Super Bowl fans stream into Levi’s Stadium, many pulling for Peyton Manning

Super Bowl fans stream into Levi’s Stadium, many pulling for Peyton Manning

“Hello Miss,” she said to a Carolina fan wearing large teal glasses with a Panthers logo.

“This just gave me an opportunity to get out and dress up and bring attention to the Panthers,” said Pace, 59, of Hendersonville, N.C. I dress up like this about once or twice a year at Panthers games.

Pace wrangled tickets for his son, Ellis, and a friend of his wife’s, Ronda Peterson, who has terminal liver cancer and wanted to see her hero, Peyton Manning, one more time.

“We’re here from Toronto and we’re rooting for the Broncos because they beat our favorite team, the Patriots, when we went to a game in New England a couple of years ago,” said Dan Ross, 54, a police officer from Toronto wearing and orange Broncos jersey.

Only a few people were allowed through the gates to the exclusive Super Bowl tailgate party nearby, which required special passes.

Raiders! fans shouted at Brad Mackey and his three sons, who leaned against a railing outside the stadium, decked out in silver and black.

Ashley Freeland, a Niners fan from Chicago who flew into the Bay Area with her husband, Mike, was going with the Broncos as longtime Manning fans.

About a half-dozen protesters showed up near Levi’s Stadium to let the streams of fans coming off light-rail trains know their position on a critical Super Bowl issue.

At PrimeSport.com’s “Pre-game Fan Bash,” in a parking lot on the far side of the Great America amusement park, Panthers and Broncos took up opposite sides of the landscape.

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Kevin Fagan contributed to this report.