Damar Hamlin and Cincinnati medical workers honored on the field before Super Bowl LVII

Chiefs beat the Eagles in Super Bowl LVII

By Matt Meyer, Maureen Chowdhury and Mike Hayes, CNN

Updated 0500 GMT (1300 HKT) February 13, 2023
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6:18 p.m. ET, February 12, 2023

Damar Hamlin and Cincinnati medical workers honored on the field before Super Bowl LVII

Damar Hamlin waves to the crowd as he is honored before Super Bowl LVII.
Damar Hamlin waves to the crowd as he is honored before Super Bowl LVII. (Patrick Breen/The Republic via USA TODAY Sports/Reuters)

Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin was honored on the field at Super Bowl LVII prior to the opening kickoff.

Hamlin was joined by a group of the medical personnel from Cincinnati, Ohio, who treated him after he suffered a cardiac arrest on the field during the Bills' game against the host Cincinnati Bengals last month.

Hamlin could be seen grinning and holding up his hands in the shape of a heart, a symbol that was widely used by the player online and people showing support for him on social media during his recovery. The medical workers waved and crowded around Hamlin as the crowd roared.

More background: Hamlin initially was hospitalized in Cincinnati when his heart suddenly stopped after a tackle during a game against the Bengals on January 2.

Hamlin collapsed seconds after the open-field collision with a Bengals wide receiver, and medical personnel rushed onto the field and administered CPR quickly – which helped save his life. He then received treatment at University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

The Buffalo Bills safety has received an optimistic prognosis on his playing future from the NFL players union doctor.

“I guarantee you that Damar Hamlin will play professional football again,” Dr. Thom Mayer, medical director of the NFL Players Association, said on SiriusXM Doctor Radio’s “Heart to Heart” program.

6:12 p.m. ET, February 12, 2023

How to watch the Super Bowl live: Start time, channels and other things to know

From CNN's Hannah Brewitt

The stage is finally set for the United States’ biggest sporting event: the Super Bowl.

The 2022 NFL season will culminate on Sunday evening, featuring a primetime battle between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs. The two teams could not be more evenly matched.

Both emerged as the top seeds in their respective conferences. Both boast a record of 16-3. Both have scored 546 points up to this point. Both have six All-Pros. And, both have a Kelce brother.

You can follow all the action in this story as the night goes on. Need a refresher? Check out this summary of the big storylines heading into the game.

And here's how to watch tonight, wherever you are:

The action kicks off at 6:30 p.m. ET at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

In the US, you can watch on your local FOX station through cable or an antenna, and through services like Sling TV, Hulu+ and fuboTV. It's also streaming on the FOX Sports App.

Here's what you need to know if you're watching internationally:

Australia: NFL Game Pass, ESPN, 7Plus

Brazil: NFL Game Pass, ESPN

Canada: CTV, TSN, RDS, NFL Game Pass on DAZN

Germany: NFL Game Pass, ProSieben MAXX, DAZN

Mexico: NFL Game Pass, TUDN, ESPN, Fox Sports, Sky Sports

UK: NFL Game Pass, Sky Sports, ITV, Channel 5

6:02 p.m. ET, February 12, 2023

Super Bowl ad slams Tesla’s "Full Self-Driving" tech

From CNN's Ramishah Maruf

Electric carmaker Tesla faces a hit on Super Bowl Sunday, when an ad will show the alleged dangers of its "Full Self-Driving" technology.

The commercial, which is being aired in Washington, DC, Austin, Tallahassee, Albany, Atlanta and Sacramento does not paint Tesla in the best light.

The ad is part of a multimillion dollar advertising campaign by The Dawn Project. Its founder, Dan O’Dowd, is a California tech CEO who has dedicated millions of his own money (and a failed US Senate race) to the cause.

The ad cost $598,000, a Dawn Project spokesperson told CNN.

It shows a Tesla Model 3, which allegedly has the Full Self-Driving mode turned on, running over a child-sized dummy on a school crosswalk, and then a fake baby in a stroller, in a series of tests by the Dawn Project. In the spot, the car swerves into oncoming traffic, zooms past stopped school buses and cruises through “do not enter” signs.

“Tesla’s Full Self-Driving is endangering the public,” the ad said. “With deceptive marketing and woefully inept engineering.”

The Dawn Project says it wants to make computer-controlled systems safer for humanity, shooting its own videos as tests of Tesla’s alleged design flaws.

More background: In August, O’Dowd published a video showing a Tesla plowing into child-sized mannequins. Some Tesla fans posted their own videos in defense, using their own dummies or even their own children — YouTube has taken down several test videos involving actual children, citing safety risks.

