American Football

Monday

Britt McHenry

The Super Bowl halftime show gets lost in translation

Bad Bunny strolled into a tropically transformed Levi’s Stadium for his first ever Super Bowl halftime show and kept his promise: He sang all of his songs as written, en Español. If a healthy swathe of English-speaking Americans stared blankly at their screens wondering, “what am I watching?” Bad Bunny was undeterred. The same man who boycotted the contiguous United States just eight months ago due to the perceived prospect of ICE raids at his concerts looked confident and ironically, smug, commanding America’s musical zeitgeist moment on the mainland. He began his show strolling through a quickly assembled Latin Margaritaville. Visually, the camera zoomed way too close to Bad Bunny’s face. We get it: The guy has a near-immaculate face card.

Tuesday

Ben Domenech

The National Football League goes international

On a beautifully gray Madrid afternoon, a group of prominent executives and representatives of America’s most popular sports league gathered to discuss how to divide up the world. There were repeated references to shared values, community engagement, cultural appreciation and “cross-border connection through competition.” The many well-dressed attendees nodded along, doubtlessly hearing each of these totemic invocations for what they really mean – money, in unimaginable sums, and the National Football League’s bold plan to take over the planet. This season the NFL has played seven international games. Madrid, São Paulo, Dublin and Berlin each hosted one fixture. London got three.

Football

Tuesday

Britt McHenry

It pays to be a bad college-football coach

These days, getting fired is the best thing that can happen to a college-football coach. Hugh Freeze is the latest head coach to get voted off the NCAA college-football island. With a 15-19 record in nearly 3 seasons at Auburn University and a loss Saturday where they barely mustered 3 points against Kentucky, the Tigers fell to 1-5 in the SEC. A record like that in such a revered conference can only mean one thing in 2025: termination.As they say on Survivor, the tribe has spoken. Auburn will have to buy Freeze out for $15.4 million. It is about the same dollar amount they forked over when they canned their last coach 8 games into his second season. In total, Freeze drives away with a cool $39 million after working for only half of his six-year deal.

Saturday

Britt McHenry

Male cheerleaders? Who cares

The most famous cheerleaders in the National Football League once belonged to the Dallas Cowboys. Both fans and haters of the Texas stars affectionately referred to the busty, well-coiffed, smiling gals as “America’s sweethearts.” Today, America’s most-talked-about sweetheart is . . . a man. This week, the Minnesota Vikings announced its new cheer squad on Instagram in a video that quickly went viral. In it, a young male cheerleader sashays in the middle of a dance group accompanying a caption that reads, “The next generation of cheer has arrived.” Shortly after, another male cheerleader said he also was joining the squad.  They sure stirred up the crowd. Twitter fingers went flying faster than a back handspring.

male cheerleaders

Friday

Roger Alton

The Super Bowl spectacle is marketing genius

It’s easy to not quite get the Super Bowl. What exactly is it: a sporting event, a music show, a fashion parade for the world’s coolest pair of shades, a new version of the Chippendales with the hunks wearing tight trousers and skid lids? Or, in its latest incarnation, a chance for the world’s most frenetic lawmaker to sink his last putt in a round of golf with Tiger Woods, board Air Force One and say: "Fly me to New Orleans." Or is it a chance to watch several vast and amiable black guys bulging out of their suits and bantering away about a possible three-peat, while Trombone Shorty plays a touching version of "America the Beautiful" and an announcer calls for a moment’s silence to mark the importance of "faith, family and football"?

Super Bowl

Thursday

Mike Tunison

Will Aaron Rodgers pull a Brett Favre and go to the Jets?

Somehow an off-season for Aaron Rodgers that began with a multiday stop in a darkness retreat isolation chamber to decide his next career move has only gotten weirder now that Rodgers has announced his intention to be traded to the New York Jets. Immediately, Rodgers's decision to go to Gang Green triggered a big storyline: that he's following in the footsteps of his legendary Green Bay quarterback predecessor, Brett Favre, whose departure from the Packers to the Jets following the 2007 season was similarly fraught. Favre lasted only one tumultuous year in New York, during which he made headlines for texting dick pics to broadcaster Jenn Sterger. The Jets that year started 9-5 only to lose their final two games and miss the playoffs.