The Super Bowl is a uniquely American tradition. On Sunday, millions will gather around their TV sets to eat 1.47 billion chicken wings, watch dozens of $7 million commercials and place more than $1 billion in sports bets as the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Philadelphia Eagles at the Superdome in New Orleans.
The storylines on and off the field are enough to turn even the most engaged sports fans’ heads. Whether it’s Taylor Swift, President Trump or discussions of a historic three-peat, the NFL’s flagship event will dominate the cultural conversation this weekend.
Kansas City consistency
The Chiefs, the back-to-back Super Bowl champions, enter the matchup as slight favorites. Talking heads on sports shows are running out of cliches to describe the dynastic squad powered by superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes and coach Andy Reid.
They find a way to win games. They’re never out of it. They’ve been here before.
Pick a rote phrase for a winning team. It’s almost certainly been applied to Kansas City, and for good reason.
The Chiefs finished the regular season 15-2. That record included a Week 18 blowout loss as Kansas City rested its starters despite failing to produce many dominant performances.
They aren’t the high-powered offense that set the league on fire five years ago, but a strong defense and mistake-free approach by Mahomes has landed the Chiefs in their fourth Super Bowl in five years.
“It’s a special run that we’ve been on,” Mahomes said Monday. “Every time I’m here at media night or on this football field in the Super Bowl, I’m going to appreciate those moments because you never know when it’ll be your last one.”
Pop sensation Taylor Swift welcomes the wins. Since going public about her relationship with Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce last season, the 14-time Grammy winner has been cheering on her boyfriend from her suite and has become a regular feature of Kansas City broadcasts, to the dismay of some fans.
If her legions of deducing fans are correct, she could receive an on-field proposal if the Chiefs win. During media week, Kelce didn’t confirm or deny the engagement rumors but praised the “Shake It Off” singer.
“I’d better hold up my end of the bargain,” Kelce said. “She’s up there being the superstar that she is and never taking no for an answer and always working her tail off. I’d better match that energy for sure.”
Many who watch the NFL are dealing with “Chiefs fatigue.” The team is a staple of prime-time and national broadcasts, even when they aren’t playing. Mahomes, Kelce and Reid are featured in a revolving slate of State Farm Insurance commercials that air during almost every NFL game.
As the Chiefs continue to dominate the league and more fans turn against them, social media has become inundated with memes that accuse NFL officials of favoring Mahomes and Kansas City to boost ratings. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell called that conspiracy theory “ridiculous.”
“A lot of those theories happen in social media, and they have a new life. … I understand it; I think it reflects a lot of the fans’ passion,” Mr. Goodell said. “I think it’s also a reminder of how important officiating is. That’s a ridiculous theory for anyone who might take it seriously.”
The Saquon show
If the Chiefs are glitz, the Eagles are grit. Their signature play, a “tush push,” in which quarterback Jalen Hurts drives forward and relies on his offensive linemen and teammates to shove him ahead to the first down or the goal line, is reminiscent of an era of football when leather helmets were the safest option available.
That isn’t the kind of play that sells tickets and commercial slots.
Hurts is not the star of the Eagles’ offense. That honor belongs to running back Saquon Barkley, who joined the team as a free agent during the offseason.
The 27-year-old terrorized the NFL this season, rushing for 2,447 yards between the regular and postseason, and he has done it in style. Barkley regularly breaks off highlight-worthy plays, such as a backward hurdle against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 9 that defied explanation.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Eagles right tackle Lane Johnson said of playing with Barkley. “You have a guy with the capability to take it to the house every time he touches it. He’s willing to do all the little things in between — pass, block — that go with the job description.”
He also has off-field stories. The Penn State product proposed to his longtime girlfriend this week and celebrates his 28th birthday on Super Bowl Sunday.
Barkley had a few ideas for how he wanted to mark the occasion.
“Hopefully with green and white confetti falling down and holding up a nice trophy,” he said.
Coming together
Eagles and Chiefs fans will be locked into Sunday’s game, living and dying with each snap as their teams vie for a championship. The average NFL fan won’t have nearly the same degree of investment.
In recent years, the Chiefs have morphed into villains, the same kind of “evil empire” that kept fans rooting against the New England Patriots and New York Yankees for decades. Eagles fans aren’t exactly heroes. Notoriously rambunctious, they keep some neutral NFL followers from joining the bandwagon.
It doesn’t help that these two teams squared off in the Super Bowl just two years ago.
Coincidentally, Super Bowl ticket prices dipped dramatically this year.
According to ticket marketplace TickPick, the average ticket to the Super Bowl game dropped from about $9,100 last year to $7,400.
“Had the Detroit Lions, Washington Commanders or Buffalo Bills made it this far, it would be a much different story as it relates to current prices,” TickPick CEO Brett Goldberg told CNN.
Instead, casual observers will look up from their phones after the second quarter to catch a halftime show featuring rapper Kendrick Lamar and singer SZA.
Mr. Lamar, who added five more Grammy awards to his collection last week, cemented himself as a household name for an ongoing feud with the more mainstream Drake last year. Mr. Lamar was named an almost unanimous winner of the feud with dis tracks such as “Meet the Grahams” and “Not Like Us,” which was named the Song of the Year at the Grammys.
Rap-averse audience members can turn their attention to the advertisements, which brands started teasing weeks in advance.
Matthew McConaughey will craft his best Mike Ditka impression, embodying the Hall of Fame coach of the Chicago Bears for Uber Eats. Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal reunited for a Hellmann’s Mayonnaise commercial inspired by “When Harry Met Sally.” “Fast and Furious” actors Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez and Ludacris will push users toward Haagen-Dazs ice cream in an ad titled “Not So Fast, Not So Furious.”
Politically minded viewers will be drawn to Fox’s pregame show, featuring President Trump in a prerecorded interview discussing the changes he has enacted since returning to the White House. He plans to become the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl.
“This is a societal moment where we come together as a country,” Kimberly Whitler, a marketing professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, said of the Super Bowl. “We may be on different sides, you know, of the gridiron or the field. But we come together.”
• Liam Griffin can be reached at lgriffin@washingtontimes.com.
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