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🏈 Is there room in the new ESPN-NFL deal for multiple broadcast booths to work games behind Joe Buck and Troy Aikman?

🏈 The College Football Playoff is moving off of New Year’s Eve next year to avoid a potential matchup with Thursday Night Football.

⚾ Keith Hernandez has a new deal with SNY to call Mets games but will work a reduced schedule.

🏈 Roger Goodell is surprisingly pumping the brakes on the push for an 18-game NFL regular season.

🏅 Scott Hanson is in for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics Gold Zone even before the 2026 version gets underway.

When it came to possible Super Bowl matchups as the NFL Playoffs began, a game between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots wouldn’t have been among the favorites for NBC to draw the biggest and most invested audience for Super Bowl LX.

That’s not to take away from Sam Darnold, Drake Maye, and the players and teams involved. Hopefully it will be a great game and go down to the wire like the first Super Bowl game the teams played a decade ago when Malcolm Butler intercepted Russell Wilson at the goal line for another Lombardi Trophy victory for New England.

However, it is to say that there may be a struggle to find really captivating storylines heading into this year’s game that have been present in the recent past. Does Drake Maye sliding comfortably into Tom Brady’s throne move the needle? How about the unlikely career journey of Sam Darnold? Is America ready to anoint Jaxon Smith-Njigba as the next great NFL star? It’s not quite Taylor Swift watching the Kansas City Chiefs dynasty.

And all of the noise surrounding the game isn’t helping the cause.

This year more than ever, it seems as if the Super Bowl, the biggest event on the sporting calendar, is somehow being overshadowed by everything happening around the game. Given the popularity of the NFL, it seems impossible. But it’s happening right before our very eyes.

The NFL is uniquely gifted at controlling the narrative. The league dominates so much of the American sports and culture scene that it is not often prone to distractions. But for the first time in a long time, the focus is mainly off the field as we approach Super Bowl LX.

And that’s not even mentioning the continuing conversation around an expanded slate of international games spanning the globe or the possible expansion of an 18-game regular season. Then there’s the news of the coaching cycle itself and the stream of reporting ongoing regarding front office moves, the NFL Draft, and so much more. And in non-NFL news, we have the NBA trade deadline and Winter Olympics also competing for space on social media and daily rundowns.

This was an issue during the College Football Playoff as well where all of the off-field drama surrounding the transfer portal overshadowed the late stages of the championship tournament. Thankfully, once we got to the Indiana-Miami title game, all the focus shifted quickly back to the field… except of course for the Abella Danger cameo.

It’s still a strange reality for the NFL to face, though. When Super Bowl LX kicks off we will forget about all these storylines for a moment. But it is proof that in this day and age that not even the NFL is exempt from the constant churn of news and chaos that wraps up so much of our lives in 2026.

Charles Barkley shouldn’t give up his day job to do commercial jingles anytime soon. Who knew he sang like one of the Bee Gees?

Chris “Mad Dog” Russo just wants to have fun talking sports as he explained to Dan Patrick.

Sage Steele doesn’t want musicians protesting against ICE because they don’t know what they are talking about. Oh, the irony.

“I just wanna see good football. I wanna see good plays, good throws, good strategy, good decisions.” - Tom Brady is channeling his inner Rob Lowe in not picking a side in Super Bowl LX in spite of it featuring his former team.

“Bad news for anyone who watches the NFL: The Trump administration just approved a massive consolidation of sports streaming. It’s a big mistake that will mean higher costs, and fewer choices to watch games.” - Sen. Elizabeth Warren came out swinging against the ESPN-NFL deal.

“Dana White is the greatest promoter of combat sports who ever lived. He is the only promoter of combat sports who has built an institution.” - Max Kellerman is really working overtime to earn that Zuffa Boxing paycheck.

“Pretty proud moment for a lot of people whose names you’ll never know that helped put the mortar and brick that allowed us to do this. You can never imagine this. Super Bowl? We’re gonna have the Super Bowl? Pretty cool.” - Chris Berman is excited about the surreal milestone of a Super Bowl on ESPN next year.

Everything has been coming up roses for the NFL this season on the ratings front thanks to the changes to Nielsen measurement in the Big Data era. More out-of-home focus means more football fans are being counted and massive audiences have come in throughout the season.

But the momentum finally stopped with championship weekend where Broncos-Patriots and Seahawks-Rams hit five-year lows in spite of two very different, but very exciting games.

So what about the Super Bowl LX matchup between the Seahawks and Patriots? After the big game has set viewership records in each of the last three seasons, AA’s Manny Soloway explains why the streak may come to an end in Santa Clara.

As mentioned above, the Super Bowl is being uniquely overshadowed by several major stories outside of the game itself. And the matchup itself is not the most exciting that we have seen in recent years. But there are other practical reasons for this. First, Big Data was already present for last year’s game. So there won’t be the inherent bump that we’ve seen through much of the regular season where almost every network set multi-year highs. Also, the NBC/Peacock broadcast doesn’t have an extra free outlet as Fox had with Tubi last year.

Add it all up and the NFL for once is facing an uphill battle to see continued ratings growth in this year’s Super Bowl. But if the NFL just so happened to peak at 127 million viewers, there are worse problems to have.