The president vs. the halftime show

Super Bowl LX had a football game, a ratings machine, and a political argument that started before the coin toss. Donald Trump reacted harshly to a halftime show starring Bad Bunny, treating a pop set as if it were a platform plank. The league treated the set as what it was: the most expensive commercial break in American life.

Sports pages used to pretend that the stadium was a refuge from politics. It never was. The anthem, the flyover, the ads, the commissioner in a suite — the Super Bowl is a state occasion that happens to include a football. A president who comments on the entertainment is not crossing a line. He is standing on the one the broadcast already painted.

The game will be remembered by the score. The night will be remembered by who was allowed on the fifty-yard line, and who objected from the cheap seats of the internet. That is now as much a sports story as a catch in the end zone.

Filed under Sports