Chiefs star Travis Kelce on how he and Taylor Swift manifest their success
Tayvoodoo in full force? Travis Kelce tells the media ahead of Super Bowl LIX how he and Taylor Swift manifest their success.
Ahhh, the Super Bowl. Where families gather to watch the big game. Eat lots of food. Drink some. Party a little. Get together with friends to laugh, chill, hang out. It’s one of the few moments, the extremely few, few moments, where Americans genuinely come together.
We put aside politics. We put aside our differences. We take part in a great American tradition. It’s actually pretty cool. Well, it was. Because now President Donald Trump is attending the game.
Punchbowl News was the first to report that Trump will attend Super Bowl 59 between Philadelphia and Kansas City in New Orleans. So the most divisive president of our lifetime is attending a game that often serves as a genuine moment of unity. Trump soils everything. Now, he’s doing the same to the biggest game of the year.
The fact Trump will be at the same game as someone as thoughtful as Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts is playing in, is a remarkable contradiction. This week, Hurts spoke about the evolution of the Black quarterback, and how he doesn’t take this moment lightly, where two Black quarterbacks are again playing in the Super Bowl. It’s the kind of thoughtfulness we’ve come to expect from him; that kind of depth Trump doesn’t possess.
Trump is believed to be the first sitting president to possibly attend the Super Bowl. There’s a reason sitting presidents don’t normally go. It’s potentially a security nightmare. But also, to me, they want the game to be the center of attention, not them.
Trump wants to go to get attention but also to show dominance over a league that once rejected him. He holds grudges the way way Tom Brady holds Super Bowl records.
It doesn’t matter that Trump is a huge sports fan or has attended Super Bowls before. Who cares. What matters is now. Now, Trump stands for the opposite of everything we love about the Super Bowl. Yes, the game has become corporate, but it’s retained a level of coolness in a way the league itself hasn’t.
There’s evidence that Trump has already had a negative impact on the game. The Athletic first reported that for the first time since February of 2021 the signage “End Racism” won’t be included as a message in the back of the Super Bowl end zones. The league will instead display the messages of “Choose Love” and “It Takes All of Us.”
The fact the league made this move at the same time Trump is attending the game could be the greatest coincidence of all time. But if you believe that, you also believe the Browns will one day make the Super Bowl.
(Just for the record: racism isn’t over. Will check my sources but pretty sure that’s accurate.)
Commissioner Roger Goodell was asked recently if the league was committed to continuing its efforts to further diversify the league’s coaching and personnel ranks mainly through the Rooney Rule.
“We got into diversity efforts because we felt it was the right thing for the National Football League,” Goodell said. “We’re going to continue those efforts because we’ve not only convinced ourselves, I think we’ve proven ourselves that it does make the NFL better. We’re not in this because it’s a trend to get in it or a trend to get out of it. Our efforts are fundamental in trying to attract the best possible talent into the National Football League.”
If the league really is removing the end zone signs, then can we really believe what Goodell says about DEI which Trump has constantly attacked?
If the game comes and those signs are gone, it’s a totally gutless move by the league. But it also fits with everything about Trump and this era.
CNN reports that Trump recently appointed one of his former speechwriters, who was fired in 2018 following CNN’s report that he spoke at a conference attended by white nationalists, to a top position at the State Department. This is Trump’s world. This is what he does.
I’m someone that’s become slightly cynical about the NFL. It’s grown into a league concerned solely with making cash. And yes, the Super Bowl isn’t totally exempt from this. Of course. But having covered so many Super Bowls, and watched so many others from home or a party or two (or five), it seriously is one of the last remaining American moments of unity. Not perfect. Not totally. But pretty good. Even people who don’t watch football or even like it, watch some element of it. The halftime shows are as popular as the game itself.
And Trump will soil it. Like he does so many other things. Even the Super Bowl isn’t exempt.
