Tyler Jacobsma is the founder of Flowframe.xyz, which provides in-depth content and tools for prediction market traders.
The Super Bowl often attracts massive celebrity interest, and several of the world's biggest names will be in attendance on Sunday. Prediction market Kalshi has opened a market focused on celebrities attending the Super Bowl for those interested in trading on the event, and it's a good opportunity to look at how celebrities travel and why they attend big events.
I wanted to deep dive into three people in particular I believe are mispriced — one due to a geographical data error, another from narrative fatigue rather than logistical reality, and the third underweights the institutional mandate of her office.
The market for celebrity Super Bowl attendance runs on vibes. Casual users see famous names and click "Yes" without performing the proper calculus. This report applies potential attendees' event-schedule triangulation to identify where the crowd has it wrong.
You can trade on this and other sporting events, as well as thousands of other markets, at Kalshi, which is available in most states. We wrote a full explainer on how it works here.
The Framework
Celebrity attendance at major events follows predictable patterns. High-net-worth individuals don't make spontaneous long trips. Their movements are affected by:
- Contractual obligations (games, appearances, sponsorships)
- Flight times (you can't teleport)
- Anchor events (if someone is already in the host city for a party, the game is a short drive away)
- Institutional duties (cabinet secretaries don't often skip SEAR-1 events)
By mapping the "Event Horizons" of these individuals and their confirmed schedules in the 72 hours preceding kickoff, we can assign high-confidence probabilities that don’t agree with the current market prices.
The Messi Short: A Logistical Challenge
- Current Price: 25¢ (Yes) / 76¢ (No)
- True Probability: < 5%
- Edge: -20%
- Action Buy: "No"
The Messi contract appears to be a significant inefficiency in this market. At 24%, the market sell implies a reasonably plausible scenario where he attends. However, the schedule suggests otherwise.
The contract has dropped 11 points in the past 24 hours, from 35% to 24%, as participants begin to recognize the scheduling conflict. This confirms the thesis is gaining traction, though the edge remains for those who identified the mispricing early.
The Data Confusion
Flight calculators show "2 hours 25 minutes" from Guayaquil to San Jose. The market may be pricing this in.
The issue: That's San Jose, Costa Rica (SJO), not San Jose, California (SJC).
Guayaquil → San Jose, Costa Rica: ~1,300 miles, 2.5 hours
Guayaquil → San Jose, California: ~3,500 miles, 7.5 hours by private jet
If traders believe Messi is a short flight away, they may be working from incorrect geographical data.
The Champions Tour Barrier
Inter Miami's preseason schedule is confirmed by ticket sales and club announcements:
- January 24: Lima, Peru
- January 31: Medellín, Colombia
- February 7: Guayaquil, Ecuador (7 p.m. ET kickoff)
- February 13: Puerto Rico
Messi is the revenue-generating asset of this tour. His face sells the tickets and he plays on Feb. 7 in Ecuador, the night before the Super Bowl.
The Timeline Simulation
Even in an optimistic scenario:
- 9 p.m. ET: Match ends in Guayaquil
- 10:30 p.m. ET: Post-match obligations complete (media, sponsors, recovery)
- 11:00 p.m. ET: Earliest wheels-up from GYE
- 6:30 a.m. ET (3:30 a.m. PT): Arrival in San Jose, CA
That's physically feasible, but the motivation is unclear. Messi is 38 years old and has another match in Puerto Rico on February 13. Flying a red-eye after 90 minutes of soccer is detrimental to recovery, and the Super Bowl has limited relevance to his career or brand. Messi did attend last year's Super Bowl following a match, but the travel was shorter from Honduras to New Orleans.
The 24% price might reflect the "Name Premium” as casual traders assume anything is possible for a celebrity. The divergence between that premium and logistical reality represents our profit opportunity.
Conclusion: Barring a match cancellation, the scheduling conflict makes Messi's attendance highly unlikely. The "No" position carries favorable odds.
The Musk Long: Silicon Valley Home Field
- Current Price: 34¢ (Yes)
- True Probability: 75%
- Edge: +41%
- Action Buy: "Yes"
The market prices Musk as "unlikely" to attend, but the evidence suggests he's “more likely than not.”
