Super Bowl is Steel City

DETROIT — Between the man holding a briefcase with a sign that read “$$$ for 2 Tickets” and the two Elvis impersonators stood a crowd of people Friday afternoon at the intersection of Jefferson and Brush streets. Nearly all of them with a rooting interest in the Super Bowl today between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Seattle Seahawks were wearing black-and-gold paraphernalia.

The fellow wearing a No.7 Ben Roethlisberger jersey asked: “Are there any Seattle fans here?”

An investigation immediately was launched, and 40 minutes later, in line at Arby’s, a Seahawks fan was located.

The Motor City — playing host to the Super Bowl for the second time — has become Steel City North.

Roethlisberger jerseys outnumber Shaun Alexander jerseys 10-1. Steelers AFC Championship caps outnumber Seattle sweatshirts by a similar ratio. One estimate had 30,000 Pittsburgh fans flocking to the city.

Even the mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick, wore a Steelers jersey at a photo opportunity Tuesday. Granted, Steelers running back Jerome Bettis — the hometown hero likely playing in the final game of his Hall of Fame career — was being given the key to the city. But, obviously, impartiality has taken a break among the locals.

Memo to the mayor and Pittsburgh’s fans: This is the Super Bowl, not the Bettis Bowl.

Seattle has 15 wins, one more than the Steelers. It hasn’t lost a meaningful game since early October and is led by Pro Bowl quarterback Matt Hasselbeck and by Alexander, the league MVP this season after scoring a record 28 touchdowns.

Yet, Seattle is the underdog.

Is the NFC that much weaker than the AFC?

“I’ve thought about that a little bit,” Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren said. “The only thing I can think of is that they beat Indianapolis, who was having a great, great year. And not many people know about us, to be honest.”

Holmgren makes two valid points. The Colts were the overwhelming favorite to make it to the Super Bowl. And the Seahawks played in an awful division this season and, until last month, had not won a playoff game since 1984. So they weren’t exactly giving reasons for people to notice them.

Seattle is playing in its first Super Bowl. The constant flux in players, coaches and ownership that marked the Seahawks’ first quarter-century has leveled since Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen bought the team in 1997. The public approved money for a stadium soon after, Allen hired Holmgren as coach in 1999, and Alexander and Hasselbeck arrived in 2000 and 2001, respectively.

Hasselbeck and Alexander have become the faces of the Seahawks, two telegenic and accessible offensive stars. Holmgren is coaching in his third Super Bowl and can become the first coach in league history to win titles with two different teams.

Looking at the trophy during a press conference Friday, Holmgren said: “It’s a beautiful trophy, and it represents a whole bunch of stuff for people in our business.”

Pittsburgh, meanwhile, is arguably the league’s most stable franchise, owned by the Rooney family since joining the NFL in 1933. Coach Bill Cowher is the longest-tenured coach in the NFL — on the job since 1992. The Steelers were the team of the 1970s, winning four titles in a six-year span starting with the 1974 season. With the Steelers playing in its first Super Bowl since 1996, a win today would tie Pittsburgh with Dallas and San Francisco for the most Super Bowl titles at five.

Through the Steelers’ Roethlisberger, 23, is the second-youngest quarterback to start in the Super Bowl, and linebacker Joey Porter created waves late in the week by saying his goal was to make Seattle’s players “tap out,” all focus has centered on Bettis, who has been spotted at the mayor’s office, a Detroit Pistons game and a bowling alley this week.

Throw in the usual anticipation for commercials and the halftime choice — the Rolling Stones or, on pay-per-view, the Lingerie Bowl, which has former Chicago Bears star William “the Refrigerator” Perry serving as one of the coaches — and the issue of having the Super Bowl in a Northern city for only the third time has been overlooked because of daytime temperatures in the 40s, ample hotel space (unlike Jacksonville last year) and few transportation hiccups.

But the celebrity sightings have been rare, except if anyone counts party-throwing P. Diddy, shoe-shopping Mike Tyson, somebody named Eva Pigford, who won something called “America’s Next Top Model,” and a plethora of reality-television stars.