Washington – This year’s Super Bowl was like no other, for obvious reasons.
Tom Brady steered the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a comfortable 31-9 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs, but many of the night’s talking points were off the pitch.
Canadian R&B star The Weeknd was largely forced to perform his half-time show from the stands due to coronavirus protocols.
And while the stadium looked filled, it was due to 30,000 cardboard cut-outs.
Here we take a look at some of the standout moments from a Super Bowl taking place in the middle of a pandemic.
Old boys club no more?
The 55th Super Bowl was the first to be officiated by a woman, referee Sarah Thomas.
The former college basketball player is not new to firsts. Working as a college football official at the start of her career, she was the only female referee in the league.
Then in 2015, she became the first woman to referee full-time in the NFL.
This year also saw the first women to win the Super Bowl as coaches.
Lori Locust, a defensive line assistant, and Maral Javadifar, an assistant strength and conditioning coach, are both on the staff of Tampa Bay Buccaneers Coach Bruce Arians. The Buccaneers are the only NFL team with two full-time assistant coaches who are women.
The two are among a small handful of women in the league’s coaching staff – still a heavily male-dominated field. It wasn’t until 2015, when Jen Welter was hired as a coaching staff intern for the Arizona Cardinals, that a woman held any type of coaching position in the entire league.
Last year, the San Francisco 49ers offensive assistant Katie Sowers became the first woman in history to coach in a Super Bowl. (BBC)
