Super Bowl
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How Porn Swallowed Everything February 14, 2025
During the Super Bowl, some 127 million viewers witnessed an up-close parade of gleamy-creamy jiggling breasts covered in cantaloupe-colored spandex as part of an advertisement for . . . breast-cancer awareness, sponsored by pharmaceutical company No...
Against All Odds February 13, 2025
In the decades to come, when the Super Bowl is called the Caesars Sportsbook Cup, FanDuel offers odds on fourth-grade T-ball, and activities historically unpopular in betting circles—such as Olympic canoeing, say—are plagued by gambling-related capsi...
The Malicious Joy of Watching the Chiefs Crumble February 11, 2025
I try to be a positive person, which is difficult, because everything is terrible....
Kendrick Lamar’s Meta-Performance at the Super Bowl February 11, 2025
A sense of abasement hovers over the performer of the Super Bowl halftime show. It is slight, but it is there. The musician selected must be an internationally recognized star, and yet that star also has to submit to stipulations and standards set by...
The Inescapable Fact of This Year’s Shocking Super Bowl February 10, 2025
Super Bowl 59 was over before Kendrick Lamar took the field at halftime. The most obvious reason was that Patrick Mahomes’ unimpeded journey to greatest-of-all-time status took a bit of a detour....
How the Super Bowl Stole Football’s Soul February 07, 2025
For Americans, bigger is always better. We “go big or go home”. Big Pharma makes our medicine and Big Tech builds our phones. We wash down Big Macs with Big Gulps and jam to Biggie Smalls. College football is much the same. “Big four” bowl games once...
‘Love Hurts’ Review February 07, 2025
Considering the matchup in this weekend’s Super Bowl, it’s a propitious moment to release a movie titled “Love Hurts.” Philadelphia Eagles fans fond of quarterback Jalen Hurts will nod vigorously in agreement. If only the movie displayed the skill se...
Saquon Barkley Could! Go! All! The! Way! February 06, 2025
Midway through the fourth quarter of the Philadelphia Eagles’ 55-23 NFC championship game win over the Washington Commanders, the Fox broadcast aired a brief highlight reel of running back Saquon Barkley: twirling down the field, striding up the side...
College Football Is Not and Should Not Try to Be the NFL February 03, 2025
In the days following the College Football National Championship Game, Outkick founder Clay Travis took to X to note that:Just 22.1 million viewers watched Ohio State-Notre Dame, the third lowest playoff title game viewership on record. Truly awful n...
Patrick Mahomes Is My GOAT February 13, 2024
As Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes scrambled for the first down with 2:05 remaining in overtime in the Super Bowl on Sunday, it hit me like a thunderclap: Patrick Mahomes is the greatest quarterback of all time....
End of Football Season Reflections February 13, 2024
Losing is pretty interesting. Winning is a thousand times better, but less interesting. You just don’t have as much to consider. You don’t have as much to manage.Like so many people in the region, and apparently a lot of gambling sharps, I wanted the...
A Fumble for American Democracy February 12, 2024
Is the future of the National Football League’s Super Bowl linked with the future of American democracy? The Super Bowl may seem to some like an overly commercialized sports championship game, but it holds considerable cultural significance. It has e...
How Britney Spears Explains Taylor Swift February 12, 2024
There seems to be a kind of paranoid storm swirling around Taylor Swift just now. It’s as though she’s at the center of a gothic novel filled with conspiracy theories and secret doubles, with the far right placing her at the center of government oper...
Taylor Swift, America’s National Hero February 12, 2024
A record number of Americans are likely to watch this Sunday’s Super Bowl, probably only half of whom will be following the actual game. The other half will be scanning the luxury boxes for tantalising glimpses of Taylor Swift, the country’s most fam...
The NFL Has Entered Its WAG Era February 09, 2024
It starts with a high five. Then two backward fives. Hip check—woo!—lean back, snap. Twin sprays of blond are tossed over shoulders, red-stained lips part in cheers, and the not-so-secret handshake is complete. Touchdown! You are watching the NFL.In ...
How Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce Built Their Connection February 08, 2024
At this stage in their relationship, seven years and two championships in, Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce are seemingly always on the same page. Not just on the field, where they’ve rewritten the Kansas City Chiefs record books, but also off the fi...
Romo Rules, Revisited February 07, 2024
Almost as soon as Tony Romo started calling games for CBS, America turned him into an export. In 2019, a group of Australian rules football announcers met in Melbourne for their preseason seminar. Their Fox Footy bosses showed them a clip of Romo, wh...
How to Build an Empire (Taylor’s Version) February 06, 2024
To Tom Ewing’s knowledge, only two prominent musical artists have publicly used the phrase “imperial phase”: Neil Tennant and Taylor Swift.Tennant, the taller half of British synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys, coined the term in his notes for a 2001 reissu...
‘The Super Bowl Is Rigged!’: An Intervention February 05, 2024
In the ideological fever swamps surrounding this chaotic age, rife as they are with the miasmatic stench of toxic imbecility, it appears that some of our conspirators-in-chief have plunged through to the bottom of our debased, divisive political divi...
MAGA World Is About to Meet Taylor Swift’s Fandom February 02, 2024
Taylor Swift has many titles: cultural juggernaut; international pop star; billionaire businesswoman. She can now add MAGA conspiracy theory target to the list.Far-right internet personalities and even a former Republican presidential candidate are s...
The Uniquely Cruel Collapse of the Detroit Lions January 30, 2024
The Detroit Lions, until now the most likable team left in the NFL playoffs, subjected their fans to one of the worst days of their lives on Sunday. The Lions carried a 17-point lead into halftime in the NFC championship game against the San Francisc...
The Four Keys to Super Bowl LVIII January 30, 2024
The football gods must love a good narrative. How else can you explain this Super Bowl matchup following a pair of deeply weird championship games that saw the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers advance? It was as if these teams were destined...
Justin Timberlake’s Air of Desperation January 30, 2024
Once upon a time, having Justin Timberlake on Saturday Night Live would have been a thrilling thing. In the mid-2000s, the pop star emerged as one of the show’s favorite recurring hosts, the kind of mega-famous celeb who seemed like he would be down ...
6 Things We Learned From the NFL’s Season of Swift January 25, 2024
How will we remember the 2023–24 NFL season? It’s possible that our primary association will be the Detroit Lions’ first-ever Super Bowl appearance (if they can beat the San Francisco 49ers next week), or the absence of Tom Brady for the first time i...
The River Finally Came for Bill Belichick January 12, 2024
ConventionalConventional wisdom said to take a timeout, but Bill Belichick never had much use for conventional wisdom.It was nearly nine years ago, in the final minute of Super Bowl XLIX. The New England Patriots held a narrow lead, but the Seattle S...