O’Dowd received a cease and desist letter from Tesla over the video, claiming he and the Dawn Project were “disparaging Tesla’s commercial interests and disseminating defamatory information to the public.”

O’Dowd responded to the cease-and-desist with a 1,736-word post in which he pushed back, defended his tests and returned barbs from Musk and some Tesla supporters.

Though officially in beta mode, Full Self-Driving is available to any user in North America who wants to purchase the $15,000 feature.

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system is intended to someday work on city streets, but despite its wide rollout, is still officially in a developmental “beta” program. No car for sale on the market is yet able to drive itself.

Tesla did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

5:56 p.m. ET, February 12, 2023

How often does the NFL MVP win the Super Bowl?

From CNN's Alex Leeds Matthews

If the Kansas City Chiefs win the Super Bowl on Sunday, quarterback Patrick Mahomes will be the 11th Associated Press MVP to win a Super Bowl in the same season.

The last player to achieve both was Kurt Warner in 1999.

Quarterbacks are by far the most common MVPs, in both the AP's season-long contest and in Super Bowl MVP voting.

This year, Mahomes and Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts will make history by being the first two Black starting quarterbacks to face off in a Super Bowl game.

5:49 p.m. ET, February 12, 2023

The last surviving Blockbuster has an Instagram ad timed for the Super Bowl

From CNN's Parija Kavilanz

A man returns rented DVDs to the last remaining Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon, in June 2022.
A man returns rented DVDs to the last remaining Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon, in June 2022. (David Becker/ZUMA Press Wire)

When you’re the lone surviving store in any industry, you’ve earned the right to have fun and hype it up. That’s exactly what the only remaining store in the Blockbuster video rental chain is doing, and it’s during the Super Bowl. It helps if you still have a VCR, of course.

The store in Bend, Oregon, has been teasing an upcoming ad on Instagram @blockbusterbend with a post that says, “Is the world coming to an end or is Blockbuster releasing its first commercial in a really, really long time” Yes. See you on 2/12/23.”

Oh, and, in a hint that the world may be coming to an end, cockroaches feature prominently in these posts.

Another post instructs how to watch the commercial: “On 2.12.23 visit The Last Blockbuster in Bend, or watch live on our Instagram at halftime.”

If you miss it because, of course, Rihanna, the store is also renting VHS copies of it for $2.

So what if the ad isn’t in the big leagues, like Budweiser or Coca-Cola with a national spot? For this one store, it’s an attempt at generating buzz, no matter how big or hyperlocal.

And it seems to be working.

The store has been getting lots of calls since the teasers surfaced this week. “Everyone who calls is super excited, and they want to know more,” said Sandi Harding, the store’s general manager, in an interview with CNN Business.

“I wanted to do two things with the ad. One was to show that small businesses can also do creative and fun things for Super Bowl, and it’s not just an opportunity for the big companies and their big ads,” she said. “We also want people to remember us, that we are here and our store is exactly the way a Blockbuster store was in the 1990s.”

At one time, Blockbuster operated more than 9,000 stores nationwide renting movies and video games. But the advent of on-demand service like Netflix pushed it out of business.

Blockbuster stores fell one by one, with only 10 left in 2017, and then just one.

The location in Bend, Oregon, is the only evidence left to prove to GenZers that Blockbuster actually did exist, and it’s how Americans watched movies at home pre-Netflix.

6:19 p.m. ET, February 12, 2023

Here's who's performing in today's Super Bowl pregame show

Left to right: Sheryl Lee Ralph, Babyface and Chris Stapleton answer questions at a news conference in Phoenix on Thursday.
Left to right: Sheryl Lee Ralph, Babyface and Chris Stapleton answer questions at a news conference in Phoenix on Thursday. (Caitlin O’Hara/Reuters)

The Super Bowl pregame show is underway in Glendale, Arizona.

In addition to Rihanna’s highly anticipated halftime show performance, a number of additional Hollywood heavyweights are joining the major sporting event as pre-show performers.

The NFL announced on Tuesday that Emmy-winning actor Sheryl Lee Ralph will perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing” in the pre-show. The “Abbott Elementary” star notably sang on stage while accepting her Emmy award in 2022.

Joining Ralph in the pre-show festivities is Grammy-winning country music artist Chris Stapleton, who has been tapped to sing the national anthem. R&B crooner Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds will also perform, with a rendition of “America the Beautiful.”

Each performer will have talent accompanying them to provide American Sign Language on behalf of the National Association of the Deaf, according to a release from the NFL.

