Yesterday, the Seattle Seahawks faced off against the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX. The game itself was a complete blowout, resulting in a victory for the Seahawks. Even more exciting than the gameplay was the halftime show by Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny despite the MAGA-led culture war against it. As it turns out, cultivating a community based on love is much more appealing (and successful) than one of hate.
Besides the Bad Bunny intermission, Pablo and Jen discuss the selling of the Seattle Seahawk team, the beginning of the Winter Olympics in Milan, and the revealing, anti-human, pro surveillance state, Super Bowl ads.
Pablo Torre is an American sportswriter, podcaster, and television host. He contributes to various programs at ESPN, including Pardon The Interruption and Around The Horn. Keep up with Pablo on his Substack and podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out .
Correction: Jody Allen, the owner of the Seattle Seahawks, is the sister of Paul Allen, not his widow.
The following transcript has been edited for formatting
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, Editor-in-Chief of The Contrarian. If it’s Monday, it must be Pablo Torre. Pablo, welcome!
Pablo Torre
We made it to Super Bowl day after Hangover Monday, so good to see you.
Jen Rubin
Exactly, exactly. Let’s start with the ads, I haven’t talked much about the ads. They seem to be kind of underwhelming this year. you think businesses have gotten, like, so timid and confused, they don’t know what to do. They didn’t seem to be any, like, real standouts to me. What about you?
Pablo Torre
I think it’s of a piece of the larger trend that I’m seeing in our world, which is that, everything is data-driven and algorithmic, and feels less human. And I think that’s actually right on the nose for the genre of product we were being sold, which is to say, a lot of AI. Certainly crypto and the Coinbase Backstreet Boys thing, we’re effectively seeing surveillance technology being repackaged in that Ring camera. That ad about, like, we’ll find your dog, and then the reasonable question that we all are thinking as we watch is, like, well, also us, though, then. Also, you’re watching us perpetually, and scanning our faces. And so it does feel like, you know, again, in the documentary of our time, there will be that game, and that halftime, and these ads, and it’ll all sort of connect to a lot of the bigger picture issues that we’re talking about, the casino that we’re living in.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. And how many ads were for betting? I mean, it just shows you the degree to which sports betting has taken over sports. I saw someone say, no kings means there’s no… no betting kings as well. Were you kind of surprised by that, or have you kind of watched this Tsunami of bedding come over the hill anyway.
Pablo Torre
It would be surprising if it wasn’t a tsunami of gambling content. Of course, sports was the patient zero there, and so I’ve been watching it for years now, but it does speak to the other part of our time, which is the prediction market. We did an episode of Pablo Tory Finds Out about prediction markets, which are basically, for those not familiar, unregulated ways to get sports betting in every pocket in America, no matter what the laws of the states are dictating. And what that suggests, and there’s a whole other episode we could do just about prediction markets, but the point is, everything is sports betting now, right? Will we invade Venezuela? Is sports betting. Will Bad Bunny bring out Lady Gaga? Is sports betting. Will there be F-16s? Will there be whoever in the luxury box? I mean, everything is now bettable. That’s what the prediction market promises via event contracts. And so the idea that sports betting, that betting companies now are reasserting Their proposition as a business in the most expensive commercial real estate possible is, of course, the response. And so, all of this is colliding at once.
Jen Rubin
So let’s talk about the game. The first half, was… hard to watch. Let’s take the halves, because they were really two different halves. Was it a offensive breakdown by New England, or was Seattle’s defense that good in the first half?
Pablo Torre
I’m gonna give credit, first and foremost, to Seattle’s defense, while acknowledging that the Patriots were wildly disappointing offensively.
Jen Rubin
Yeah.
Pablo Torre
And the Seattle defense is the story, it turns out, of the season. Part of their whole thesis was, everybody’s obsessed with these quarterbacks, gotta draft a first rounder, gotta sign a superstar, and that’s been conventional wisdom in the modern NFL, which is offensive in nature. But the Seahawks went and hired this coach, Mike McDonald, who was the defensive coordinator for the Ravens, and he’s a defense-first guy. And so what they built was a fantastic all-time defense with a quarterback in Sam Darnold, who is such a great story, because this was a bust.
