How Medium Rare took Sports Illustrated, Shaq, and Guy Fieri’s brands to the public at Super Bowl LIX

A big part of Super Bowl Week is about the events surrounding the game. Many of those events are invite-only affairs focused on connecting athletes and other celebrities with brands. But events company Medium Rare takes a different approach, instead focusing on connecting media figures and brands to the public.

Medium Rare has been running Super Bowl events since 2019. At this year’s Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans, they held events for Shaquille O’Neal, Guy Fieri, and Sports Illustrated. All three events were held at Mardi Gras World on back-to-back-to-back days.

AA got an up-close look at each event, plus interviews with key figures. And that illustrated what makes Medium Rare’s approach and each of their events stand out. To start with, Medium Rare co-founder Joe Silberzweig told AA before the weekend he and co-founder Adam Richman (who had previously worked together putting on global festivals with Live Nation, SFX, and LiveStyle) saw an opportunity in public-facing Super Bowl events.

“The reason we targeted Super Bowl seven years ago is the landscape of events was very corporate and really targeted the super-premium VIP consumer, with ‘Money can’t buy’ types of events,” Silberzweig said. “We felt there was a huge hole in the market to bring fun events to Super Bowl Weekend, not your average corporate event where it’s a bunch of guys standing around in a suit jacket watching a concert.”

Each of these events definitely stood out from your standard Super Bowl party. Shaq’s Fun House (which was Medium Rare’s first Super Bowl event, launching in 2019) on Friday night featured carnival rides and games outside, with Shaq himself starting the night by rolling in with full fanfare from the Shaq-A-Licious Brass Band before playing midway games with hundreds of attendees.

The event also had high-energy concerts inside. Those included separate DJ sets from Shaq (as “DJ Diesel”) and his son Myles and a performance by Ludacris. It featured a variety of custom cocktails and even Shaq-branded drinks from BeatBox Beverages (which he’s invested in). Richman told AA ahead of the event that Shaq’s Fun House has always been huge for Medium Rare, and helped them launch their Super Bowl line of events, but this one felt particularly special given Shaq’s ties to New Orleans and Louisiana.

“We’re definitely feeling a lot of interest and intrigue and buzz. This is really Shaq’s home state in a big way, right? He’s returning home, the king from LSU, and he has so much connection to the local region that there’s definitely a lot of excitement. And then he’s also gonna be the king of Mardi Gras, the Bacchus Parade, a couple weeks after Super Bowl. So 2025 seems like it’s the year of Shaq in New Orleans between the takeover of Super Bowl weekend and takeover of Mardi Gras. It’s a pretty impactful way for Shaq to return to his LSU roots.”

Meanwhile, Sports Illustrated The Party on Saturday night saw DJ sets from Dom Dolla and Diplo, plus custom cocktails and food. But perhaps its largest selling point was the incredible array of athletes and entertainers in attendance. Silberzweig said that works because of those figures’ connection to the outlet.

“Sports Illustrated is the most iconic brand, you know, a trusted brand in sports media. So with SI The Party, it’s about kind of bringing their storied legacy to life. They have great amplification as well, and that party has really become the go-to VIP destination of Saturday evening. And it’s been amazing working with their team and being able to tap into a lot of their network and resources as well.”

And Richman said that event has a remarkable appeal to athletes and celebrities.

“Sports Illustrated The Party’s really stood on its own as one of the most premium events of Super Bowl Weekend. And the amount of heritage and legacy that the brand has and always will have really lends itself well to the athletes that want to attend and grew up reading Sports Illustrated and loving Sports Illustrated and maybe had their first article or covering event in Sports Illustrated. So I think it’s really near and dear to them, and because of that, it just creates so much interest and buzz.”

Richman said that continued even last year. There, Sports Illustrated The Party took place around massive uncertainty for SI following their January revocation of Arena Group’s publishing license, but ahead of their March deal to switch to Minute Media. But Richman said that uncertainty didn’t impact the party much.

“People absolutely still know it’s an iconic brand,” Richman said. “And even last year when things were a little bit in flux, it was still the hottest party in Vegas, because people are just like ‘Oh, Sports Illustrated is a brand I know, I love, I trust, I grew up reading and still read.’ And it’s been pretty awesome getting to produce that event.”

