Why the Super Bowl was worth watching

Minus a few big plays, the Super Bowl match-up between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs itself was a bit of a snoozer. But everyone knows the main event is not really the main event at the Super Bowl. Prior to kickoff, there’s the panning of the cameras to show the famous folk in attendance. Taylor Swift was mercilessly booed, and she didn’t seem to know how to react to the derision. In her defense — who would? Say what you will about Swift, but having your face appearing on a jumbotron elicit jeers loud enough to be heard from inside your swanky private box must be soul-shattering, no matter how many billions you have in the bank.

President Donald Trump’s appearance had the opposite effect: the crowd goes wild! Even before taking his seat, Trump took the field and waved to fans, one of whom, Chiefs standout Chris Jones, went out of his way to shake the president’s hand. It was a moment that had many in the social-media realm declaring, “America is healing.” That was, of course, until Trump took to social media himself to post a video comparing his warm welcome to the crowd rejecting Taylor Swift.

“The only one that had a tougher night than the Kansas City Chiefs was Taylor Swift,” he wrote. “She got BOOED out of the Stadium. MAGA is very unforgiving!”

But hey, what would sports be without a good rivalry?

The suited-up professional athletes, bless their hearts, swayed impatiently as they endured a nice but unnecessary jazz rendition of “America the Beautiful” before Jon Batiste took forever to perform a version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” that was barely recognizable as our national anthem.

I’m not a huge NFL fan (it helps that I do not own a TV), but not watching the Super Bowl, to me, is kind of like not having the Macy’s Day Parade or A Christmas Story on in the background during Thanksgiving and Christmas. If not your actual American duty, tuning into the big game is at least a great way to take our nation’s cultural pulse.

My dad, once we told him the familiar-looking face hyping the game was that of Tom Cruise, remarked the actor “hasn’t aged a day!” while my mom thought Maverick looked like a menopausal woman. Turns out mom wasn’t alone in this line of thinking.

There was the usual mix of amusing, cute, confusing and controversial commercials infusing a hodge-podge of celebrities in the vein of a dream that has you wondering when you wake up why that person was there. The Budweiser ad was adorable, as always (the beer is on its best behavior since the Dylan Mulvaney incident), comedian Nate Bargatze’s wholesome humor was granted well-deserved time to shine in an ad for DoorDash, and Him and Hers lectured us about obesity being the fault of “the system” before urging us to defeat the system by buying their off-brand weight-loss drugs that have the “same active ingredients” as Ozempic and Wegovy — products promoted by Big Pharma.

The Kendrick Lamar half-time show was, by all accounts, unwatchable — and so I’m glad I skipped it. It seems with rare exception, the half-time show is reliably disastrous, and so I continue to wonder: should the American people vote on the Super Bowl half-time entertainment? Clearly the unelected bureaucrats forcing terrible performances on us each year are out-of-touch.

Tom Brady’s gauche watch made for a nice distraction toward the end of the game when it became clear the Chiefs had no chance of a comeback and Brady resorted to filling air-time with droning tales of how his 2007 Super Bowl loss still eats him up inside. (How deflating!)

Philadelphia Eagles star Saquon Barkley was almost shut out, but still managed to set an NFL single-season rushing record, on his birthday no less! Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, looking like a handsome Hollywood pirate with a small gold earring, black face paint and million-dollar smile, was named Super Bowl MVP, but gave credit to his team’s defense for the monumental win. The insufferable Travis Kelce, meanwhile, skulked away in tears to the Chiefs’s locker room to the pleasure of the many Americans tired of seeing him and his questionable sartorial choices all over the news.

All in all, this year’s Super Bowl offered standard fare, a satisfying finish and the most American tradition of all: an excuse to gather with friends and family, gorge yourself, drink beer and enjoy an over-the-top competition that saw the underdog prevail. If we judge America by the Super Bowl, I’d say our nation is on the right track.