the Cowboys and Desmond Howard of the Packers--both of whom signed with the Raiders. Hint: Levens is a free agent after the game.

Oddsmakers update: The Packers are favored by 11 1/2 points--only twice in the 11 games when the spread has been more than 10 points has the underdog won--none since Super Bowl IV. Denver is 12-7 against the spread this year; Green Bay 6-10-2.

Rankings: Packers’ offense ranked fourth (12th running, third passing), and their defense was seventh (20th against the run, eighth against the pass). Broncos’ offense ranked first (fourth rushing and ninth passing), and their defense ranked fifth (16th against the run, fifth against the pass).

Key matchup for Broncos: Denver’s lightweight offensive line against Green Bay’s imposing defensive line, which includes Reggie White and mammoth Gilbert Brown. Can the Broncos’ line, the only one in the NFL lacking a 300-pound starter, continue to get an average of 4.7 yards a carry for Davis, while keeping Elway healthy?

Key matchup for Packers: Defense against Denver tight end Shannon Sharpe. Sharpe keeps the chains moving for the Broncos on third down, and if successful in holding Davis in check on first and second down, third down might rest on the Pro Bowl matchup between Sharpe and strong safety Butler, who have been friends for a long time.

Players to most likely be goats: Green Bay cornerback Tyrone Williams and Denver cornerback Darrien Gordon.

Quote to reflect on: Bill Romanowski, Denver linebacker, played for the 49ers the last time the Broncos were in the Super Bowl. San Francisco, which had beaten Cincinnati the year before to win the Super Bowl, won again 55-10. “You have a guy like John Elway who has played a lot of great football and will go to the Hall of Fame and he doesn’t have a ring,” Romanowski said. “And here I was coming in for my first two years and I had two rings.”

He has a point: “The Lambeau Leap is a good story in Green Bay, but you can’t do it in every arena,” said Denver’s Davis, who came up with the Mile High Salute after scoring. “The salute you can do anywhere.”

Titanic video: A video of the Packers’ Super Bowl XXXI victory over New England sold 300,000 copies.

“Here’s a town of 100,000 and even if every man, woman and child bought one, where are the rest coming from?” said David Plautt, producer of the video.

The Green Bay Press-Gazette released the box cover already of this year’s anticipated Super Bowl video, which will cost $19.95 and be available Feb. 17. They will be worth 10 times that as collector items if the Broncos win.

The next Super Bowls: Miami (1999), Atlanta (2000), Tampa Bay (2001) and San Francisco (2003).