Super Bowl Drone Ban Expands to San Francisco, Because Of Course It Does

It is the least shocking aviation news of the year that drones are banned over the Super Bowl at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara. A massive sporting event, tens of thousands of fans, the NFL’s legal team hovering like attack hawks. No one expected otherwise.

What is surprising is that the Federal Aviation Administration decided to stretch this drone ban like warm mozzarella all the way to San Francisco, roughly 45 miles away, slapping temporary No Drone Zones over landmarks like the Ferry Building, Moscone Center, Grace Cathedral, and even the Palace of Fine Arts, as SFIST reports.

Yes, your drone is now banned from flying near a cathedral because football.

The FAA Declares Multiple “No Drone Zones”

According to local reporting, the FAA announced Friday morning that drones will be grounded at several San Francisco locations from Tuesday through Saturday leading up to the Super Bowl on February 8.

This is not a citywide ban, so pilots can still fly legally in many parts of San Francisco. But if you were hoping to grab cinematic skyline shots near major landmarks next week, congratulations, you are now a criminal in waiting.

The FAA is enforcing temporary flight restrictions at the following locations:

• Moscone Center
• The Ferry Building
• The Pearl
• Grace Cathedral
• Palace of Fine Arts

These locations will be wrapped in invisible digital caution tape, with restrictions reaching up to 2 nautical miles in radius and 2,000 feet in altitude, depending on the day.

In other words, your drone does not get to “just pop up for a second.”

The Schedule That Will Ruin Your Week

The restrictions run as follows:

From February 3 through February 7, drones are banned at Moscone Center, The Pearl, the Ferry Building, and Grace Cathedral for long stretches of each day, often from morning until 1 a.m. the next day.

On February 5, the Palace of Fine Arts gets its own special drone ban for the NFL Honors ceremony, which is essentially Hollywood for linebackers.

The ban does not apply to unrelated events at the Palace of Fine Arts, including a Sting concert and a performance by The Killers.

Apparently, drones are a national security threat to football awards but totally fine around aging rock legends.

Why These Places?

Each location has been pulled into the Super Bowl gravitational field for a reason.

The Ferry Building will host nightly Super Bowl projection shows, drawing crowds, tourists, and Instagram addicts in matching jerseys.

Moscone Center will house the Super Bowl Experience Presented by Jersey Mike’s, an immersive football festival that sounds suspiciously like a mall with shoulder pads.

The Pearl is hosting a fashion-related Super Bowl event, proving once and for all that football and runway lighting now require FAA oversight.

Grace Cathedral is hosting a mysterious private Super Bowl related event that no one will publicly name, which somehow makes it feel more suspicious, not less.

The Pro Bowl Gets Special Treatment, Unfortunately

The drone ban also covers Tuesday night’s Pro Bowl at Moscone Center.

Yes, the Pro Bowl. Indoors. On a Tuesday. At a corporate convention center.

This guarantees what may be the most aggressively uninspiring Pro Bowl ever staged, but at least no drone will be there to document it.

The $75,000 “Oops” Fee

If you decide to ignore all of this and fly anyway, the FAA has prepared a very expensive lesson for you.

Violators face fines of up to $75,000, confiscation of the drone, and potential federal criminal charges. That is not a typo. Seventy five thousand dollars.

At that price point, you could buy a brand new car, pay rent in San Francisco for several months, or purchase approximately one third of a Super Bowl ticket.

The fine is so large it effectively turns your drone into a flying student loan.

And no, saying “I didn’t know” will not help. The FAA has never once accepted vibes as a legal defense.

DroneXL’s Take

This Super Bowl drone ban is less about drones and more about crowd control, optics, and institutional paranoia reaching its logical extreme.

When football comes to town, everything within shouting distance gets treated like a potential threat, including quiet aerial cameras minding their own business.

For drone pilots, the lesson is simple. Check NOTAMs obsessively, fly far away from anything remotely NFL adjacent, and remember that a single illegal flight could cost more than your entire drone fleet combined.

Next week, San Francisco’s skies belong to football, projection mapping, and lawyers. Your drone can sit this one out.

Photo credit: The Killers, FAA