Super Bowl LX: Inside the Skilled Workforce Powering America’s Biggest Game

When the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks take the field at Levi’s Stadium tonight for Super Bowl LX, an estimated 130 million viewers will tune in for the football. But behind every camera angle, scoreboard flash, and concession stand is an invisible army of skilled tradespeople—the electricians, HVAC technicians, plumbers, pipefitters, ironworkers, sheet metal mechanics, and low-voltage specialists whose work makes the spectacle possible. This is their story.

Super Bowl LX returns to Santa Clara for the second time, a decade after Super Bowl 50 graced the same venue. The Bay Area Host Committee expects roughly 350,000 total visitors across the week’s festivities. But before a single fan walks through the gates, thousands of trade professionals have already punched in.

Levi’s Stadium wasn’t just built—it was built fast. Groundbreaking took place in April 2012, and the 1.85-million-square-foot venue opened on July 17, 2014, earning the distinction of being the NFL’s fastest-constructed stadium. The general contractor team of Turner Construction and Devcon Construction managed a site that, at peak activity, employed over 1,200 workers daily across dozens of trade disciplines.

That workforce was 100% union labor. The AFL-CIO confirmed that United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters (UA) Local 393 in San Jose completed the plumbing, pipefitting, sprinkler system, and HVAC work. Ironworkers raised thousands of tons of structural steel. Carpenters and concrete workers laid over 3,000 foundation piles drilled an average of 55 feet below grade to anchor the venue in the Bay Area’s seismically active soil.

The mechanical scope alone was staggering. ACCO Engineered Systems served as the design-build HVAC and sheet metal contractor, installing 1,100,000 pounds of sheet metal duct—including 152,000 pounds of welded grease duct—across 700,000 square feet of conditioned space. Their crews of 55 to 70 field sheet metal craftspeople navigated a construction site split into four independent quadrants running simultaneously, using pull scheduling, prefabrication, and just-in-time delivery to meet aggressive milestones.

Precast concrete company Clark Pacific fabricated risers, steps, and walls off-site, hiring 85 workers in the West Sacramento area. The modular approach was critical to the speed of the build. As project executive Jack Hill put it at the topping-out ceremony: “This is really a celebration of the construction workers who have gotten us to this point.”

When you’re hosting 70,000-plus fans, climate control isn’t optional—it’s critical. Levi’s Stadium’s cooling system delivers approximately 2,400 tons of cooling capacity through a variable flow condenser water system equipped with four cooling towers, twin variable speed pumps, plate-and-frame heat exchangers, and a filtration skid. The heating plant runs five 3,000 MBH condensing boilers, with hot water feeding every variable air volume (VAV) box in the building.

The numbers give a sense of scale: 45 air handling units with 12 unique sequences of operation, 80 water-source heat pumps, and over 450 variable-air volume boxes—all of which had to be commissioned, tested, and verified before the first game-day whistle.

The electrical system is designed for zero-downtime reliability. Two independent 12 KV feeds from separate high-voltage switching substations provide full redundancy through a 12-megawatt electrical system with an automatic tie switch. If one service goes down, the stadium operates at 100% on the other—a design born from lessons learned after the infamous Super Bowl XLVII blackout at the Superdome in 2013.

On the plumbing side, the stadium features a dual-plumbed recycled water system serving the green roof, playing field, cooling towers, and all restroom fixtures. Low-flow plumbing fixtures use 40% less water than conventional alternatives, and the domestic water system includes two boilers, two 4,000-gallon storage tanks, booster pumps, and a water softening system.

A decade after opening, the 49ers poured $200 million into a comprehensive renovation specifically to prepare for 2026’s one-two punch: Super Bowl LX in February and FIFA World Cup matches in the summer. The work spanned two construction seasons, from 2024 into August 2025, with Devcon Construction and Populous leading the contractor and architect teams, respectively.

The renovation demanded a wide cross-section of trade specialties:

•       Electricians and low-voltage technicians installed massive new 4K video boards at the north and south ends—70% larger with 300% more pixels than the originals—along with 13,000 square feet of additional LED screens, a 5G distributed antenna system, and 1,300 new Wi-Fi 6 access points.

•       HVAC and mechanical crews upgraded drainage, ventilation, and field systems beneath the turf to support quick transitions between NFL and FIFA soccer configurations.

•       Finish carpenters and interior trades remodeled over 120 luxury suites with modern furnishings and created a new field-level hospitality space called The Elevate Club.

•       Lighting specialists installed a new LED system expected to reduce energy use by nearly one-third, maintaining the stadium’s LEED Gold certification.

Notably, the entire $200 million cost was covered by 49ers ownership—not taxpayer dollars. That’s a significant contrast to projects like the new Buffalo Bills stadium, which includes $850 million in public funding.

The game-day footprint extends far beyond Levi’s Stadium. The NFL transformed downtown San Francisco’s Moscone Center into an interactive fan experience and flag-football arena for the Pro Bowl Games. The Ferry Building hosted a nighttime projection show. Bill Graham Civic Auditorium staged a concert series. Each venue required temporary electrical, HVAC, staging, rigging, audio/visual, and plumbing buildouts—all executed by local trade contractors.

The Bay Area Host Committee recruited around 2,000 paid temporary positions across the region, all required to be paid under California labor law. Road closures around Levi’s Stadium and Moscone Center demanded temporary traffic infrastructure, barrier installation, and signage—work typically handled by laborers, operating engineers, and electrical contractors.

Levi’s Stadium holds a distinction rare in professional sports: it is the NFL’s first LEED Gold certified stadium as new construction. That certification was earned through the work of trade professionals who installed nearly 1,200 rooftop photovoltaic panels, a 27,000-square-foot green roof, over 350,000 square feet of waterproofing membrane, and CFC-free HVAC refrigerant systems.

The stadium generates enough solar energy to offset the electrical consumption of all ten regularly scheduled 49ers home games each season—roughly 464 MWh. The new LED lighting upgrades are expected to cut energy use by another third. For HVAC professionals tracking the industry’s green trajectory, Levi’s Stadium remains a reference project: proof that sustainable systems and high-performance venues aren’t mutually exclusive.

Super Bowl LX is a $500+ million economic event built on the back of skilled labor. From the ironworkers who raised the steel in 2012 to the HVAC techs monitoring air handlers tonight, the trades are the infrastructure behind America’s infrastructure. In an industry short nearly half a million workers, every weld, wire pull, pipe joint, and duct connection at Levi’s Stadium is a reminder of what the skilled trades make possible—and how urgently the industry needs the next generation to step up.

Enjoy the game tonight. And the next time you look at that scoreboard, think about the electrician who wired it.

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