Every February, one of the biggest spectacles in American sports rolls around: the Super Bowl. All aspects of the big game are yearly conversation fodder for football fans and pop culture aficionados alike, from the halftime show to the commercials to the game itself.
This season, in Super Bowl LIX, the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs met in New Orleans. The game had high stakes for both teams; the Chiefs were looking to win their third straight championship and complete the first ever “three-peat” in NFL history, while Philadelphia was looking to avenge their Super Bowl LVII loss to Kansas City, the game that kicked off the aforementioned three-peat attempt.
Though the Chiefs had eked out a victory two years ago, this time the game was all Eagles, from the opening kickoff to the moment the final whistle blew. Philadelphia’s high-scoring offense was outshined only by its stifling defense, which shutout Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City until midway through the third quarter, on their way to a 40-22 victory.
Up 40-6 in the fourth quarter, the Eagles put in their subs and began to celebrate on the sideline well before the final whistle had blown, but the game’s lopsided outcome was surprising to many. Junior Sierra Lease said the game was “more interesting than [she] thought it would be, and [she] was shocked at how the lead was looking for the Eagles.”
This sentiment was echoed by fellow junior Nicole Luong, who said she “thought the results were going to be different” because the Chiefs had performed well all season. But, “without all the bad calls the refs had been making throughout the season, [the Chiefs] wouldn’t have gotten to where they were,” Luong said.
The mostly one-sided scoring made the Super Bowl lackluster for some, especially those who were not rooting for either side, like freshman Jacob Stubbins, who said it was a “boring game.”
This was not an uncommon opinion. “I thought the game sucked,” sophomore Taylor Robinson, who also said she had no preference between the two teams, said.
Luckily for viewers, the Super Bowl always has excitement outside of the game itself, with the halftime performance being a perennial favorite with non-football fans. This year, rapper Kendrick Lamar headlined a show that also featured SZA and Samuel L. Jackson, DJ Mustard, and Serena Williams as surprise guests. Senior Naima Cho-Khaliq said she liked the performance and “felt empowered while watching it because [she’s] listened to Kendrick for years.”
Lamar primarily performed songs off of his newest album, GNX, as well as his Grammy-winning Drake diss track “Not Like Us,” catering to a broad audience. Additionally, he enlisted Jackson to play the role of Uncle Sam, who interrupted at times to scold him for being “too loud, too reckless, too ghetto,” and urge Lamar to “play the game” and do “what America wants,” imbuing the performance with the kind of social commentary found throughout Lamar’s discography. “The message was important and [the] production was amazing,” Lease said.
Another popular part of the Super Bowl is typically the commercials. Advertising slots during the game are expensive, to the tune of millions of dollars, so brands and companies bring their A-game with creative displays and celebrity cameos. But this year, the consensus seemed to be that the commercials were boring or weird. Luong said there were “many odd advertisements” like the “flesh hats” and “dancing tongue” commercials for Tubi and Coffee-Mate, respectively. “I hated the diet pill ad,” Cho-Khaliq said, referencing a spot by Hims & Hers for weight-loss drugs. “That was so misleading,” Khaliq said.
The Super Bowl is more a social occasion than a football game for many Americans, an opportunity to hang out and watch with friends and family. Despite some hit-or-miss advertisements this year, Super Bowl Sunday will always have something for everyone.
