Super Bowl and World Cup 2026: Hollywood, Alcatraz and Steph Curry's bourbon bar - California awaits as mega-host in historic year of sport

'Can I Kick It?' asked A Tribe Called Quest in 1990. Californian grandeur will play mediator on the sporting throne in 2026 when the NFL's Super Bowl and FIFA World Cup shelve their 'real football' acclaim for mutual West Coast ball-game fame.

Both can be football. Both can be true. Both shall kick it on a stage that has mastered the art of 'doing both' in all corners of perennial bucket list life for sportourists (made-up definition: sports tourists). From beachside beauty to Bay Area bustle, Hollywood history to Silicon Valley social networking, chop sticks to churros.

California fortifies mega-host status this year as Santa Clara welcomes Super Bowl 60 to Levi's Stadium on February 8, before joining SoFi Stadium and Los Angeles as one of 16 host cities for the 23rd edition of the World Cup between June 11-July 29.

LA flexes its soccer roots once more as home to the 1994 World Cup final and one of the founding cities of the MLS since enriched on the global landscape by David Beckham and Heung-Min Son hysteria, SoFi awaiting as a world-leading epitome of stadia glitz with its 70,000 square-foot display haloing a cacophonic bowl.

The Super Bowl meanwhile returns to the Bay a decade on since Von Miller and the Denver Broncos stifled Cam Newton's Carolina Panthers to lift the Lombardi Trophy, Levi's awaiting as a centrepiece to renowned innovation and ambition while evoking Bend It Like Beckham nostalgia adjacent to Santa Clara training ground.

America's Golden State will come to a halt. Yet a breathless episode looms as two of the biggest sporting parties on the planet trade notes.

"You tell me another place in the world where you walk in somewhere, and as long as you're wearing the same colour jersey or uniform, you're high-fiving a complete stranger in five seconds," said San Francisco 49ers president Al Guido.

"It doesn't happen in life. We're all consumed with our day jobs, go to a coffee shop in the morning, everybody's looking down at their phone. That's the beauty of sports."

Only fragments of dust kicked up by trudging feet could blemish a crystal blue sky as vantage point perfection awaited upon sweaty ascension to the top of Mount Lee. Only scuffled gravel, the heavy breathing of a puffed-out hiker or the jogger who apparently frequented this route while carrying a boombox could disrupt the silence. Only stripes of December sunshine threatened to impair vision of the 45-foot letters reading Hollywood over which we peered.

The Los Angeles skyline glistened in all its glory, peacocking a blend of pristine nature and showbiz opulence as the Santa Monica Mountains played backdrop to cinematic iconicity, Beverly Hills hutzpah, famed Sunset Strip soirées and, lurking like an omnipotent palace in the distance, SoFi Stadium with all its NFL-leading 3.1 million square feet within Hollywood Park's 300 acres.

It had been here where Austin Butler's Elvis Presley biopic staged the King of Rock and Roll's career comeback plot, buoyed up by tension-spiking music and a smirk indicative of resurfacing swagger as if drawing inspiration from the entertainment capital laid before him. For this easily-romanticised writer, it was hard to escape the same insistence of star power that Los Angeles could ooze and exemplify, and in turn harness to accentuate sporting magnificence and drama like that of a World Cup.

It was also been here where the Los Angeles Rams once adjusted the sign to read 'Rams house' after their Super Bowl LVI triumph, and where the Los Angeles Dodgers lit up the 'D' in blue after winning the World Series.

"Why is LA important to the World Cup? There's so much in Los Angeles that I don't think you do a World Cup in the US without LA playing a major role," said Los Angeles Sports & Entertainment Commission President and CEO Kathy Schloessman.

"We like to be on the big international stage. We know how to do these events bigger, better than most. You aren't going to be at World Cup matches the whole time you're here, so it's a great opportunity for us to show off our city."