Oscar winner Troy Kotsur will sign the national anthem alongside Stapleton. Kotsur won a supporting actor Academy Award in 2022 for his work in “CODA,” becoming the second Deaf person ever to win an acting Oscar after Marlee Matlin.

5:24 p.m. ET, February 12, 2023

Last Super Bowl was crypto’s coming out party. This year, the party’s over

From CNN's Allison Morrow

Super Bowl LVI was the crypto world’s coming out party. Buzzy firms made bold pitches last year, and shelled out millions of dollars on ads encouraging viewers not to be afraid of this new-fangled digital investment.

You can expect a lot less noise from Team Crypto during today's Super Bowl LVII telecast.

In the year since those celebrity-packed ads debuted, the entire crypto industry has been rattled by a collapse in digital asset values. Bankruptcies began to pile up over the summer.

Then the real pain started.

Of the four crypto or crypto-affiliated companies that advertised in the Super Bowl last year, one (FTX) has collapsed completely. The others (Coinbase, Crypto.com and eToro) have fought against industry headwinds. Shares of Coinbase, the only publicly traded company in the group, have fallen more than 60% since its “floating QR code” ad became one of the most talked-about spots.

Don’t expect any of those companies to be back this year. FTX is bankrupt and under criminal investigation by federal prosecutors. The multi-asset trading platform eToro confirmed to CNN it would not be splurging on an ad this year.

Coinbase declined to comment. Representatives for Crypto.com — the company behind the ad featuring LeBron James telling his younger self to “call your own shots” — didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Despite what is being called a “crypto winter,” sports advertising remains a crucial avenue for digital curencies, marketing experts say, as their target demographics share significant overlap — sports fans and crypto traders tend to be mostly male and young.

But turmoil in the crypto space means marketers are changing their tactics.

“Crypto firms are focusing less on crypto advertising and more on investing in better user experiences, products, and customer service,” said Silvia Lacayo, head of marketing at crypto exchange Bitstamp US.

Read more about the changing crypto landscape here.

5:09 p.m. ET, February 12, 2023

How will Donna Kelce handle her sons' Super Bowl faceoff? "Stand and scream the entire game"

From CNN's Jill Martin

Jason Kelce, Donna Kelce and Travis Kelce.
Jason Kelce, Donna Kelce and Travis Kelce. (Twitter/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images)

Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce will make history Sunday as the first brothers to play against each other in the Super Bowl.

Their mother, Donna Kelce, told CNN “it’s going to be easy” for her when it comes to rooting interests.

“I have to stand and scream the entire game,” she told CNN’s Poppy Harlow in an interview Wednesday. The interview aired Feb. 9 on the show CNN This Morning.

“They’re both on offense,” Kelce continued, “so every time somebody has the ball, I’ll be clapping. Every time somebody gets a touchdown, I’ll be thrilled.”

Asked what she’ll say to the son who ends up on the losing side, Kelce told CNN she’ll go to the losing team’s hotel and “I’ll give my son a huge hug and a kiss.”

“Because there’s nothing that I could say that will mean anything at that point,” Kelce said. “He’s going to be a broken person. He’ll be happy for his brother, but the hours and the months that you put in to get to this point, it’s tough.”

5:03 p.m. ET, February 12, 2023

Rihanna says motherhood made her feel like she can "take on the world" ahead of Super Bowl halftime show

From CNN's David Close

Rihanna speaks during a press conference on February 9, in Phoenix, Arizona.
Rihanna speaks during a press conference on February 9, in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images)

Superstar singer Rihanna, who will perform in the Super Bowl LVII halftime show, said she has been so focused on her impending performance that she forgot about her upcoming birthday later this month.

She called the task “incredible” but “almost impossible."

"I've been so focused on the Super Bowl, I totally forgot my birthday is coming up. I totally forgot about Valentine's Day. I am just like, 'Super Bowl, Super Bowl, Super Bowl.' So, it's a lot of preparation, a lot of moving parts and this week, this is the week that it really is being tested," Rihanna said Thursday.

The singer said everyone involved in the production is in the final tune-up stage. It's a massive undertaking, with as many as three to 400 people setting up and breaking down the stage, all in about eight minutes, Rihanna said.

"It's incredible. It's almost impossible," she said of the feat.

“When you become a mom there is something that just happens where you feel like you can take on the world," said the icon and entrepreneur, who recently had a baby. "You can do anything."

"The Super Bowl is one of the big stages in the world, so as scary as that was, because I haven’t been on stage in 7 years, there’s something exhilarating about the challenge of it all," said Rihanna, who last toured in 2016. "It’s important for me to do this this year. It’s important for representation. It’s important for my son to see that.”