SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Around Levi’s Stadium this week, the buzz goes beyond the Super Bowl. There’s also the low hum emanating from an electrical substation, and it’s delivering an extra jolt of conversation among NFL circles, scientists and conspiracy theorists.
The Northern Receiving Station sits adjacent to the stadium, the site of Sunday’s showdown between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots, as well as the practice fields and headquarters of the San Francisco 49ers. The municipal utility became something of a curiosity because of a debate about whether electromagnetic fields pose a serious health risk to those within the substation’s radius.
A recent viral post tied the 49ers’ rash of injuries to the EMFs. And while the science is much debated, the 49ers have pledged to take another look into the issue after players voiced concern over their proximity to the station.
“We aren’t going to turn a blind eye,” general manager John Lynch said. “We’ll look into everything.”
The substation has been a locker-room topic of conversation in Santa Clara for years, with now-retired 49ers tight end Delanie Walker and linebacker Patrick Willis acknowledging they wondered about all the electrical lines on the other side of the practice-field fence.
Willis, who played for San Francisco from 2007 to 2014 and was enshrined in the Hall of Fame in 2024, said that at the time he didn’t think having a power station next door was a bad thing.
“I was always one of those kids with a crazy imagination,” Willis said Wednesday. “I believed in superheroes. I believed in Superman. … In those times, I was in the superhero mindset where I was like, ‘Man, if anything is giving off electricity, is giving off power, I’m absorbing it.’”
A satellite view of Levi’s Stadium, the 49ers’ practice facility (weight room outlined in red) and the electrical substation outlined in yellow. (Courtesy of Google Maps)
Walker, a 49ers tight end from 2006 to 2012, remembered serious conversations in the team’s locker room.
“That’s been an issue since I’ve been there,” he said on the “Bussin’ With the Boys” podcast. He added, “It was said that it was giving people cancer.”
For the Seahawks and Patriots, the controversy seems decidedly less than electrifying. Of the dozen players canvassed this week, half had never heard of the substation theory.
“I don’t know what that is,” Patriots safety Marte Mapu said. “That sounds like an engineering term.”
Or they laughed it off as a non-issue, at least for them.
“I think I saw it on social media,” Patriots tight end Austin Hooper said. “But we weren’t having debates in the locker room over it. Worried? In Foxboro, no. No one in Foxboro is worried.”
The NFL this week downplayed impacts from the substation, with Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, saying he’s “not familiar with anything in the sports medicine literature that supports those associations.” According to the World Health Organization, there’s no clear link between EMFs and health effects.
Still, the proximity to the substation raises questions among current players. No two 49ers scrutinize health and performance more than tailback Christian McCaffrey and fullback Kyle Juszczyk. They can speak on everything from red-light therapy to circadian rhythms and are the go-to sources among players for health-related questions.
Both said the EMF issue needs to be studied.
“It’s definitely been a talking point for years,” Juszczyk told Front Office Sports. “It’s one of those things that is just so hard to say because the science is not clear behind it. And I’m very much a science-driven person. And I want to see the numbers and statistics.”
Speaking Tuesday, NFLPA leadership minimized concerns but said they would like more information.
“I think everyone will want more data and want more feedback,” union president Jalen Reeves-Maybin said. “To make a stance would just be guessing.”
Though San Francisco won 12 games and made the playoffs in 2025, its season was defined by the number of high-profile players — including Brock Purdy, George Kittle, Nick Bosa and Fred Warner — who were injured for long stretches. The team’s Week 1 starters ended up playing just 57 percent of the total snaps on offense and defense, the third lowest in the league. No other team lost a larger percentage of its annual payroll to injuries than the 49ers at 25.7 percent.
The 49ers aren’t the substation’s only next-door neighbors. There are dozens of residences immediately to the south of the facility, including homes that predate the substation’s construction in the late 1980s.
None of the half-dozen residents The Athletic spoke with had heard of the theory or were particularly concerned with the substation. Most were skeptical that it was the cause of the 49ers’ frequent injuries.
“In my opinion, it’s all a conspiracy,” Alberto Colmenero said. “Until someone studies it, that’s all it is. Everyone has a theory on why there’s been so many (injuries). I just think it’s bad luck.”
Jemima Jayaseelan, who was wearing a 49ers hat and a Jimmy Garoppolo jersey, lives nearby and has attended 49ers games. She said she’s not worried and hasn’t met anyone who is.
“We take 15-minute walks to Levi’s Stadium and back,” she said, a route that takes her past the substation. “I’ve never heard of any (concerns).”
The only resident interviewed who thought there could be a problem was Spencer Roberts, who said he thinks it’s possible that being near an electrical substation can cause health problems.
“I don’t feel I’ve been harmed,” he said. “But there are probably risks that come with that. We just don’t know what they are.”
Roberts and others were far more eager to discuss noise pollution issues in their neighborhood, including the rumbling of jets taking off from nearby San Jose International Airport, which is less than five miles southeast, and the rap music that 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan’s team blasts during practice.
A view of the 49ers’ practice fields (center left), with the weight room at the left end of the third field. Levi’s Stadium is beyond the fields, and the electrical substation is to the left across the road. (Kirby Lee / Getty Images)
Team owner Jed York also weighed in on the substation on radio row this week when, unprompted, he raised the issue on the “Up & Adams” show. York noted the 49ers have been practicing alongside the substation since 1988.
“Jerry Rice was there,” York said of the NFL’s all-time leader in catches and receiving yards. “It didn’t seem to affect Jerry Rice. It seems like Jerry Rice can still play today. I don’t believe that’s something that’s a real issue. I think we can debunk it.”
Still, there have been some changes since Rice was a 49er. For one, the substation was augmented when Levi’s Stadium was built in 2014. The team also built a weight room on the south end of its practice fields, putting it a few steps away from the edge of the substation.
Juszczyk, who joined the 49ers in 2017, has been in Santa Clara longer than any other current player. He’s also been one of the healthiest players in the NFL over that span, missing just four games — he sprained the MCL in his knee in 2019 — because of injury during that span. He started all 19 games this season, as did McCaffrey, who led the NFL with 450 touches (including playoffs), 65 more than anyone else.
Seahawks tight end Eric Saubert also appeared in every game when he was with the 49ers in 2024. This season, he missed six games with a calf issue.
“This is the first season I’ve missed significant time with an injury,” Saubert noted. “And I joke around that it’s because I played for the Niners last year.”
Saubert said his current teammates have asked about the substation.
“What’s crazy, I always say, is you look over the fence (toward the substation), and all those trees are just dead,” he said. “Something’s going on over there. I don’t know.”
That comment suggests that while the 49ers might not have an EMF problem, they’re starting to develop a perception issue.
“That’s not our problem, that’s the Niners’,” Patriots linebacker Jahlani Tavai said of playing at Levi’s on Sunday. “If they’ve got a problem with that, they’ve got to talk to their ownership or whatever. It’s above my pay grade.”