Super Bowl media festivities kicked off Monday afternoon in ordinary fashion, with NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell addressing reporters on a plethora of hot topics this past season.
The hour-long press conference included topics about 4x Grammy Album-of-the-Year singer, Taylor Swift. Goodell, who mentioned he attended two of her concerts in the past year with his family, had nothing but positive things to say about the singer.
“[Taylor] knows great entertaining and that’s why she loves NFL football.” Goodell said. “Besides Travis, she is a football fan. And that’s great for us.”
He went on to discuss the NFL continuining to expand its efforts to reach fans internationally. Besides playing in Mexico, London and Germany, Brazil will host a regular season game. The Philadelphia Eagles are expected to be one team playing at the Brazil stadium in 2024.
Goodell discussed another pressing issue this season: turf. Where there was major outcry against artificial turf fields due to injury, Goodell was an advocate for that kind of field in the future.
“We think hybrid is really something to explore. That’s what they use internationally. … We want to try to get the best fields and that varies market to market, climate to climate.” Goodell said.
Speaking of on-the-field issues, Goodell spoke highly of NFL officiating. Questions brewed among reporters about the consistencies, or lackthereof, in officiating.
“I think our officials do a great job.” Goodell said. “For example, that Kansas City-Buffalo call, that was absolutely the right call,”
The call in question was a Kansas City offsides call, when Goodell made this example, he was asked about consistency.
Reporters came to this conference prepared to hound Goodell with the harder questions. Goodell was asked about diversity and inclusion hires among minorities. Goodell reinforced high statistics on these hires but did not elaborate on more efforts to make the NFL as inclusive as it claims to be.
Though a playoff game was hosted on Peacock, a streaming platform, Goodell emphasized that seeing a Super Bowl on a streaming platform will “not happen in my lifetime.”
As Opening Night kicks off, more news may pour in over Taylor Swift, the two teams playing each other four years later, and more hot-button issues in the NFL.
Check out FirstAndJenn.com for more NFL news leading up to Super Bowl LVIII on February 11, 2024.
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