Good morning, all! Happy Super Bowl Eve!
The long wait is almost over. Super Bowl LX between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks is tomorrow night. In the above video, meteorologist Brad Field joins me - as he has throughout the NFL postseason - to provide the weather forecast for the big game and predict the game’s outcome. Enjoy!
Here are some other thoughts, as we remember a legend:
R.I.P. Sonny Jurgensen. The Hall of Fame QB, who made his mark with the Washington Redskins and Philadelphia Eagles, was 91. The Washington Commanders made the announcement of his death on Friday.
After his playing days, Jurgensen was part of Washington’s legendary radio broadcast team. Frank Herzog was the play-by-player and Jurgensen and Sam Huff provided the commentary from 1981 to 2003 on WMAL.
It is not a secret UConn men’s basketball coach Dan Hurley and St.John’s coach Rick Pitino do not like each other. Well, Pitino has got to be feeling good, after his 22nd-ranked team knocked off number 3 UConn last night, 81-72, in front of a sold out MSG. The defeat ended UConn’s 18-game winning streak, third longest in program history. Of particular note was how the Red Storm seemed to wear UConn down as the game wore on. It was the Huskies first Big East defeat, as they fell to 12-1 and 22-2. St. John’s improved to 11-1 in the conference and 18-5. For the record, Hurley and Pitino did shake hands after the game. After his postgame TV interview on Fox, Pitino walked off the court with a wide smile, lifting his right arm at the crowd in triumph, while heading to the locker room. The two teams square off again on Feb. 25 in downtown Hartford.
Urban Meyer is picking the Patriots to win the Super Bowl, in the event you are interested.
Apparently not all NFL competitions are winners on television. The NFL Pro Bowl games on ESPN, ESPN Deportes and DisneyXD Tuesday night garnered only 2.0 million viewers, a 57% dip from last year, when the event was held on a Sunday afternoon. ABC joined the above mentioned three outlets, for a total of 4.7M viewers last year.
In this century, food and beverage ads in the Super Bowl have increased, as have tech ads, but beer, financial, auto, movie and media ads have all decreased, according to Sportico.
How big is college football? Well at Penn St., where it is a religion, the university’s athletic program reported a $534.7M debt for fiscal year 2025. You read that correctly; more than a half billion dollars in the red, for those keeping score at home. The debt is being blamed on a massive $700M renovation for historic Beaver Stadium. Somehow, I’m thinking those season ticket packages will be going up for the 2026 season.
The San Francisco Giants forge a new path, when they open spring training next week under new manager Tony Vitello, who has never played or coached professionally. He is the highly-touted former Tennessee baseball coach. And in case you are wondering, he has 12 coaches on his staff. Twelve! As in a dozen! You cannot make this stuff up.
That is going to do it for today’s newsletter. Thank you for subscribing and have a great weekend!
DAN
