super bowl 2025

Super Bowl LIX landed in New Orleans last night like a gaudy asteroid, trailing 200 million television viewers, a month-long security lockdown, and enough corporate cash to refinance a medium-sized republic. From São Paulo flats to Mumbai bars, humans who will never see an American football in person stayed up past decency to watch grown men in colored armor rearrange each other’s vertebrae for the right to hoist a Tiffany’s trophy. Call it the planet’s most expensive ritual sacrifice—sponsored by a crypto exchange that no longer exists.

The NFL’s international feed came in 26 languages, including Gaelic and Mandarin, proof that nothing translates quite like gratuitous spectacle. When the Kansas City Chiefs finally suffocated the San Francisco 49ers 27-24, fireworks detonated over the Caesars Superdome and, metaphorically, over global living rooms where local time zones meant children were eating sugar-coated capitalism for breakfast. Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip, Sudan, and half a dozen other neighborhoods currently experimenting with societal collapse, the same satellite beams carried images of a $7-million-per-second commercial break. The universe’s sense of timing remains impeccable.

Overseas ratings keep climbing: Brazil up 18 %, Germany 22 %, even orderly Switzerland clocked a 14 % bump—perhaps drawn to the comforting sight of regulated violence after Geneva spent the week failing to regulate anything else. The league now schedules morning kickoffs in London and plans to plant a franchise in Madrid faster than you can say “imperial overreach.” If it feels familiar, it should: the Romans also exported their circuses right before the aqueducts started leaking.

Economic reverberations stretched well beyond the Crescent City. American advertisers, high on Super Bowl-grade dopamine, will book international media slots all year, underwriting the influencer economy that keeps your cousin in Bali filming smoothie bowls instead of getting an honest job. Meanwhile, Chinese factories ran overtime stamping Patrick Mahomes bobbleheads—plastic messiahs shipped just in time for Valentine’s Day breakups. Total estimated global consumer spend: roughly the GDP of Barbados, but with more emotional volatility.

Security theater was equally transatlantic. The FBI borrowed facial-recognition drones from the Paris Olympics playbook, while Israeli cyber-ops veterans consulted on preventing a halftime crypto-stunt hack. The only thing nations can’t seem to coordinate is a climate policy, yet they swap stadium-patrol techniques like Panini stickers. Result: no major incidents, unless you count the existential dread triggered by a nation-wide power surge every time Taylor Swift appeared on screen.

Ah yes, Swift—America’s unofficial soft-power ambassador. Her presence in a luxury suite generated a diplomatic ripple felt from Tokyo record stores to Downing Street, where UK officials briefly wondered if swaying Anglo-American relations depend on which pop star a tight end is dating. When cameras cut to her, global Twitter traffic spiked higher than during most central-bank announcements, demonstrating that monetary policy now competes with blonde billionaires for relevance. Take that, World Bank.

The game itself ended with a walk-off field goal, a polite reminder that after all the pyrotechnics, drone shows, and flag-waving, victory hinged on a man booting an inflated pigskin between two sticks—an activity children perform with jumpers for goalposts on every continent, usually without a paycheck. Players thanked God, families, and the defense-industry sponsor that plastered its logo on the practice jerseys, neatly summarizing modern priorities: faith, kinship, and munitions.

By sunrise Monday, the French Quarter hosed confetti into storm drains destined for the Gulf of Mexico, where fish will nibble branded ticker tape and wonder what species keeps inventing new ways to litter. Back on land, fans stumbled to airports, credit cards radiating heat, carrying viruses both biological and ideological. The NFL has already booked next year’s venue in San Francisco, a city currently debating reparations for a century of housing sins. Expect the same cheerful cognitive dissonance: tackle poverty on Tuesday, celebrate a tackling festival on Sunday.

Internationally, the lesson is clear: if you can’t join the empire, at least stream its pageant. Bread may be scarce, but the circus is only one subscription away.