Despite being exposed as a deep state psy-ops campaign, the Super Bowl still managed to retain its status as an unofficial American holiday. That’s right, after being exposed as a rigged arm of the deep state, the NFL put on a brave face and powered on. The league even wrote in a 16-16 tie and an overtime before Kansas City (wink, wink) took its second straight championship with a 25-22 win over San Francisco.
You could argue the game was bigger than ever. Ludacris and Lil Jon joined Usher — wearing roller-skates — for the halftime show. Reba McEntyre sang the Star Spangled Banner while a triangle of jets buzzed the domed Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. The stands were filled, the stars came out — unlike the Grammys, Jay Z had both daughters by his side— and pomp had a fistfight with circumstance in the tunnel to see which one would get top billing.
It was pomp. Always the pomp.
In case you missed this, there were a few far-right commentators who’ve possibly had their gray matter replaced with oatmeal and decried that the Super Bowl was somehow rigged because Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift have been enjoying each other’s company. Even President Biden was in on it!
And this was all before Kelce bumped coach Andy Reid on the sideline in the first half in a show of frustration that was deeply uncool. Not helping, Travis.
But in the last few weeks, the anti-Swift/Kelce sentiment had been so pervasive in some political circles that even NPR did a story on the phenomenon. That’s when you know you can talk to your grandparents about it.
There were some very weird things that happened. Both quarterbacks had 123 yards at the half. Exactly the same yardage. And one plus two equals three. And . . . see how easy this is?
And now the Chiefs have “won” again. Gentle reader, be very careful with where you seek commentary on Monday.
Every few years the right gets really made about football and promises to quit it. And then the left gets really mad at football for something completely different. There are of course things to get mad about, like when a catch gets a 6-minute review and is ruled not a catch.
Infuriating.
There is often some kernel of substance under all the outrage, but this time, the speculation on space lasers rigging the outcome or whatever insanity was being projected over on those channels was unmoored. Taylor Swift didn’t vote for Donald Trump. Travis Kelce shills for a pharma company that makes vaccines.
That’s it?! That’s all you got?
Trump himself posted on a low-energy social media site before the game that, “I signed and was responsible for the Music Modernization Act for Taylor Swift and all other Music Artists,” he wrote in his weird grammar. “Joe Biden didn’t do anything for Taylor, and never will.”
He goes on to say that Swift couldn’t possibly vote for Biden and that he likes Kelce, even though the TE “may be a liberal and probably can’t stand me!”
As sweetly transactional as it is to assert that you’ve already paid for someone’s vote, what this actually tells us is that Trump may despise Swift and Kelce, but he respects the power they hold in American culture. Because as loyal as his hardcore voters are to Trump, the Swifties are legendary. If it’s a battle between Trump and Swift for the Super Bowl, the money is on Swift.
She was a magnet that pulled even greater numbers to already best-in-class NFL ratings once she started coming to Chiefs games. Swift’s jacket choice turned Kristin Juszczyk boutique NFL apparel business into a full-fledged trend. When she started dating Kelce, his jersey sales increased 400% according to CBS, and Chiefs ticket sales surged.
She chugged a drink on live TV in the second quarter and if there’s any way to win American hearts and minds, that may be it.
Trump, on the other hand, killed the USFL and sent an NFL owner to London as Ambassador during his presidency. But that owner was Woody Johnson, so less the most powerful NFL owner than one who must have been horrified by the British tradition of relegation.
StubHub projected this Super Bowl to be the second-best in its history, with the 2018 game as the best. Luxury boxes went for $1 million and up. CBS sold 30-second spots for $7 million according to USA Today.
Shocking that the American sporting audience could stomach all this after the game had been so cruelly revealed as a sham to keep an incumbent in office. Somehow. Nonsensically.
But this was going to be a hard matchup for the far right anyway, pitting the Chiefs and a prominent singer against San Francisco, a city that far-right outlets love to hate. How do you pick a team to root for between them?
Those loopy commentators are right about one thing. The game is rigged, but not in the way they think. The NFL is rigged to diffract your attention span to money-paying outlets. The league sells your eyeballs to betting firms, telecom companies, pharma and tech partners. The one thing it can’t do if it hopes to keep your attention is rig the actual games.
If the NFL was rigging the Super Bowl, it might have worked a little more offense into the first half. But there was drama, the Chiefs coming back from a dull first-half performance, a tie game with 4:20 left in the fourth quarter. The Chiefs didn’t play well, but San Francisco didn’t pile up points when they had the chance and so the comeback didn’t take much.
Looking forward to Super Bowl 59 in Roswell. It’s about time we let the aliens pick a winner.
