THE SUPER BOWL IS IN VEGAS, AS BETTORS AND DORITOS FANS SOMEHOW KNOW
What once was a cry of restraint — never, as Goodell said — has become another hypocritical marvel of the NFL’s financial machinery, with the Big Game arriving as the NFL booms beyond financial belief
How many times have you arrived for the ecstasy — actual or recreational — and found the unreal? In Las Vegas, scenes tend to be creepier than “The Hangover” movies. Mike Tyson was sick when he bit Evander Holyfield’s ear. A killer was savage when he fatally shot Tupac Shakur in a drive-by. An elected official thought he would skate when he allegedly stab-murdered an investigative reporter.
Often, Sin City lurks past the freakdom of the lives we’re living. Now it’s beyond an absurdist’s surreality when the flight lands and you notice the pyramid structure of the Luxor resort. What have promoters done for the Super Bowl? A Doritos chip is painted on the triangle, in golden brown, to celebrate the tortilla maker’s latest telecast commercial, which cost the company almost $7 million for 30 seconds. Decor for the game adorns The Strip, including a Pepsi doo-dad at the Delano, and over at Sphere, which dominates the nightscape like one of Zach Galifianakis’ mushrooms, U2 is finishing a too-long residency with appropriate advertising and playing, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.”
The NFL located what it needed. The answer was money, of course, with dollar signs that couldn’t fill the rest of this infinite digital page. Once the Supreme Court allowed states to legally operate gambling establishments, in 2018, Roger Goodell was prompted by franchise owners to reconsider thoughts about an age-old stance. Only a year before, the commissioner said, “We still strongly oppose legalized sports gambling. The integrity of our game is No. 1. We will not compromise on that.”
Today, with one look at sportsbook ads during games and betting lines discussed on billions-devoted networks, the NFL wants to be known as a gambling endeavor as much as an upright, honest indicator of who plays the best football. Integrity of the damned game? With average bettors ranging from 21 to 45, nothing is a better cash play for younger people than pushing the app button in 38 states, the nation’s capital and Puerto Rico. Never mind millions of problem gamblers, a crew growing by the weekend. Never mind college kids so in debt that they can’t function. And never mind scandals involving several players, including New England rookie Kayshon Boutte, accused of placing 8,900 illegal bets at LSU. Indeed, the dirtiness is happening, more than we know.
But Goodell has convinced an all-time record audience that gambling is far less important than the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers. Only nine years ago, he forced Tony Romo to cancel a fantasy convention at the Sands Expo. Only seven years ago, he fined players who performed at an arm-wrestling show in Vegas. How amazing to see the power of the currency unit when traipsing toward … a trillion?
“A lot has changed,” Goodell said in, um, 2024.
What he did was turn a league with numerous issues, including a racial divide during Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling crusades, into a rapid reversal. If TV ratings approached a 10 percent decline just before the court ruling, Goodell has used his oddsmaking deeds to create a gleaming gold mine — $120 billion in media bucks through 2032 — that leaves us wondering if football actually is running America. Some people think Taylor Swift’s romance with Travis Kelce is a way to re-elect President Biden, and if so, Goodell should renegotiate with the networks for gross-national-income data. Though the number of league concussions rose in 2023, is anyone raising hell? Nah, upper crusts will smother as if this is the Biggest Sports Event Ever, with the get-in ticket price still around $8,000. The economic impact on the area should pass $700 million, all blooming a rose that Vegas is the new sports capital of Planet Earth. The four top sports leagues soon will have entries, not bad for a place that was struggling itself until a PR person wrote, “What happens here, stays here.”
The new slogan? “Excessive celebration encouraged,” the NFL said.
Gambling is a prime element. Go to Vegas, bet on the game, do crazy stuff. Not once has Goodell apologized for hypocrisy, knowing his State of The League media conference comes tonight. “We don’t have a rotation for the Super Bowl, but I have no doubt this is going to be a successful Super Bowl, and we’ll be back here a lot for Super Bowls,” he already has said. “From our standpoint, we’re adapting to what the environment is. (Gambling has) its benefits in the context of greater fan engagement. A lot of our fans like to bet, but the downside is, we’ve always talked about protecting the integrity of the game, and that’s something that we feel very strongly about.”
Notice how the onus has been adjusted to the players, not the league. The Chiefs and 49ers cannot wager or walk through a casino. Other league players can bet on other sports but not the Super Bowl. “The NFL is strongly committed to protecting the integrity of our game,” Goodell said in a memo. “As NFL players, you have a special responsibility to yourself and your legacy, your club and teammates, the fans, and the game to ensure that it is always played fairly, honestly, and to the best of your ability. This includes taking all appropriate steps to safeguard our game against possible gambling-related risks that can undermine the confidence and trust of our fans and colleagues in America’s greatest game.”
Not that participating players are interested in jingle-jangles or blackjack. Both teams are at hotels about 20 miles east of The Strip. Said Patrick Mahomes, who has more at stake historically than any player, shooting for his third championship when only Tom Brady, Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana and Troy Aikman have won three as quarterbacks. “This a great football team that we're going up against. It's going to take our best football, kind of like it's taken the last three weeks that we've played,” Mahomes said. “And I know it's Vegas and it's a lot of fun, but for us, it's a business trip in a true sense — play a football game and try to find our way to win it.”
He will do so as Kelce makes his way around “Super Bowl Opening Night,” also this evening. Mahomes will be the second most-popular player. Does anyone think Kelce will clam it up the first few days? “That’s going to be kind of where it starts for everybody,” Kelce said last week, “and at this point, I just love it. It’s an exciting time. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime type of thing that I’ve been able to enjoy a few times.”
Why is he so relaxed with a microphone in his hand? “My mom’s home videos, man,” he told a Kansas City reporter. “Having that camera on me at all times, seeing what silly stuff I’m going to do next. Honestly, I’ve always been comfortable in the rooms I’ve been in, and just fortunate that — I don’t know, I’ve kind of been able to look into a camera with ease, I guess. I don’t know. It’s just having fun out there. Just having confidence in general, and sports for me is where I built my confidence. You probably won’t believe me, but I was a shy kid growing up until I got onto the sports field, or the court or the ice rink. Then I kind of let my personality show. I was having fun. I was having success. And that’s just kind of propelled me to have confidence in life.”
A shy kid has become the world’s most popular athlete, at the moment, waiting to see if Swift arrives from Tokyo this weekend. ESPN used to be a sports network but, like Goodell, chairman Jimmy Pitaro is absorbed in ESPN Bet for his own survival. His peeps have two sufficient prop wagers — Swift Action, with Kelce scoring in the first two minutes, and MVP Swelce if Kelce wins the MVP award. The only downer was when his beloved coach, Andy Reid, said he met Swift as a child.
“Yeah, listen, she’s been great. I knew her before, from Philadelphia. Her dad played at Delaware and was a big football fan and good guy,” Reid told Brady on his podcast. “So I had met him there and her. So that was the last thing Trav wanted to hear, that I knew her before him.”
All of which only feeds the week’s hysteria, including an open wish from CBS that it will show Swift as much as the lead producer desires. For now, until the stadium opens with its rolled-in field, I’m thinking about a Carrot Top concert. The redhead does a comedy show at a familiar resort. It’s called the Luxor.
Will he please do a Doritos bit? And make it messy?
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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.