At some level, the Super Bowl stopped being totally about soccer and developed — or is it devolved — into a company carnival with lavish events, halftime extravaganzas and commercials whose budgets appeared to rival a blockbuster film.
The apex of that transformation arrived with the N.F.L. planting this yr’s occasion in Las Vegas, the place the prevailing ethos would possibly nicely be {that a} bellyful of something is barely sufficient.
But Super Bowl LVIII, with its attendant flash — and America’s favourite soccer fan, Taylor Swift, chugging a beer in a personal field — demonstrated on Sunday evening how sports activities stands aside from different sorts of leisure.
If the Kansas City Chiefs’ 25-22 extra time victory over the San Francisco 49ers was as tightly scripted as Usher’s elaborate choreography, the groups might need been pelted with rotten tomatoes or booed off the stage by halftime. It was largely a night of stumbles and bumbles: two fumbles, an interception, a muffed punt, a blocked further level, a raft of premature penalties — and for the 49ers sufficient regrets to final a lifetime.
But all of the errors and all these area targets — seven in all — would ultimately be subsumed by the strain that unfolded within the fourth quarter and continued on into extra time of what grew to become the longest recreation in Super Bowl historical past.
The surprising drama continued till the ultimate play, when Patrick Mahomes, the fabulous Kansas City quarterback, tossed a landing cross to a wide-open Mecole Hardman — who had left the Chiefs as a free agent after final season, floundered with the Jets after which was traded again to Kansas City in mid-October. It was his first landing catch of the season.
As the Chiefs poured on to the sphere — and crimson and yellow confetti poured from the ceiling — the 49ers trudged off it, absorbing their second punch-to-the-gut Super Bowl loss to Kansas City in 5 years.
The tidy ending put a neat bow on what not way back would have been unfathomable — the N.F.L. placing its marquee occasion within the nation’s playing capital. Much of that identification is betting on sports activities, which remains to be verboten for gamers and league workers even because the N.F.L. has licensing agreements value practically $1 billion over 5 years.
While Las Vegas has diversified, shifting towards leisure, playing is what distinguishes town from Broadway, Disneyland — and Branson, Mo.
Meanwhile, the N.F.L. pushed out one other made-for-TV spectacle.
Though Allegiant Stadium is roofed, a flyover and fireworks from the roof had been nonetheless a part of the pregame festivities. The halftime present that includes Usher and buddies was orchestrated all the way down to the minute. And the outside of the Sphere, the brand new futuristic live performance venue, projected an American flag.
The commercials additionally managed to elbow their approach into the dialog: Beyoncé used one to announce her subsequent album. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. insinuated himself within the political dialog. And Carl Weathers appeared little greater than every week after his loss of life.
(One element might need been ignored. When the Kansas City gamers charged out of the tunnel earlier than the sport, they had been greeted by a tomahawk chop chant as they ran via the tip zone painted “Chiefs” and rimmed by an N.F.L. message: End racism.)
This N.F.L. season has been distinguished by the presence of Ms. Swift, who has been a daily at Chiefs video games since shortly after she started courting Travis Kelce, the group’s star tight finish.
Suddenly, anecdotally a minimum of, extra women and younger girls have been turned on to a sport that has led them to study the language of so many football-watching males of their lives. As if the nation’s hottest sport wanted a lift.
So, there Ms. Swift was, joined within the Kelce household’s field, flanked by the actress Blake Lively and the singer Ice Spice, slamming a beer with the clapping approval of Travis’s bushy bearded older brother, Jason. The elder Mr. Kelce, who performs for the Philadelphia Eagles, has adopted his brother’s group on what has seemed like a bare-chested pub crawl via the playoffs. He stored his shirt on Sunday, alongside together with his yellow-and-red plaid overalls.
Travis Kelce was excitable, too. Frustrated by the offense’s early struggles, Mr. Kelce screamed within the face of Coach Andy Reid alongside the Kansas City sideline. He might need finished nicely to heed Ms. Swift’s tune, “You Need To Calm Down.”
As the Chiefs started celebrating in a cigar-smoke-filled locker room, Mr. Kelce struggled to open a gold Ace of Spades bottle of champagne. Once the bottle’s cork lastly popped off, he spewed the spraying drink onto his corralled teammates, a lot of whom had been already carrying giant goggles over their eyes. Mr. Mahomes, at his close by locker, carried a duplicate World Wrestling Entertainment championship trophy over his shoulder.
Before he reached the locker room, Mr. Kelce obtained a hug from his mom and embraced Ms. Swift, who planted a kiss on her boyfriend.
The scene might have been sufficient to set off one other spherical of right-wing conspiracy theories about Ms. Swift, along with her legion of devoted followers, being a Pentagon mole despatched to affect this yr’s presidential election.
(Sean McManus, the longtime CBS Sports chairman, poked enjoyable at this joke final week when he stated the N.F.L. had alerted him that the sport may go into two overtimes. “You pay $2.1 billion, you get double overtime,” he stated.)
To anybody else, the embrace between Mr. Kelce and Ms. Swift seemed like a young, unrehearsed second celebrating the fruits of a monthslong journey.
The Chiefs’ victory offers them three Super Bowl titles previously 5 seasons and makes them the primary group because the New England Patriots in 2004 to win back-to-back titles — maybe the one factor that on Sunday evening caught to the script.
Emmanuel Morgan and Kevin Draper contributed reporting.
