The 58th Super Bowl matchup has been set. After the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers beat the Detroit Lions in their conference championships, the two surviving teams will play for the national championship in Las Vegas, Nevada on Feb. 11. However, many fans of teams who rival the Ravens and the Lions rooted for them during conference championships. On some occasions, this happened because fans just didn’t want the Chiefs/49ers to win or because they felt that Ravens/Lions were underdogs. Many people on the internet were calling the potential Super Bowl matchup between the Lions and the Ravens “America’s Super Bowl.” But come the Monday morning after the Super Bowl matchup was set, the same people on the internet were calling it “The Super Bowl Nobody Wanted.”
So was it just pure hatred for the Chiefs and 49ers, or a liking for the Lions and Ravens? It seems like a mixture of both.
The Lions are a pretty clear underdog. They have never been to the Super Bowl in all of its 58 years of the Super Bowl’s existence and this year, they were one win away. The last time they have even entered the playoffs and won a game was 1991. They have only made it to their conference championship twice. In comparison, the Chiefs are almost the exact opposite. In the past five years, including this year, they have been to the Super Bowl four times and have won three of those times. Their quarterback, Patrick Mahomes is one of the most talked about players currently in the league by the NFL and ESPN instagram accounts themselves. Some football fans dislike Mahomes for the attention he gets as they feel the NFL talks about him too much for his actual skill. In the past, he has been disliked for his younger brother, Jackson who was charged for three felonies regarding an assault, and Patrick’s wife, Brittany, who most people dislike purely for her personality. More recently, fans have taken jabs at Mahomes for getting emotional after losses and crying or throwing his helmet on the ground. Probably the biggest factor in why people dislike the Chiefs at the moment is the relationship between tight end Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift. Since the two began dating, Swift began to attend most games, causing numerous camera pans in her direction. As this is normal for most games to pan over to celebrities in the crowd, it does not usually happen the amount of times or seconds of each shot as it does on Swift. NFL and ESPN create many Instagram posts about the couple, leaving fans even more outraged and praying for the downfall of the Chiefs.
Fans were more neutral about the Ravens and 49ers. During the regular season, the Ravens and 49ers were the number one seeds for their respective conferences. The Ravens held a record of 13-4 and the 49ers were 12-5. These teams were discussed for their pure skill, with the duo of San Francisco quarterback Brock Purdy and running back Christian McCafferty, and Baltimore quarterback Lamar Jackson. The Ravens last appearance and last win in the Super Bowl was 11 years ago. While the 49ers last appearance was just four years ago, their last win was back in 1995.
In most cases of fans on the internet, people rooted for the Ravens because they did not want the Chiefs to get the Super Bowl, and did not root for the 49ers purely because they wanted the Lions to.
