NFL, Super Bowl Host Committee prepare for big game

In just a few months, the Twin Cities will be at the center of the sports world as Super Bowl 52 comes to town.

This week the NFL and the Host Committee huddled up to review how preparations for the big game are coming along.

“Every big piece of the Super Bowl puzzle is in place,” said Mary Pat Augenthaler, vice president of NFL events. “This is about dotting the i's and crossing the t's and peeling back the layers of the onion to get every little thing just right.”

Mary Pat Augenthaler has been part of planning Super Bowls for 22 years.

Together, the group discussed details at US Bank Stadium, such as security and broadcasting set up.

“Even coordinating how those semis are coming into town - where they're loading and off-loading, where they're waiting for the 10 days while they're in town - an immense amount of coordination really will stretch far beyond the Twin Cities proper,” said Andrea Mokros, vice president of the Super Bowl Host Committee.

In the biggest event planned for the bigget space, the entire convention center transformed into the "NFL Experience,” which debuted here in 1992.

“What's going to be going on here is -I think - like nothing that anyone saw, remotely, 26 years ago,” Augenthaler said.

As we saw in Houston in February, it looks a lot different – larger, more high tech and longer. And what was a four-day event in ‘92 is now 9 days.

Nicollet Mall plans to host concerts each of those nine nights in what is called "Super Bowl Live."

With 116 days to go, Augenthaler feels pretty good about it all.

“I like to say Super Bowl is like a big puzzle and you start – like with a traditional puzzle - start with that framework of the edges,” she said, “and we are getting very close to filling in the last few pieces of the center.”