This is a guy who was seeing ghosts as he was caught on a live mic while playing the Patriots when Darnold was a New York Jet. And so you have this defense-first team with an okay quarterback piloting this system. And that defense of the Seahawks, they got whatever they wanted from the Patriots. And so, no touchdowns of any kind, in fairness to the Patriots’ defense. the touchdowns of any kind until the fourth quarter, but I think that the story was the big dudes that played defense for the Ravens up front were getting pressure on the Patriots, and the offensive line of the Patriots couldn’t stop them. And that was the.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. Absolutely. And their secondary made some amazing plays. I mean, yes, there was pressure on the quarterback, but it was acrobatic at times, and some of those clearly could have been, receptions in any other, you know, kind of context. We will come back to halftime, but let’s go to the second half. At that point, kind of fall hell broke loose for Seattle. Was it the fumble? Was it frustration? How did it kind of get unraveled in the second half? Because they were in the game. As little offense as they had, they were only 9 points back at halftime.
Pablo Torre
Yeah, I was disappointed in the Patriots head coach, Mike Vrabel, who is the Coach of the year, who is a disciple from the, Bill Belichick tree. He is supposed to be really clever and creative in terms of making adjustments, and they went into halftime, and every Patriots fan friend that I talked to, post-game, their post-mortem is, I wish we had tried something different. And they didn’t. I mean, it was… the word I use, Jen, when I think of offensive performances like that is impotent.
You’re watching the same thing. You’re trying, to meet the definition of insanity, which is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. So, should there have been a turning point? Was the turning point within reach? Absolutely. It was a one-score game for a lot of us. Again, we had 9 points, 3 field goals, but in that second half. I was expecting… the Patriots to put some tight ends along the offensive line to help protect Sam Darnold, I mean, to protect, Drake May. I was expecting them to try to do something that felt you know, not to be so simplistic about it, but I just remember when the Eagles beat the Patriots, you know, the Philly Special, they were just trying whatever they could, just to, like, let’s good, flea flickers, anything, like, throw something against the wall. And they didn’t really do that at all. They didn’t roll the dice, and they basically, They, they, they went down… Quite conservatively, which is incredibly frustrating in its ability.
Jen Rubin
Yes. And how much of that was the limitations of a young quarterback? Were they afraid to try new stuff because this was a guy who, I mean… second year in the league, this is probably the youngest, or least experienced quarterbacks to get to the Super Bowl.
Pablo Torre
Yeah, look, the grace you give, Drake May is that… as you put it, he is a young… he’s relatively a kid still in the league, and he overperformed in this, in this season, but if you look at his playoff run, I mean, the Patriots made it this far because of the defense, and at times in spite of Drake May, who has flashes of… of incredible talent. But… I would like that question you asked to be asked of Mike Rabel at some point in this offseason. Because the more generous view towards Rabel is he knew that trying to be more risk-seeking with his young quarterback would not have worked. And that is an indictment in its own way. Yeah. That is an indictment in its own way, yeah.
Jen Rubin
So, what do they do? They just wait for him to become more mature, they change offensive Coordinators? What’s the next step for the Patriots?
Pablo Torre
So, Josh McDaniels, the offensive coordinator, was truly, the guy who should be shouldering the blame. Like, Mike Vogel, of course, is the head coach. McDaniels is the guy who is also coordinating the Tom Brady offenses for Belichick. He’s also one of the guys who we’ve seen for decades now in the New England system. the first point of order, I think, is to get an offensive line, and to specifically replace a Will Campbell, who was the guy who was getting destroyed by a Seahawks pass rush, which, again, is… an all-time great defense now that they’ve completed this run. So, how do you stop a team that can get pressure on your quarterback by only rushing 4 guys? They weren’t even really blitzing so much.
And so, how to get a front that can withstand that? I mean, that’s the first round draft pick question, is like, who do we get to solve that issue? And then I think Drake May, you feel great! I mean, frankly, like, let’s now take another day after the hangover and just think, the Patriots made the Super Bowl in a year in which no one expected them to, and they had, in Drake May, the runner-up in the MVP. And so this is in the larger view and then it’s gravy. You overachieved. And so don’t try to blow everything up, but just get the pieces that can keep you from being humiliated by a defense that’s that good.
Jen Rubin
Okay. And Seattle has been underestimated in point because they don’t have a flashy quarterback, and they certainly don’t want to deviate from the defensive first. What do they need to do to keep improving to make this a repeat kind of team? What would you be doing in the draft for them?
