The weeks main as much as this Tremendous Bowl noticed a predictable swirl of questions concerning the on- and off-field path of America’s massive sport. Might the Philadelphia Eagles neutralize the golden arm of Patrick Mahomes? Would Travis Kelce commit elder abuse towards Kansas Metropolis Chiefs coach Andy Reid once more? How would the group react to the presence of the primary sitting president to attend a Tremendous Bowl? Would possibly half-time present headliner Kendrick Lamar use the large stage to offer additional perception into the content material of Drake’s character? And would Sunday night time cap the profitable conclusion of Tom Brady’s years-long seek for a persona, or would he stay the identical on-screen plank who’s shout-talked his method by his first season as Fox’s high soccer analyst?
As ever, nonetheless, an even bigger query hung over these small alternatives for hypothesis: wouldn’t it be any good? As a sport, as a spectacle, as a uncooked demonstration of American ingenuity and may, would Tremendous Bowl LIX have the juice?
Nicely, now we’ve the reply: it might not. A non-entity as a contest and a televisual flop, this Tremendous Bowl will dwell lengthy within the reminiscence of nobody however followers of the Eagles. This was a Tremendous Bowl so galactically dangerous that even Donald Trump – whose look on the occasion took on the sheen of a victory lap after a years-long tradition warfare with the NFL basically ended with the league’s give up, and who drew cheers at any time when he was proven on the screens inside Caesars Superdome – left early to beat the visitors. The president, maybe embarrassed by his pre-game choice of the Chiefs as likeliest victors, exited the constructing on the stroke of half-time, conveniently lacking the pointedly “political” efficiency that Lamar dished up through the intermission.
This was at least the NFL deserved for its abject determination to collapse on most of its variations with Trump. In the course of the president’s first administration, the league turned an unlikely bulwark of resistance towards the Maga tide of insensitivity and hate. Now there’s been a reversal in fact. Forward of this sport the NFL introduced that the “Finish Racism” signal that has adorned the top zones for the previous 4 Tremendous Bowls would get replaced by “Select Love” at one finish and “It Takes All of Us” on the different. Whereas the “Finish Racism” signal – a response to the post-George Floyd eruption of fashionable outrage throughout the US over police brutality and racial injustice – may very well be criticized as mere efficiency, its alternative by an indication preaching love appeared cynically hypocritical in gentle of the NFL’s new embrace of a president hell-bent on doing the precise reverse. Select love! Except you occur to be trans, undocumented, international, liberal, progressive, a member of the left, a authorities employee, anybody counting on meals stamps or Medicaid for his or her survival, anybody who helps range, fairness and inclusion, anybody who believes the ethnic cleaning of Gaza is dangerous, or anybody who didn’t vote for Trump, through which case: womp-womp, cry tougher cuck, you at the moment are an enemy of the nation.
On this bumbling superpower all of the pomp and trappings of empire now appear irredeemably cheesy, and final night time the Trump-NFL alliance did every part inside its authority to show how shortly issues on this nation are deteriorating. The night time received off to a fittingly shitty begin with a pre-game flyover by US fighter jets that might not be seen by anybody contained in the domed stadium: an enthralling metaphor for the blithe stupidity of an America in continual decline. Jon Batiste sang the nationwide anthem as a pleasantly slinky low-impact cabaret quantity, like he was a resort foyer piano man setting the background temper for a bunch of afternoon enterprise conferences. Trump, who actively prevented army service himself, gave the anthem a salute as if he was a veteran.
The president’s presence within the crowd was all the time going to deliver an odd power to this sport, and a way of one thing damaged or torn or not fairly proper suffused occasions final night time. A hellish mashup of Trumpism, the Tremendous Bowl’s conventional jingoism and fetishization of the army (the anthem, the super-abundance of flags and uniformed personnel, the pre-game flyover), and movie star tradition (Anne Hathaway bopping within the crowd, Paul McCartney chatting it up with Adam Sandler, Kevin Costner absorbed in dialog with Pete Davidson), this Tremendous Bowl felt like a harbinger of the top occasions, a celebration to ring within the apocalypse. Royals (Serena Williams, Taylor Swift), tyrants (Trump, Gianni Infantino) and cheesesteak-flipping line cooks (Bradley Cooper) all get to let their hair down in pre-apocalyptic America: the brand new DEI in motion. Lamar bravely tried to infuse his half-time present with political critique, however the power within the stadium appeared low, and the “message” might have been misplaced amid the Trumpy myopia of the night time. Was this a sly touch upon America’s descent into fascism, or Lamar ambling up and down the stage in dad denims? Presumably it was each.
