SANTA CLARA – In a messy divorce, someone gets the silver and vases, and the winner gets the Springsteen on vinyl.

Inevitably, friends are divvied up in a draft of sorts, when you decide if your best man is worth a first-round pick, or you take a chance he’ll slide to the third like a left tackle with a pending indictment.

But in our divorce with the Rams and Raiders following the 1994 season, they took our NFL and required us to get a “Sunday Ticket” for visitation. More important, they robbed us of our invitations to the league’s annual championship that’s an excuse for lavish Super Bowl parties.

Shockingly, they didn’t take our dog while they were at it.

That all ends Sunday.

The moment Panthers quarterback Cam Newton takes a knee to finish Super Bowl 50, dabs, pretends to rip off his jersey to reveal his superhero gear and offends uptight fans in Omaha and beyond by actually enjoying Carolina’s first title, we move into full reconciliation mode.

We’ll be back in The Game.

Our 21-year-exile will end, and we suddenly will enter an offseason with a chance to have our local team reach the championship. No, it won’t happen with Case Keenum at quarterback for the Rams, and no one should be serious about adding someone who used to be Peyton Manning to run the offense.

The Rams, our Rams, have every right to rise from mediocrity to become the first Los Angeles-area team to play for a title since our Raiders won Super Bowl XVIII … that’s XXXII years ago. No, we don’t count the 1999 Rams in Super Bowl XXXIV, when Georgia Frontiere said it showed she made the right decision to dump Orange County for St. Louis.

Let’s ignore for a moment that the Rams are no better than the No. 3 team in their division and focus on the fact that just 31 areas even have this opportunity, and we finally will be one of them again.

And while Todd Gurley and Aaron Donald could take the Rams all the way – or perhaps the Chargers will leave San Diego after another season of trying to avoid a nasty split and win in L.A. – the party most certainly will come to us even if our team or teams don’t to go it.

Remember, we launched the festivities in 1967 with the first version of what turned into a quasi-national holiday, the AFL’s Chiefs taking on the NFL’s Packers at the Coliseum with a top ticket price of $12 – the top face value Sunday is $1,800 for non-club seats, by the way.

The NFL opted for Los Angeles-area Super Bowls seven times in the first 27 years of the game, tied with New Orleans and one ahead of Miami in that stretch. It was no mystery that the league wanted a) a fun destination and, b) preferably one with great winter weather. That was before Super Bowls turned into carrots dangled in front of cities debating funding stadium improvements and the focus was on ideal settings.

But once the region lost the Rams and Raiders, it lost any hope of playing host to the Super Bowl. No team equaled no madness, no Super Bowl City and no families of 10 – all wearing Luke Kuechly jerseys – tying up downtown traffic while jaywalking.

The next few Super Bowls are spoken for or will be finalized shortly, so the soonest Inglewood can get one is 2021. Count on it happening then and on a regular basis going forward, at least until the NFL thinks the building is outdated and needs to be replaced, the Rams return to St. Louis and jilt Los Angeles again. Sorry, getting slightly ahead of myself.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said the day after the Rams’ return was official that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told him to start working on a bid for the Super Bowl.

“I expect us to land a disproportionate amount of Super Bowls,” Garcetti told USA Today. “We want to bring the draft here. We really want to announce we’re back as part of the NFL family in an aggressive way.”

Goodell made it clear that the Inglewood venue had all the elements the league seeks.

“It’s more than just a stadium,” he said Jan. 12 in Houston. “It’s a project and an entertainment complex that we believe will be responsive to the kind of things we need to be successful with our fans in the Los Angeles market.”

Note the emphasis on entertainment.

When the Super Bowl invades a city, that’s the focus much of the week, not the game. It’s an opportunity to fill hotels and restaurants, throw parties with exclusive guest lists and celebrate with football fans from all over the country.

While the Super Bowl 50 scene in the Bay Area has been loaded with Broncos and Panthers fans, it also has been home to supporters of seemingly every other team but the Cleveland Browns. Most of them had no prayer of landing tickets for a game that is, fittingly, 49 miles from the Golden Gate Bridge, but they wanted to be at the heart of the football passion.

And, sure, we could do the same and occasionally did for games such as this one in California. The Los Angeles area, however, showed for 21 years that it might have missed the NFL but didn’t need it, so there was no reason to go groveling in Glendale, Ariz., or Indianapolis when the league had its fun without us.

But now that the NFL came crawling back our way, we’ll kiss, make up and, sure, welcome a return to the Super Bowl scene.

Contact the writer: tharmonson@ocregister.com