Pablo Torre
Well, it’s interesting, like, the Seattle Seahawks, reportedly, this was before the Super Bowl, are gonna get sold this offseason. If Jody Allen, the [sister] of Paul Allen, the owner of the team, is gonna put the team up for sale. I don’t recall an NFL team winning the Super Bowl and then being And so, in terms of, like, what happens in this off-season, in sports as in life, everything flows down from whoever is in control of the money, and so that is the first big, really the biggest question you can have is who owns the team. But then, I think that you have, in the Seahawks. you know, a model that other teams, I suspect, will be emboldened to try and emulate. And I say that because… Everyone should want to draft defense, and then find what is attainable every offseason, which is a relatively middle-class solution at quarterback. The Vikings had Sam Darnold, you know, and they let him free.
And the Seahawks said, hey, we can pay this guy, I don’t know, around 10th or 12th most in the NFL among all the starting quarterbacks, and we can fill in everything else around him. And so, if you’re the Seahawks, what a position of strength. You know, the quarterback, if you look at every financial chart in the NFL and in sports, really, like, the biggest chunk is the quarterback. Yeah. You know, these are 9-figure and if you can then reallocate the rest of that… I mean, in the NFL, not to belabor this financial advantage, but… that’s why rookie quarterbacks are so valuable, is that they’re cost-controlled. You can spend on everything else. The Seahawks have a version of that with Sam Darnold. Not as great a savings as a rookie, but relative cost control and the ability to fortify wherever else they need, and that’s… I mean, look. Marcus Lawrence, who’s one of the great, pass rushers that they have along that front, he’s aging. I think he still has another year in him, to be clear, but, like, they can restock. They have the… They have the blueprint, and that’s such a position of strength.
Jen Rubin
So, let’s, before moving on to the halftime, talk about the ownership issue. as a team is going up for sale, they nevertheless were able to put a Super Bowl-winning team on the ground. What’s your thought about selling them at this point? Obviously, this was in the works before. Their cart management was… frankly, carrying on pretty darn well. You can’t criticize anything. And yet, they’re up for sale. It’s hard to reconcile that at some level. Like, do you want to change your mind? You want to keep the team? You’re doing pretty well.
Pablo Torre
Yeah, yeah, it’s scary if you’re a fan of the Seahawks. And I say that because all you… I mean, look, it bears reasserting this because sports is in a strange place where there are so many new incentives and conflicts of interest, but the goal—and we joked about this with Lane Kiffin—you know, leaving his team during the postseason of the college football playoff, the goal is to win the title. So, all you want is to keep doing that. And the Seahawks have been managed so, I would say, laissez-faire, In terms of an own… I mean, the nightmare is an owner who meddles and thinks they know more than the football people. This is true of any sports team. An owner who thinks they know more than the people who actually know the things is a nightmare.
And so, if there’s someone who comes in and says to themselves, I think I can figure this out even better. If you’re a fan, you’re like, why are we risking anything? Like, we just did the thing. Like, let’s just keep doing the thing. And so, it’s this reminder, as always, that a sports team is an heirloom, it is a cultural institution that borders on civic. And keeping, by the way, the Seahawks in a city, Seattle, that has lost other pro sports teams, like the Sonics, RIP, these are all very acutely felt emotions for that city. And so, it’s scary. It’s scary, and… All I know is that the good news for Jody Allen and the current complicated ownership group is that you are going to make probably more money than anyone has ever made selling a football team. Yeah. And congratulations on selling high, but how do you keep it at that level?
Jen Rubin
And that is a good point. You think the evaluation is going to be, like, Lakers evaluation? Gonna be high? I mean, what numbers are we talking about here?
Pablo Torre
Yeah, I mean, keep in mind, like, the Commanders went for $6 billion, the Lakers in the NBA went for $10. The Lakers market is stronger than the Seahawks, but football’s stronger than the NBA. I would say we’re looking… If you told me the Seahawks just got sold for $7 billion, I’d say, yeah, that makes total sense. But, you know what? Now that I’m doing the math on this, like… I’m thinking… 9. I’m thinking, like, wait a minute, let’s adjust, let’s adjust, and…
Jen Rubin
Yes, because he just won the damn Super Bowl!
Pablo Torre
It’s funny, right? Like, because I was thinking that before they won, and so I could make the case, based on the scarcity of… I mean, look. When you buy a team, typically, the only reason you can buy it is because the team is bad. Something’s not going well, and there’s an opportunity for the owners to make money. In this case. I think you’re looking at 9, 10, 11, and the 11 in excess of the Lakers is… that owes to the NFL. And so I would… I would not be shocked if it was 9, 10, 11, now that I think about it.
