Political circus invades NFL’s biggest spectacle
Some fans turned off by suggestions Patriots’ big three support Trump
BOSTON Not even the grandest of American sports spectacles is immune to the nation’s deep political divisions.
New England Patriots fans have spent nearly two full seasons being reminded of the close friendship between U.S. President Donald Trump and their team’s three top figures — owner Robert Kraft, star quarterback Tom Brady and head coach Bill Belichick.
As the Super Bowl approaches, that has put the typically united Patriots Nation at odds over how hard to celebrate a team chasing its fifth Super Bowl win under Brady and Belichick. New England faces the Atlanta Falcons on Feb. 5.
Some fans in the northeastern states that backed Democrat Hillary Clinton in the November presidential election say they’re struggling to reconcile their football loyalties with their distaste for Trump.
Many other fans — more than one million people voted for Trump in Massachusetts alone, Clinton won by less than 3,000 votes in New Hampshire and Trump picked up one of four electoral votes in Maine — say critics are simply injecting politics where it doesn’t belong.
“It’s pathetic. We have a double standard where if you admit you like Trump, you get blasted by the media,” said Brian Craig, a Lowell, Mass., Republican who voted for Trump. “If Brady endorsed Hillary, no one would care.”
Plenty of people put politics aside completely when they root for their teams. But after an election that magnified the country’s deep differences of opinion, the Super Bowl matchup offers easy symbolic foils for anyone inclined to play politics.
Trump’s friendship with Brady has been fodder for sports talk radio and local news in New England since September 2015, when one of Trump’s trademark red “Make America Great Again” hats was spotted in Brady’s locker and the quarterback said it would be “great” if the GOP hopeful in a crowded primary field won it all.
Most of Atlanta is represented by longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who has been excoriated by Trump because he boycotted the inauguration and doesn’t consider Trump a “legitimate” president because of intelligence reports of Russian involvement in the election.
Trump won Georgia in November with more than two million votes.
“It’s been very tough,” said Segun Idowu, a Boston civil rights activist who grew up in Massachusetts, went to college in Atlanta, voted for Clinton and likely will be rooting for the Patriots.
“The Trump versus Lewis metaphor seems apt to me.”
Patrick Dugan, a Clinton voter from West Hartford, Conn., said his Patriots fanhood has become “increasingly lukewarm” because of the team’s Trump connections.
“You can’t put that genie back in the bottle,” he said. “It’s out there at this point. And once it’s out there, it colours how you look at them, whether you want it to or not.”
Trump drew attention to his relationships with the Patriots several times throughout his campaign and leading up to his inauguration, including an election eve rally where he read a glowing letter from Belichick and claimed Brady voted for him, prompting a denial from the quarterback’s supermodel wife, Gisele Bündchen.
Brady, for his part, hasn’t revealed his vote and questioned this week why his long friendship with Trump is “such a big deal.”
Indeed, few recent marriages of sports and politics have caused this much hand-wringing.
There was relatively little furor when basketball megastar LeBron James — fresh off winning a title for the Cleveland Cavaliers — stumped for Clinton in his home state of Ohio, which Trump won anyway or when now-ousted Bills coach Rex Ryan introduced Trump at a campaign rally in Buffalo last year.
For plenty of people, the Trump association may just be one more reason to dislike a franchise that’s enjoyed unprecedented success but has also been part of two high profile cheating scandals (“Spygate” and “Deflategate”) and whose coach cultivates a gruff, standoffish persona.
“I want the Falcons to win for normal sports fan reasons, but I want the Patriots to lose in embarrassing fashion for political reasons,” said Todd Moye, who grew up in Atlanta and now lives in Fort Worth, Texas.