On the sphere, Kansas Metropolis’s hopes cracked virtually as shortly as Jon Hamm’s voice did when he was introducing the staff to the stadium earlier than kickoff. Fox did its greatest to match the Chiefs’ on-field woes by getting a lot of the massive broadcasting calls improper. The community’s panel of sideline elders and wiseheads appeared virtually bored by their obligation to touch upon the sport, and guidelines guru Mike Pereira continuously gave the impression to be asleep when known as on to supply perception into numerous contentious officiating selections, such was his delay in replying. In the meantime the Fox scorebug – which shows the rating, sport time, and the offensive staff’s progress up the sphere – was the “graphic design is my ardour” meme come to life, a distressingly ugly assortment of jumbo-font containers and chaotically assembled information factors that seemed prefer it was produced by somebody whose whole data of visible tradition got here from a single afternoon “studying Photoshop” in 1998.
However this night time, regardless of the affect of Trump or Mahomes or Lamar, was all the time going to be about one man: Brady. Fox’s No 1 jaw popped up subsequent to Kevin Burkhardt on Fox’s Bourbon Road set, beaming vacantly in a shiny swimsuit like a person about to promote you a settee. All through the night the star Fox gameday duo, who’ve had six months to work collectively however nonetheless appear to be they’re strangers ready within the line for espresso at any time when they must trade phrases, saved taking their jackets off then placing them again on once more: the jackets had been on for the pregame bits, off for a lot of the second quarter, again on for half-time evaluation, off once more for some motive, then again in place for the house stretch as soon as the Eagles’ victory appeared assured. What enjoyable! This frantic sequence of pointless costume modifications visualized a number of the despair that should now be gripping the Fox C-suite over their determination to spend $375m and lock Brady in because the community’s most important sport analyst for the subsequent decade.
This was the largest check but in Brady’s fledgling TV profession, and the outcomes weren’t fairly. Brady’s early stylings right here bore all his rising signatures as a broadcaster: the bizarre absence of quantity management; the unconvincing makes an attempt at jocularity (“$8m for 30 seconds of promoting time, you’d want to save lots of quite a lot of pennies for that!”); the statements of the apparent (“The query the Chiefs shall be asking themselves is, ‘How can we discover sufficient time for Patrick to make some throws downfield?’”); the sentences that start with nice confidence then path off as soon as it turns into clear to their creator that they don’t include sufficiently compelling mental content material to justify their conclusion (“Patrick has that worry issue, all people on this constructing is aware of it, all people who watches soccer is aware of it, I’m actually to see …”). Lots of Brady’s throws to Pereira, prompted by dissatisfaction with some on-field name, had been delivered with the deflationary intonation of a person who simply missed out on the final slice of his favourite pizza on the native slice joint: “Oh, I don’t like that one bit. What do you assume Mike?”
Because the night time wore on Fox’s star boy turned more and more squeaky, resorting within the sport’s last quarter to a volley of desperately uninteresting anecdotes about his personal profession as a champion participant. It was unimaginable to not really feel a little bit sorry for the man: although richly proficient as a participant, Brady has all of the on-screen charisma of stagnant water and is clearly by no means going to rise past the mundane as a broadcaster. However extra sympathy must be reserved for America’s viewers, who shall be compelled to mute Brady’s video games for 9 extra seasons. And essentially the most ought to go to Burkhardt, who used final night time to debut what’s, I consider, a brand new weapon in his game-calling armory: a strangled, hybrid sob-laugh that served the twin function of responding to Brady’s on-air inanities and signaling to viewers at house his deep misery on the subsequent 9 years.
After two Eagles gamers, with the championship assured, drenched Nick Sirianni within the ritual Gatorade bathe administered to all victorious Tremendous Bowl coaches, Brady monotoned, “That’s received to be a slimy, sticky bathe. However who cares?” This had all the massive man’s customary head-scratching vacuity (what precisely does this remark add to the viewer’s appreciation of the motion?) however was unintentionally a neat abstract of the night time. Ultimately, “Who cares?” could be the most becoming epitaph for essentially the most forgettable Tremendous Bowl in latest historical past. If the purpose of televised sports activities is to make the viewer at house really feel as in the event that they’re on the sport, Fox final night time pulled off a masterclass.
However hey, no less than we received to see Seal as a seal.