That interest from athletes was certainly seen at this year’s edition of Sports Illustrated The Party. On the red carpet, famed college football and NFL player (and past broadcaster) Reggie Bush told AA his first SI cover (for the Dec. 13, 2004 edition) stood out to him as a huge sign he’d arrived.

“It was amazing. The first SI cover I was on was my freshman year at USC. I had a really big run in a game against UCLA and I did a flip at the end and that was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, man. I’ll never forget that feeling of seeing that magazine and seeing the move that I made.

“Just seeing it just felt like validation. So for me, being on the cover of SI meant everything, because I worked my butt off, I worked so hard to get the recognition and the accolades. So it meant a lot for me, especially in my early career in college.”

And NASCAR star Joey Logano told AA on that carpet an early-career feature from Sports Illustrated For Kids, which he subscribed to at the time, was huge for him.

“I remember when I was young, growing up, Sports Illustrated For Kids wrote an article on me when I was racing kids’ cars, Legends Cars is what they were called at the time,” he said. “And I just thought that, I mean, as a kid, you were in Sports Illustrated, it was the coolest thing in the world. I always remember that.”

Getting those athletes with connections to SI to show up to this party pays further dividends for Medium Rare, too. Richman said that prompts interest from other athletes, and from companies looking to buy VIP tables (which came with special service thanks to a Wynn Las Vegas partnership), and creates a knock-on effect where everyone wants to attend it.

“We’re just amazed by the celebrity attendees and the table buyers in Sports Illustrated The Party. And it’s like once one group hears ‘Oh man, I can’t believe this celebrity’s coming,’ they all talk, right, the very small Super Bowl group in reality of these corporate groups and the celebrity groups. Once a few of them start saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to Sports Illustrated The Party,’ it’s like dominos, and we’re just absolutely amazed. …It really just speaks to the legacy and the heritage of the brand.”

Fieri’s Guy’s Flavortown Tailgate Sunday stood out from the other events for its size (a record 20,000 fans) and its free admission. It featured concerts and free food from a variety of partners, a cooking challenge between DeSean Jackson and Spice Adams, Eli Manning spotlighting King’s Hawaiian sliders, plus a ton of for-purchase food options from local restaurants featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. And Fieri told AA at the event he was drawn to working with Medium Rare beginning three years ago not just because of their success with other partnerships, but because of their openness to the kind of free, mass-participation event he wanted.

“It takes a lot to put my brand on something and trust that it’s going to be handled to the next level. Shaq has done it, Gronk has done it, these guys have trusted them.

“So when I got a chance to meet these guys and we really started talking about this, as soon as I said I want to do the tailgate for free, I thought that was gonna blow them out of the water and they were going to say no. And that was going to be the deal changer. And they said ‘Free? Okay, yeah, we dig that,’ and I’m like, ‘Okay, now we think the same.’”

Fieri said the free event was crucial for him as a way to bring the fun of Super Bowl events to a wider audience.

“We are the greatest country in the world, we need to celebrate being the greatest country in the world. And we need to do things for one another, and there’s sponsors that can get involved and can help us with this, and that’s what’s taking place. Most of these people won’t get a chance to go to the Super Bowl, but they get a chance to feel the Super Bowl.”

Richman told AA doing a mass-appeal event with Fieri on the afternoon of Super Bowl Sunday worked perfectly for Medium Rare, too. And it let them come up with something for a wider, underserved audience.

“When we came up with the idea for Guy’s event, we really looked at the Super Bowl landscape and noticed that there wasn’t anything great to do before the game. There were a number of tailgates that existed for Super Bowl ticket holders, that are super premium, they’re like $2,000 to $3,000 a person, really out of reach, and you have to have a game ticket, so it’s very limiting.

“But you have obviously a Super Bowl Sunday in these host cities, you want to really embrace the local fans, the local population. We thought there has to be a concept here.”

Richman said Medium Rare loved Fieri’s idea on a free event, but there were others in the industry skeptical it would work.

