AS THE FIRST SITTING PRESIDENT AT A SUPER BOWL, TRUMP CHOSE THE WRONG CITY
Once sassy and buzzy and American, New Orleans is engulfed by more than 2,000 law enforcement officers in an enhanced security zone, not where Trump should be as he opposes DEI and bars transgenders
He loves the NFL and once tried to buy the Buffalo Bills, smearing Jon Bon Jovi in the investment world and — whooah — livin’ on a prayer until Terry Pegula won. But much as President Trump plans to enjoy the Super Bowl, is he a wise man inside a suite? Why sit in the Caesars Superdome for almost four hours? Couldn’t he watch Patrick Mahomes, a “certain quarterback who seems to be a pretty good winner,” beyond New Orleans?
This is a man whose early weeks in office are either spirited or absorbed by malicious crises. Whichever you choose, he is alive seven months after an assassination attempt. And Trump is traveling into a crazed zone that requires more than 2,000 law enforcement officers, via the Department of Homeland Security, with helicopters and drones and steel barriers and bollards after 14 people were killed in a Jan. 1 wee-hours terrorist attack. Many of us have frequented the NFL’s crowning ceremony in a wild-ass French Quarter of hurricane drinks, beads, piano bars and illnesses the next morning.
Does Trump not have a big-screen TV exceeding all other big-screen TVs?
Taylor Swift, too?
The NFL outgrew New Orleans long ago, before the city installed an enhanced security zone that allows police and the National Guard to stop anyone for any reason, including breathing. The 11th game should be the last, Elon Musk will say, knowing the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles could play at the Mar-a-Lago Club. Roger Goodell and 32 team owners have persevered through Hurricane Katrina, the country’s highest murder rate in 2023 and a sense that merely 364,000 residents shouldn’t host the 59th version of an American holiday. Now, in a week when a woman was arrested after the hotel death of a 27-year-old Kansas City TV reporter, what will happen next?
“Naturally, there’s a question of whether we have made adjustments in our security plan in light of the events of Jan. 1, and the answer is an unequivocal yes,” said Cathy Lanier, the NFL’s chief security officer.
Trump will be the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl. The league and the city fathers say he is safe within a constructed umbrella. Maybe Santa Clara would have made more sense next year. He arrives after the league borrowed his thought process when he terminated diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. The “END RACISM” messages behind the end zones are replaced Sunday by “CHOOSE LOVE” and “IT TAKES ALL OF US” phrases. In Goodell’s view, the league isn’t shifting because of the President. He simply made the decision on his own, or so he says.
“It’s a reflection of our fan base and communities and our players,” the commissioner said this week. “We got into diversity efforts because we felt it was the right thing to do for the National Football League, and we’re going to continue those efforts because we’ve not only convinced ourselves, I think we’ve proven to ourselves that it does make the NFL better. We’re not in this because it’s a trend to get into or a trend to get out of it. Our efforts are fundamental in trying to attract the best possible talent to the NFL, both on and off the field.”
A heavy perception remains: The league is turning against DEI after Colin Kaepernick fought and kneeled on sidelines. Our land is angry, or half of it, about the slide-slippage. Said Chiefs owner Clark Hunt, oblivious: “The policies that the league has instituted over the last decade plus make a lot of sense. I really don’t see the league taking a step back from that, and I’ve not felt any owner suggesting that.”
Trump’s appearance comes after he barred transgender athletes from participating with women and girls. “With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over,” he said from the White House. “We want them to change everything having to do with the Olympics.” I agree with him. You might not. Days later, he shows up at a Super Bowl filled with rampaging men.
The players are torn. Travis Kelce actually praised Trump, appeasing the boss after he railed against his Kamala Harris-supportive girlfriend — “I hate Taylor Swift,” he wrote on social media last fall. Said Kelce: “That’s awesome. It’s a great honor. I think, you know, no matter who the president is, I know I’m excited because it’s the biggest game of my life, you know, and having the president there, you know, it’s the best country in the world. So, that’d be pretty cool.”
Yet Trump tried his best to praise Brittany Mahomes, wife of the quarterback and a friend of Swift, because she supports the President. “I actually like Mrs. Mahomes much better if you want to know the truth,” Trump said. “I am not a Taylor Swift fan. I think she's beautiful. Very beautiful. I find her very beautiful. I think she's liberal. She probably doesn't like me.”
Somehow, the Chiefs have remained united. Taylor and Brittany will be in the stadium, filled with huggability as reports claim Swift will join Kendrick Lamar at halftime. The quarterback is cautious and has stayed quiet, saying, “It's always cool to be able to play in front of a sitting president. Someone that is at the top position in our country. It's cool to hear that he's seen me play football and respects the game that I play.” But his wife and his mother love Trump.
“I think for a president of our country, of the United States, I think it’s amazing," Randi Mahomes said. "I think it’s really neat. You know what, let’s do it.”
Jalen Hurts doesn’t share the opinion. Does he feel pressure with Trump in the house? “No, ma’am,” the Philadelphia quarterback said.
The President is embracing the NFL after disparaging the owners in 2017. He said: “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a (expletive) off the field right now? Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!’ ’’ He pointed out then how TV ratings were “down massively.” Curious how they’ve boomed this decade, with more than 125 million viewers watching Sunday. One reason: Swift, who has lifted Kansas City’s fan base by 30 percent. Trump holds his nose as he likes the Chiefs.
“What a GREAT Team, Coach, Quarterback, and virtually everything else, including those fantastic FANS, that voted for me (MAGA!) in record numbers,” he wrote.
No doubt the Super Bowl never has been more prominent. Gamblers will wager $1.5 billion in legal bets. Tom Brady is in the TV booth, with Mahomes beginning to threaten his seven championship rings. New Orleans, once sassy and buzzy, is not the place for the Chiefs and the Eagles and Donald Trump.
“We have a lot to sell in Louisiana,” said Gov. Jeff Landry, “we’ve just done a bad job selling it.”
There is no easy way into the suites at the Superdome, just as there is no easy way toward the stadium. “Extensive planning and coordination have been in place to ensure the safety of all attendees, players, and staff,” the Secret Service’s Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement. “Security measures have been further enhanced this year, given that this will be the first time a sitting President of the United States will attend the event.”
Consider it a statement. The venue is much too wicked.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.