“Debunking the Ridiculous Super Bowl-Bachhans Theory: Joe Biden and Taylor Swift Not Rigging a Win for Travis Kelce”
America is being told that this Sunday’s Super Bowl, that much-celebrated annual sporting spectacle, is rigged. Wasn’t something similar said in India about an equally grand cricket event a few months back? And pulling the strings to ensure that Kansas City Chiefs become the 2024 National Football League (NFL) champions for political gains allegedly is the POTUS himself – Joe Biden. Doesn’t even that sound familiar?
But before the Indian parallel, here is a brief about the big American ‘politics meets sports’ story for the precious few who are untouched by social media, memes, chat shows, stand-ups and news networks.
So Chiefs star player Travis Kelce, along with his far more well-known girlfriend, the pop icon Taylor Swift, are said to be supporters of Biden, a second-term hopeful for the November elections. This has resulted in many of Donald Trump’s Republicans and the online army of influential rightwing voices saying that the White House has choreographed the Super Bowl, which, they say, will end with Chiefs winnings and Kelce-Swift giving a thumbs up to Biden right from the centre of the arena. There’s more. The Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, Swift, is being called a “Pentagon asset” and “election interference psyop.” A likely and perfectly legitimate endorsement of Biden by Swift is being tarnished as unfair piggybacking on sport.
Even by America’s long and dubious history of conspiracy theories, this is a new low. But before ridiculing the US, it’s prudent to look at India. Rewind to the frenzy of the 50 overs World Cup last year. Since the ICC put out the schedule and India was to play the final at the Narendra Modi stadium, the nation went on a wild overdrive second-guessing about how the events would unfold.
And when Rohit Sharma and his men started their imperious march, decimating every team on the way to the final, there were those who complained of a strong whiff of inevitability. This was November, the election year was not far, PM Modi was to be at the stadium for the final and rumours swirled in the air like the drones catching the splendor of the sprightly sea of blue at the world’s biggest cricket stadium.
“It’s all fixed,” the cynics would say. Modi presenting the Cup to Rohit was an obvious eventuality.
On the heart-breaking night of November 19, when Australia prevailed, sport showed the doubters that it has a mind of its own. Rumour mongers, rabble-rousers and even heads of states aren’t yet that powerful that they can be puppeteers at every sporting arena. Sports on most days still remains a pageant of delightful unpredictability and that’s what makes it retain its pull. It can turn emotions upside down and also go against consensus. Match-fixing episodes are certainly blips that shake the trust but then there are days, like the one at Ahmedabad, when sports brandishes its purity and autonomy.
Over the years, many powerful regimes have actually tried to influence sports, but failed. In the mid 80s, the entire might of the Soviet Union was behind Anatoly Karpov when he met the challenger Garry Kasparov. The outspoken “half-Armenian, half-Jew” Kasparov from the deep south of the Soviet Union wasn’t the choice of the state behind the iron curtain that preferred the true blue Russian.
About Karpov, Kasparov would say “the system wasn’t with him, he was the system himself”. But despite being denied seasoned seconds and other expertise, Kasparov prevailed. That would change the course of history. “Many people who supported me told me that the moment Kasparov won the title and Karpov lost, they realised that the whole system may one day collapse,” he said.
As was the case before the cricket World Cup final, the political blabbermouths in America have no time for the sporting SWOT analysis of the Super Bowl. According to them, Chiefs will win only because Kelce is Mr Taylor Swift and not because he has been among the best players in the NFL since he made his debut in 2013. A multi-skilled player, known to step-up his game in play-offs, Kelce, 34, has an intimidating presence in the offensive line and is a reliable catcher who can cover 40 yards in 4.61 seconds. He is a legend in the making, a certain Hall of Famer.
But such statistics don’t matter when the sporting scrutiny is being done through a political lens. Did those predicting India’s win have the team’s miserable ICC events record in their mind? Did they consider the captaincy acumen of Pat Cummins and Travis Head’s temperament to deliver in big games? Of course, they didn’t. They hadn’t just lost touch with reality, they had actually cooked up a different reality.
To be updated about scoresheet numbers and team form is too much of an ask from these unsporting political nose-pokers. But by overestimating the power of the high and mighty, they were undermining the collective credibility of sporting icons on the field.
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