Jen Rubin
Right. All right, now we get to the part of the Super Bowl that everyone, I think, liked the best, and that was the halftime show. The lead-up, of course, to this came through the Grammys, came through the really vile racism, the violence, the hatred, the bad-mouthing from the White House. And on display was the most loving, joyous, American, wholesome, had a wedding, for goodness sakes, kind of display. What was your reaction as you’re watching this kind of unfold before your eyes?
Pablo Torre
I was waiting for the thing that Donald Trump said, effectively would happen, which is that there would be some grandiose, you know, protest. F Trump, FICE, ICE out, all that stuff. And instead, what we got was a party that made you look stupid for saying that this is gonna be some, you know, disaster of politics you know, as they prescribed it. And I was doing a very schizophrenic thing. I was looking and watching Bad Bunny, but also on another screen, I was looking at Kid Rock.
Yeah, it was, it was, it was, so funny to see the contrast, right? Like, sometimes when you’re imagining the documentary of our time, you’re thinking, it can’t possibly be that symmetrically convenient. But if you’re to split-screen it, you have party where everyone’s happy and celebrating, high production values, clearly mainstream and popular, okay? You don’t have to love Bad Bunny’s music, but just you recognize exactly how well produced this is and how joyous it is. On the other hand, you have this lip-synced pre-produced, pre-taped, jort-wearing Kid Rock thing, and it was just like, this feels… so pathetic. And the part of Bad Bunny to focus on that, that felt so radical, while feeling also very down the middle, even. was that all it was, was a bunch of people who speak a different language, but are also Americans existing and having fun? And so, it wasn’t… it wasn’t something that was overt in its protest gestures at all. You know, love is the only thing that can conquer hate, or whatever it was, like, the Erica Kirk slogan basically blasted on that Jumbotron was pretty intentional, I think, in terms of preempting what people would have wanted to claim, but also. It’s this reminder that the only reason this stuff feels radical, people speaking Spanish, partying, getting married, having fun, dancing, is because this administration has tried to sell that as dangerous, and terroristic, and anti-American. And it just doesn’t… Hold water. You know?
Jen Rubin
Exactly.
Pablo Torre
It felt like the metaphor for, like, do you believe your eyes, or do you believe what the administration’s telling you?
Jen Rubin
Exactly, and on the biggest stage, with the biggest audience you’re ever gonna get, for them to see how full of crap, Donald Trump is, was… It was genius. And whether they thought it through in those terms, or they just said, we’re gonna have a joyous show because that’s what we’re all about. we can consider. But I think just for… The sheer color of it, the brightness, the tableau that they put together. It really is like lightness and dark. happy or mean, joyous or resentful. And you couldn’t have made a better statement as to why the administration is now so desperate, so defensive, becoming more and more extreme, more and more violent, because they’re losing. They’ve lost the threat, they’ve lost the population. They can’t help it. They’re not going to stamp out multiculturalism. They’re not going to stamp out what makes America America. And that was what was, I think. Satisfying and reassuring, in some sense that they’re losing. They’re gonna lose. And not necessarily the ballot box lose, though I think they’re gonna lose there too, but they can’t control that. The country is bigger than they are, and they know it. And so they look small and petty and defensive and boring.
Pablo Torre
Yeah, that’s the other thing, is, like, this administration came to power allegedly having some finger on the pulse of what the average American, the median American wanted. And what you’re seeing, you know, I’m watching this same weekend, again, the documentary of our time, Donald Trump posting the video where the Obamas are apes, right? And you’re just like. who is this for, right? And the person it’s for, of course, is their actual demographic now, which has shrunk and shriveled to the people who are otherwise known as the worst group of people on Twitter. On Twitter, specifically. Just, like, this is… they’re catering to a base that has become, calcified into just internet trolls. I’m not even saying that editorially, I’m saying that, no, that’s… that’s who the base it.
And so you miss how unbelievably horrible the Ice in Minnesota story is to the mainstream, reflected in polling. You miss how popular Bad Bunny is, as reflected in streaming numbers. You miss how embarrassing it is to say, we’re countering the biggest artist in the world with bleep blink… just kid rock. Just like, what are we doing? It’s like, popularity was Donald Trump’s weapon, and now it is the thing that he has lost, and everybody sees that.