The Home Field Advantage
Super Bowl LX isn't in New Orleans or Las Vegas. It's in Santa Clara — the heart of Silicon Valley.
Tesla's engineering headquarters are in Palo Alto, from which the drive to Levi's Stadium is under 20 minutes. For Musk, attending requires no complex logistics. He can decide to go on Sunday morning and be in a suite by kickoff.
The Chappelle Signal
Dave Chappelle performs at Chase Center in San Francisco on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026. Musk and Chappelle share a documented friendship, and Musk appeared on stage at a Chappelle show in San Francisco in 2022. If Musk attends Chappelle's show Saturday night, that'll show that he's already in the Bay Area.
The transition from a Saturday social event to the Sunday Super Bowl, 40 miles away, is a natural progression of the weekend.
Historical Pattern
Super Bowl LVII (2023): Attended. Sat with Rupert Murdoch.
Super Bowl LVIII (2024): Attended. Used it to promote X's traffic capabilities.
Super Bowl Sunday is consistently X's highest-traffic day. Musk has both fiduciary and ego-driven incentives to be physically present, posting live updates, and "captaining the ship."
The Political Layer
With the current administration featuring high-ranking officials who may attend (including DHS Secretary Noem), Musk's presence serves as a networking opportunity, especially for the newly announced merger of SpaceX with xAI and its potential IPO this year.
Conclusion: 34% implies "unlikely." Local venue + Chappelle + historical pattern + platform incentive = much more likely.
The Noem Speculation: Institutional Mandate
- Current Price: 15¢ (Yes)
- True Probability: 50%
- Edge: +35%
- Action Buy: "Yes" (Speculative)
Kristi Noem isn't attending for leisure. She's attending for duty.
The SEAR-1 Reality
The Super Bowl carries a SEAR-1 designation, which is the highest security classification in the United States and requires massive federal coordination. As DHS Secretary, Noem is the ultimate authority over event security.
The pattern is established: Noem traveled to New Orleans to observe DHS security operations for Super Bowl LIX prior to the game, and if she did it last year, she'll almost certainly be present this year, especially given heightened security concerns and announced ICE deployments.
The Bad Bunny Paradox
Noem has publicly feuded with halftime performer Bad Bunny over immigration, calling the NFL "weak" for the selection and promising ICE's presence at the event.
Does that conflict make her less likely to attend?
Paradoxically, it makes her more likely to show up. Her presence serves as a show of force. She's not there to enjoy the concert; she's there to oversee the "law and order" aspect. The political theater demands her presence.
Resolution Risk
The primary uncertainty is verification. Will NBC show the DHS Secretary? Maybe not during gameplay, but likely during pre-game security segments or the anthem. More importantly, Kalshi's rules allow resolution via "reputable sources.” Coverage from Politico, CNN, or Fox News of her security tour would trigger a "Yes."
Conclusion: 15% underweights institutional obligation. This is speculative, but offers a significant edge if you believe cabinet secretaries fulfill their security mandates at SEAR-1 events.
The Trading Thesis
Position Sizing
- Core Position (50%): Short Messi. Schedule conflict makes attendance highly unlikely, absent match cancellation.
- Growth Position (30%): Long Musk. Local venue + anchor event + historical pattern.
- Speculative Position (20%): Long Noem. Institutional mandate at SEAR-1 events.
Conclusion
The Super Bowl guest market is currently mispriced due to superficial narrative and automated data errors. The "No" on Messi is one of the strongest opportunities in prediction markets today — a bet backed by geography and scheduling. The Musk and Noem longs exploit the market's failure to weigh anchor events and institutional mandates over narrative noise.
What is Kalshi?
Different than a traditional sportsbook and available in most states, Kalshi allows users to make predictions across several unique markets, including sports, entertainment, elections, and even weather.
Kalshi operates on a contract-based system where users buy "contracts" (priced between 1–99 cents) based on whether they believe a specific event will happen. The price of each contract fluctuates in real time based on market sentiment and like the stock market, traders can sell positions early to lock in profits (or minimize losses).