“People thought we were nuts when we came up with Guy’s Flavortown Tailgate, which is a free event for 20,000 people. They said, ‘How are you gonna make any money doing a free event?’ And we said, ‘Well, sponsors are gonna have so much interest in a mass consumer event that doesn’t really exist on Super Bowl Sunday in any other form.’”

“You have 20,000 people, it’s all ages, combining the two best things of Super Bowl Sunday, football and food, and that’s what everyone wants to do. Everyone wants to eat on Super Bowl Sunday. So we took that and ran with Guy, who we feel like is America’s most iconic food influencer chef.”

Richman said Fieri’s status and popularity made him the perfect fit for this.

“Guy Fieri’s just a household name when it comes to the American culinary scene, so there’s no one better than to partner with him. And we feel like this actually has become one of our biggest events at Medium Rare; it’s really tremendous what it’s become in year three. We had over 75,000 people request a free ticket this year, we have over 15 brand partners on the event that are some of the biggest companies in the world, from Carnival Cruise Line and Verizon and Anheuser Busch that are all here activating on Super Bowl Sunday and hitting that mass consumer.”

A big part of Fieri’s event is the “Taste of Flavortown,” featuring those local restaurants seen on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. One of those this year was famed New Orleans Southern food restaurant Joey K’s. Co-owner Cindy Farnet, who’s been involved there since the 1980s, told AA they wanted to be involved to return the help Fieri had given them.

“We’re already in the Guy family. We wanted to show up for him; he showed up for Joey K’s back in 2008 and helped us out tremendously, so we wanted to continue that relationship and be part of this.”

And Fieri said he’s grateful for the local support, and the way the event has taken off is incredible for him to see.

“It just gets bigger and badder. I mean, look at this. We took over Mardi Gras World and we’ve got all these people lined up, all these fans. The amount of celebrities and people that have reached out to me and said, ‘Hey, listen, can you give me tickets to get to your gig?,’ I mean, it’s all day. I woke up to like 79 messages of people being like, ‘Hey, how do I get in?’

“But look at it, man: it’s the perfect day. We’re celebrating the greatest day in sports, and we kick it off and a lot of great partners make it happen. It’s like [Dodge] Ram getting involved, King’s Hawaiian, Carnival, Verizon, Anheuser-Busch is here. When you get that kind of attention, I mean it’s almost kind of like a roster of the best. When you see those people willing to participate in what you’re doing, what your vision is, you know you’re doing it right.”

Silberzweig told AA fulfilling those individual celebrities or brands’ visions is crucial for Medium Rare, and it goes right down to their ownership partnership on the events.

“It’s about working with iconic celebrities, athletes, or brands to bring those types of personalities or brands to life. Our model is very unique, whether it’s Travis Kelce, Gronk, Shaq, Guy Fieri, these are 50/50 joint ventures. We sit down with each of these partners and talk about how we can bring their brand to life and what it means to them to have a live event.”

And Richman said their events have taken off to a level where they’re seeing a lot less competition in the public-facing Super Bowl events space than they used to.

“It just really feels like these events have become the cream of the crop and definitely the most hyped and talked about events on Super Bowl Weekend,” he said. “A lot of our competitors that maybe did something in Vegas or Phoenix in the past few years are not participating this year in New Orleans, which really has made these three events some of the only public-facing events of the weekend. A lot of the other events that exist are really more private, invite-only, hosted by a brand. So we really find ourselves in a unique spot this year.”

A unique element of Medium Rare’s events this time around was getting to host all three at the same location, Mardi Gras World. Silberzweig said that brought great synergies across the events.

“It’s just incredible deco and thematic. And in terms of all three of our events in the same location, that’s been really a savior for us. Past years we’ve been spread out, we’ve done three or four different Super Bowl events all throughout the city.

“Being able to not only make it our headquarters for the week where we have well over 100 people already building the festivals, but to be able to from a production standpoint to amortize those costs and share a lot of the venue, of what we’re putting in to enhancements, has been a big savings and been very efficient for our team. It’s a lot of work flipping the venue, but it has a lot more upside in that regard.”

There certainly was plenty of work involved there, though. And Fieri told AA at his event he was amazed by what the Medium Rare team did over the weekend.

“The Medium Rare team has just been next level. They don’t sleep. They really don’t.”