Jen Rubin
Yes. Now, it is an afterthought, because it really is an afterthought, and that is the Winter Olympics. We talked last week about how people are not really focused on it, and certainly during Super Bowl week, that was the case. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about the quad god. And the sheer… magnificence of this young man, son of two professional skaters, grew up not too far from where I raised my kids in Northern Virginia, and… Pulled off this performance that was not perfect, but spectacular in some sense, and the sheer power and the sheer grace of being able to do 4 spins, whether he did the axle or not, he did… other four rotation jumps, was something really spectacular, and we shouldn’t lose track of that, or lose admiration for that, for this young man.
Pablo Torre
Yeah, it’s time to get obsessed with sports you don’t care about enormously. And in this case, by the way, here’s what I love about figure skating. It is, as we often say on this show, it is a pressure cooker on a public stage where the notion of choking, right? Of, like, of failing to meet the standard that you have to meet when everyone is watching, and whether you fall or slip or just, like, misalign a toe, it suddenly means that the last 4 years of your life were a waste.
And the other thing I love about the Olympics, just in terms of the stakes and why figure skating also captivates me, is because look, as much as there are ostensibly these tours that figure skaters can go on as professionals and all that stuff.
And so, when you talk about how much does something mean to someone. you know, in sports, you know, I think that’s… we’ve talked about this before, but, like, the shame of how… the importance can be diluted by other incentives, like, oh, I’ll get paid anyway, or I can get them next time, whatever. This is kind of it. And so, I love when someone meets the moment under a crucible that is designed to drive you crazy, and to make you choke, and the quad god, you know, God bless. It’s impressive.
Jen Rubin
We all live with this stupid fantasy that I could play basketball, or I could hit a baseball. That’s absurd, because no one that I know could play at that level, but there is not a human being alive who is a professional skater who can watch that and say, oh, I could do that!
I mean, it’s so far beyond, like, the normal human, you know, compuncture. Most of us can barely, like, make it around the rink, let alone think about lifting off the ground, doing multiple rotations, and landing on a blade that is, you know. that thin. It reminds you of, that there are some things that you just have to sit back and say, wow. And that’s kind of what the Olympics is about, you’re right. Admiration for things that you could never dream of doing, and when the Olympics come along, you’re reminded of sports you never remember doing. And there’s also, I guess, in the Winter Olympics, that element of danger.
And we saw Lindsay Vaughn, of course, wipe out. It’s falling on the ice, that, you know, if any of us have fallen on ice, you know how painful that is. Imagine doing it after four rotations, going at the speed they’re going, and smacking into the ice. So it’s that kind of element of danger. if you folks are out there to remember the wide world of sports, you know, they had that famous scene where the—
Pablo Torre
The ski jump!
Jen Rubin
—and he wipes out. That’s kind of like the Winter Olympics. You’re always, like, on the… tip of your chair, thinking, oh gosh, is tragedy gonna strike? And that’s kind of an element that, frankly, Summer Olympics doesn’t really have, because, you know, you might trip and fall in the, you know, the hurdles, but you’re not gonna kill yourself.
Pablo Torre
The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, as that montage in the wide world of sports used to say. There’s a reason they chose ski jumping. Ski jumping, by the way, we did an episode of Pablo Tori Finds Out about ski jumping and its cheating scandal, and you may have seen the headlines speaking of just, like, absurdity and maximum competitive intensity, just look up what those stories are about, because when you talk about scandal, you think about, you know, steroids and even Deflategate, I dare say that this is an inflate gate. And it is about, the most private areas of these men’s suits, which is not in any way an exaggeration or a joke. It is Crazy, the lengths that they will go to edit their equipment, let’s safely call it, to maximize competitive advantage. It’s a subculture that’s so funny, but reflective of the desperation and the danger you’re talking about.
Jen Rubin
There you go. And now you have a bunch of people googling ski jumping!
Pablo Torre
It’s worth looking up. It’s worth looking up.
Jen Rubin
Exactly. Look it up, folks. Pablo, it is always fun, and how many days till pictures and catchers report? Not very many, right?
Pablo Torre
Yeah, they… Abe Martlet Giamatti, I believe, once said, what do you do when baseball season is over? You look out the window and you wait for spring. And so, spring is just around the corner.
Jen Rubin
Exactly, exactly. We’ll look forward to it. Great seeing you, Pablo. We’ll talk to you next week.
Pablo Torre
Thanks, Jen.
Jen Rubin
Take care. Bye-bye.
