The Super Bowl takes place in Silicon Valley this Sunday, and the Patriots-Seahawks game at Levi’s Stadium will be filled with tech money. YouTube CEO Neal Mohan is expected to be there. Apple’s Tim Cook, too. (He’s been a Super Bowl fixture since Apple Music began sponsoring the halftime show a few years ago.)

Longtime VC Venky Ganesan from Menlo Ventures gave the New York Times a quote about the whole thing, saying the Bay Area’s Super Bowl is “tech billionaires who got picked last in the gym class paying $50,000 to pretend they’re friends with the guys who got picked first.” Ganesan added, “And for the record, I, too, was picked last in the gym class.”

Ganesan could buy a $50,000 ticket if he had to. Menlo went all in on Anthropic, putting a $100 million fund into the AI ​​company in summer 2024 to invest in other AI startups. The company has also participated in several rounds of funding for Anthropic itself, through its flagship fund and various special purpose vehicles. (Anthropic is reportedly expected to close a $20 billion round in funding next week at a post-money valuation of $350 billion.)

Tickets are expensive across the board, averaging around $7,000 according to the Times (with some last-minute seats still available on StubHub for around $3,600, according to a quick look at the ticket reseller’s site). Only a quarter goes to the general public; others are distributed among NFL teams. Of all ticket buyers, the largest group (27%) came from Washington State for the Seahawks, who have won just one Super Bowl in franchise history compared to the Patriots’ six titles, all with Tom Brady at quarterback.

Google,OpenAI, Anthropic, Amazonand Meta are splashing out for competing ads on whose AI is best for customers, so maybe their respective CEOs will make an appearance as well. Except for Amazon’s Andy Jassy, ​​who reportedly splits his time between Seattle and Santa Monica, they all have homes within an hour or so of Sunday’s game.

This is the third time the Bay Area has hosted the Super Bowl. The first time was in 1985 at Stanford Stadium, the original football stadium of Stanford University, where the 49ers defeated the Dolphins. The second happened 10 years ago at Levi’s Stadium, when the Broncos defeated the Panthers.