A different Super Bowl Matchup: Politics versus the NFL

Posted: Feb 2, 2017

Sunday night in Houston, is infused with national politics like never before. Fox’s pregame telecast will include an interview of President Trump by Bill O’Reilly. The owner, coach and star player of one team, the highly successful New England Patriots, are friends of the president’s. Last Sunday, hundreds of people opposed to the president’s immigration policy protested at the convention center where the N.F.L. is holding many of its events for fans. The next day, many players on the Falcons and Patriots — including Mohamed Sanu, who is Muslim — were peppered with questions about their thoughts on the president and his temporary ban on refugees from some Muslim-majority countries. The political overlay made the league so uneasy, apparently, that it omitted any references to the president from the dozens of official transcripts of interviews with players on Monday. Politics could even bleed into the game during the halftime musical act — usually a saccharine spectacle — because this year’s headliner, Lady Gaga, is an outspoken champion of gay rights and women’s rights and has been sharply critical of Mr. Trump at times. The Super Bowl is only the latest cultural event to be awash in political undercurrents. Last month, Meryl Streep stole the show at the Golden Globes awards ceremony with a fiery denunciation of Mr. Trump as a demagogue and a bully, followed by a series of speeches at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, where Julia Louis-Dreyfus, David Harbour and other actors lashed into Mr. Trump’s new visa ban that targets predominantly Muslim countries. Two more major award shows loom this month — the Grammys, on Feb. 12, and the Academy Awards, on Feb. 26 — and some politically charged speeches and moments are widely expected, especially at the Oscars, which an Iranian filmmaker is planning to skip in protest of Mr. Trump’s immigration policies. It is unclear if the Grammys and the Oscars will draw protesters the way the Super Bowl has, given that the award shows will feature many performers who are liberals in solidarity against Mr. Trump. But the awards shows and the Super Bowl do point up another deep divide in American life: N.F.L. leaders would prefer to stay as far away from politics as they can, while Hollywood stars seem to be interested in engaging as they walk the red carpet or deliver acceptance speeches on live television. But the N.F.L. has long struggled to find neutral ground between its biggest annual game and the events that swirl around it. As the Super Bowl has grown from a game to a weekend to a two-week news media rodeo attracting thousands of reporters, the league has opened itself up to more lavish publicity, but also more scrutiny and criticism. “The league is certainly powerful, but I don’t know how you control it when you have media day with the teams on the field with not just sports reporters and television networks, but people from ‘Entertainment Tonight’ and you name it, and asking questions that have nothing to do with the game,” said Ed Goren, the former executive producer and vice chairman of Fox Sports. “Because it’s the Super Bowl, the questions are going to get asked.” ;