Jon Swartz

USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — Silicon Valley is welcoming Super Bowl 50 with open arms, extra Wi-Fi, some serious hospitality and plenty of gadgetry.

Expect eyefuls of virtual reality, branding, ride-hailing and familiar tech personalities in the ramp-up to the Feb. 7 title game.

"This will be the most technologically advanced Super Bowl ever," says Keith Bruce, CEO of the Super Bowl Host Committee, the liaison between the NFL and the local community. "It will usher in a new era for Super Bowls in how technology is used to enhance the fans' experience."

Nearly half of the Super Bowl 50 Host Committee's 18 primary sponsors — Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel, Intuit, SAP, Seagate, Yahoo and Verizon — are tech companies. Its advisory group includes Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, SAP Chief Technology Officer Quentin Clark, Alphabet Senior Vice President David Drummond, Seagate CEO Stephen Luczo and Bruce Sewell, Apple's general counsel.

From Super Bowl City, a free fan village near San Francisco's downtown waterfront, to NFL Experience, an interactive theme park at Moscone Center, fans, the NFL and — possibly — future Olympics organizers will see how a sports championship can use technology to boost the 'wow' experience for these big ticket events.

The game's venue, Levi's Stadium, home of the tech-influenced San Francisco 49ers, is the league's most technologically advanced, according to NFL spokesman Alex Riethmiller.

There, an app designed for the stadium by start-up VenueNext, which leverages Oracle's point-of-sales technology for mobile ordering, will let fans order food, drink and merchandise from their seats. VenueNext's smartphone app handles everything from parking to in-seat food delivery and instant replays at Levi's. For the Super Bowl, it has added a celebrity cam, Super Bowl commercials and express pickup of merchandise.

An app worthy of Taylor Swift -- and the Super Bowl

"Never before has tech had such an impact on a Super Bowl," says John Paul, CEO of VenueNext, whose board members include 49ers CEO and co-owner Jed York and Brano Perkovich, executive vice president of the 49ers.

Virtual reality will be on dizzying display at Super Bowl City and the NFL Experience, beginning Jan. 30 at 11 a.m. Among the highlights: SAP's Quarterback Challenge, which puts participants in the cleats of a QB facing a fierce pass rush.

Mini-drones will occupy air space at Intel's Drone Zone at Super Bowl City within an enclosed area with netting. Fans can learn to fly 5-inch drones around and about field goal posts, says Laurie Koehler, Intel's experience brand manager.

Autodesk is 3-D printing Super Bowl rings for the bling crowd.

Transportation, always a Herculean task at major sporting events, will get a new wrinkle. The Host Committee's Bruce — a veteran organizer and planner at 14 Super Bowls, six of the last seven Olympics and four World Cups — is taking a "multi-mode" approach to getting people into and out of Levi's.

Some 5,000 people throughout the Bay Area will be transported to the game via the same fleet of buses that take Google-parent Alphabet employees from San Francisco to corporate headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

The plan isn't just a logistical fit, but an attempted goodwill gesture to local residents facing commute bottlenecks. This follows protests in late 2013 that shuttle buses from Google and Facebook symbolize income inequality and gentrification. "The (Fan Express to the game) has never been done at a Super Bowl before," Bruce says.

For all the host committee's expert orchestration, disruption — a favored buzzword in tech circles — could get as much attention as the event's high-tech glitz. Groups advocating over a range of social issues are expected to stage protests or attempt shutdowns, encouraged in part by an African-American rights group's protest on the Bay Bridge, which drew national media attention.

Uber, no stranger to tensions with locals officials, has teamed with the host committee to deliver riders to a priority parking zone that is a 12-minute walk from the 70,000-seat stadium. If the arrangement works, it could be a future model for mass transit at Summer and Winter Olympics, as well as World Cups, Bruce says.

And, yes, no one will be stranded with an empty tank, granted they navigate street closures in downtown San Francisco. Start-up Filld, which delivers gas via a smartphone app, is the official gas-filler of Super Bowl-affiliated vehicles and vendors.

The 40-person committee, in every sense, is a tech start-up, stitched together from a broad quilt of hardware, software and app companies.

The committee, which finances the game, raised $50 million through its tech and non-tech sponsors.

It is using Apple-supplied smartphones and laptops, though Apple declined to have its name or logo included in the event's marketing material. And a special app was created by SAP to connect the committee's more than 5,000 volunteers.

Beyond the committee, Intuit has constructed the Business Connect platform to link small businesses such as caterers and florists serving the Super Bowl.

Follow USA TODAY San Francisco Bureau Chief Jon Swartz @jswartz