OLIVER HOLT: Sport put showbiz again in its field on the Super Bowl

Taylor Swift received a contest on the Super Bowl, too. Fresh from her sprint from Japan to see boyfriend Travis Kelce attempt to win one other ring with the Kansas City Chiefs, she obtained up from her seat in a personal field, chugged a drink quicker than her good friend and slammed the empty glass down on a table-top triumphantly. The footage could also be performed extra usually than something that occurred on the pitch.

There was a kiss between Kelce and Swift when the sport was over and the Chiefs had triumphed 25-22 in additional time. That was the image each photographer and each information community had needed. Kelce hijacked the trophy ceremony, too, by serenading the Allegiant Stadium with a very gruff and hoarse rendition of Viva Las Vegas.

A bit later, British tennis nice Andy Murray poked enjoyable on the obsession with following Swift’s each transfer with a message on social media that was dripping with sarcasm. ‘Congrats to @taylorswift13 on winning Super Bowl 58,’ Murray’s message learn. ‘A stunning performance.’

And, in fact, the 65,000 crowd watching the sport was full of celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Beyonce, Paul McCartney, Jay-Z, Lady Gaga, LeBron James, Gordon Ramsay, Jeff Goldblum and Justin Bieber. The singer, Usher, carried out a spectacular half time present that was given rave critiques.

So, sure, it was a Super Bowl match for its first staging in Las Vegas. It was the TNT Super Bowl, named for Taylor and Travis, who’ve change into a cultural phenomenon all of their very own, probably the most potent (and profitable) becoming a member of of sport and the music business that we’ve got ever seen. It was the primary Super Bowl in Sin City and it didn’t disappoint.

Much of the main target on the Super Bowl was on Travis Kelce’s relationship with Taylor Swift 

But the irony is that Super Bowl LVIII become a fairly magnificent sporting event

It was an enthralling, gut-wrenchingly tense, inspiring battle between two groups, the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers, determined to win the largest prize in American sport

But there may be an irony right here, too. Because for all of the obsession with Swift and her journey from Tokyo to be on the sport and monitoring her journey to the stadium and watching her drink her drink, none of it might obscure the truth that Super Bowl LVIII become a fairly magnificent sporting event.

Sport received on the Super Bowl. There was little doubt about that. Sport put showbiz again in its field. The relaxation was enjoyable. The relaxation was window dressing. But on the core of the night was an enthralling, gut-wrenchingly tense, inspiring battle between two groups, the Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers, determined to win the largest prize in American sport.

It was a kind of matches that neither crew deserved to lose. If you need an concept of how demanding it was, how, within the last exchanges of additional time, it carried the data that one mistake from both crew, one dangerous throw, one dropped catch, one misinterpret on a working route, one failure of protection can be the distinction between triumph and catastrophe.

With the scores tied at 19-19 on the finish of the fourth quarter, additional time was so tense that the closest latest comparability I can consider is the closing phases of the 2019 Cricket World Cup Final at Lord’s when England and New Zealand fought one another to the final ball. The Super Bowl was nearly as good as that.

And in it, sport confirmed us Kelce not as some trophy boyfriend, not as a person in thrall to fame, not as a person whose focus has been diluted by a relationship with a well-known pop star however as a raging, pushed, fanatically decided soccer participant who cemented his legacy as among the finest gamers to have performed the sport.

For a lot of the sport, actually, it felt as if the entire TNT narrative was turning bitter and that Swift chugging that drink may simply have been the couple’s spotlight of the evening. For a lot of the primary half, Kelce had been restricted to a miserly one receiving yard by the good 49ers defence.

He was barely within the sport. In reality, his solely notable contribution was rising so pissed off together with his marginalisation that he barged into his 65-year-old coach, Andy Reid, on the touchline and almost knocked him off his ft, bellowing his anger and his dismay into his ear.

Imagine the furore there would have been had Erling Haaland performed that to Pep Guardiola or had Darwin Nunez shoved Jurgen Klopp. When the Chiefs had been down 10-0 within the first half, it felt as if Kelce’s evening was to be outlined by a lapse of self-discipline that regarded like an unforgivable present of mood.

Afterwards, Reid gave a masterclass in the way to defuse a scenario. He praised Kelce to the skies. ‘He caught me off balance,’ Reid mentioned, grinning broadly. ‘I wasn’t watching. It was an inexpensive shot. They are passionate gamers. He needs to play and I like that. As a lot he bumps into me, I get after him. We perceive that. It makes me really feel younger.’

Kelce is among the finest tight ends ever to play the sport for a motive. He is a pacesetter, too, not a sulker. And he’s a champion. And within the second half, he confirmed a champion’s combat. As the match wore on, the Chiefs’ chic quarterback Patrick Mahomes discovered Kelce increasingly usually.

In a sport that ebbed and flowed, the on-field telepathy between the 2 males was one of many keys to dragging the Chiefs again into the sport. Kelce completed with 93 receiving yards and his pleasure restored and his frustration banished.

The means that Mahomes marshalled the Chiefs game-winning drive in additional time, the best way he stored it alive, the best way he handed, the best way he ran, the best way he scrambled, the choices he took, the boldness and the bravura he delivered to probably the most demanding of situations and his last landing move to huge receiver Mecole Hardman made it among the finest particular person performances you can ever see in sport.

Given all the eye surrounding her, Andy Murray joked Swift had received the Super Bowl

It confirmed Kelce not as some trophy boyfriend however as a raging, pushed, fanatically decided soccer participant who cemented his legacy as among the finest gamers to have performed the sport 

Kelce was on the centre of the Chiefs post-match celebrations as they turned the primary crew in 19 years to win back-to-back Super Bowls

He had earlier precipitated controversy together with his conduct in direction of Chiefs head coach Andy Reid

For Mahomes alone – to see one of many greats of the sport at work in that last drive – it was a privilege to be within the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. Mahomes, deservedly, was named the sport’s Most Valuable Player on the again of it. It was considered one of sport’s nice passages of play.

The victory established Mahomes as considered one of a choose band of beginning quarterbacks to have received three Super Bowls and anointed this Chiefs crew formally a ‘dynasty’. They have been to the Super Bowl for 4 of the previous 5 seasons and received three of them. In a sport weighted towards repeat successes, it’s a outstanding achievement.

They had been, as well as, the primary crew for 19 years, to win back-to-back Super Bowls. To see them doing that, to see the best way they did it, to see how deep they’d to attract on their expertise and their talent, to see how badly they needed to win, was to be within the presence of sporting greatness.

Seeing Taylor Swift profitable a chugging contest was good, too, clearly. But the game was higher.