Hi everyone,

Welcome to Day 2 of [DFO]’s annual Super Bowl tradition – Hate Week.

This is the annual airing of grievances we have about life, football, society… really, anything is in-bounds outside of the usual hot buttons. Consider the comments section a safe space to let your feelings on a topic be known.

Now, for each day of Hate Week there is a theme that I will introduce – something that has particularly irked me over the course of the year, or just something that really caught my attention. As always, I am assisted in the photoshop department by fellow hater and Despiser of All Things Spanos, Low Commander.

With that in mind, let’s get down to the hating.

Today’s theme: NFL Starfucking

So, after all the publicity they got during the season, I guess we are all familiar with this:

America’s sweetheart, famous for winning 4 gold medals and …

Oh.

Oh, not yesterday’s sweetheart.

Right. Well, then.

The concept of celebrity sports couples has always fascinated/aggrieved the average sports fan. You could start with Babe Ruth, and how he convinced his first wife to adopt & raise his daughter by his mistress, but I’m going to go with the king of all sports marriages.

Hell, he had been out of baseball for three years when this happened. Could you imagine what social media would have looked like? I mean, those are reporters they’re powering through on the way to the car. Imagine six guys named Sid cockblocking you for a photo when all you want to do is go inside-the-park with in-her-prime Monroe? It explains why he always kept to himself.

[Aside – Dimaggio had some good layers of hate inside him. In an account from the book “Dinner with Dimaggio”, he recalled who he blamed for Monroe’s death by suicide:

“The whole lot of Kennedys were lady-killers, and they always got away with it. They’ll be getting away with it a hundred years from now. I always knew who killed her, but I didn’t want to start a revolution in this country. She told me someone would do her in, but I kept quiet.”

The man hated the Kennedy’s until the day he died. That’s some quality hate that he took to the grave.]

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Now, the NFL and starfucking have been around since this guy pioneered it in the 1970s.

Long after his retirement, Joe Namath was the poster boy for fan engagement. He’s still so popular that the Jets still drag him out to this day.

And for the religious types who found Broadway Joe morally questionable, there was always “Captain America”, Roger Staubach.

Remember – that whole “America’s Team” bullshit came from an NFL Films production. Once fans started to lean into it as an identify for their fandom, the League took off running. For example, here’s one of the hundreds of pieces of fanatical fan fiction I found on the Cowboys reddit,

A brief tour through that Lovecraftian mythos shows you how deeply those morons believe in the sanctity of the Dallas Cowboys. The League banks on that slavish devotion. That shit lives on in the media with jerkoffs like Collinsworth openly stating that if they could, NBC would run 17 Cowboys games in prime time.

But it’s easy to make the handsome & religious sellable commodities in America. The big move for the NFL was in making its villains marketable. The only way the league got people outside Primanti Brothers delivery radius to buy into the Steelers was because they made them look like tough guys with a soft side. That’s where the marketing came in.

That jersey would have made that kid a fortune on eBay today.

^{It took some work with a few of them.}

And it continues to this day. If the league and their paid sponsors weren’t into all that publicity, explain the Fox intros every Sunday, with a different start trying to promote some piece-of-shit movie that got downgraded to a Hulu or Netflix release?

^{Or it’s just a fucking coincidence Kevin Hart was making Jimmy Johnson hair jokes three days after release?}

Or Rob Lowe?

The man is a walking billboard for not just his brand but whomever will pay him to do so. I’m surprised he wasn’t eating an Atkins bar while drinking out of FOX TV mug. It’s hard to believe he has only TWO tv shows on FOX this upcoming year.

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The current controversy around Swift & Kelce is nothing more than projection. Hell – the man took his shot & it worked. That’s what you’re supposed to do in life. For fuck’s sake, half of us would be lonely, masturbating trolls if we hadn’t taken our best shot and the fools lovelies said “yes”. Remember, this whole idea started as a lark between he and his brother on their podcast after he brought up going to The Eras tour show in KC. Billboard has a handy rundown of the whole exciting affair if you are so inclined.

Meanwhile, the NFL has to be thrilled with all this. They put millions into outreach to encourage women to follow their sport, and much like a first date spent all that money for very little in return. Who can forget the regrettable “Alyssa Milano Touch” collection on nflshop? 

That garbage apparel was nothing more than naked marketing masquerading as attempts to broaden the NFL’s appeal via clothing. Look at this crap, and the terrible photoshop that accompanies it:

The funny part is that I wrote about this almost four years ago. But did anyone listen? No!

Which brings us to America’s new favorite “it couple”.

The Taylor Swift effect on this NFL season is already being studied in business schools. Ratings are up for all Chief’s games, and social media engagement when she is mentioned is triple normal activity. The “brand value” of Taylor Swift online to the NFL has been estimated at $331 million,

The NFL is all about the ability to make a buck off of someone else’s fortune, as evidenced by the 400% increase in Kelce jerseys being sold. The ancillary effect of this clearly non-parasocial relationship is that by the end of the season, Travis Kelce, Jason Kelce and Patrick Mahomes were all in the Top-10 of league jersey sales for the 2023 season. 

And it’s now bleeding into the most marketable arena Alyssa Milano couldn’t help them crack – women’s fashion. Just on January 30th, Kristin Juszczyk, the wife of 49er’s FB and nephew to Superman villain Mister Mxyzptlk, Kyle Juszczyk, got a licencing deal from the NFL to make the special coats she’d previously made as one-off gifts for Simone Biles and Taylors Swift and Lautner.

At probably $300 per for average fans, this will make her a minor media sensation during this Big Game™ week, and will add to the secondary & tertiary interest the NFL is hoping to garner off of Ms Swift’s passing interest in this sporting match..

The MAGA crybabies that decry her participation in their enjoyment are worth nowhere near as much. Some of the more recalcitrant owners might get the vapors at the thought of their precious league appealing to girls, but accountants don’t have feelings. Roger Goodell knows this and it’s why he’s thrilled at the organic nature of this phenomenon. The NFL hasn’t had to spend a cent on acquiring this new (and valuable) market, yet licencing deals like the one above shows how quickly they see a way to line their own pockets.

And just in case you thought the broadcast booth wasn’t going to be without this trend? After two seasons, Greg Olsen has become yesterday’s sweetheart.

We had one blissful year of life without Tom Brady. Now he, and what Gisele left of his balls, will be replacing Greg Olsen in the FOX booth alongside Kevin Burkhardt as their number 1 team. I can’t wait for the (real and promo) throws to Gronk during broadcasts next year. Maybe now he’ll finally get coverage from USAA.

Of course, let’s not forget who he’s currently dating,

Jesus, this shit really does come full circle. Fuck ’em all.

Tonight’s sports: (all times Eastern)

• NHL: pick your regional poison
  • Canucks vs. Hurricanes – 7:00pm | Sportsnet Pacific
  • Flames vs. Boston – 7:00pm | Sportsnet everywhere else
  • Oilers vs. Vegas – 10:00pm | Sportsnet
• NBA:
  • Mavs vs. Nets – 7:30pm | TNT / TSN
  • Bucks vs. Suns – 10:00pm | TNT / TSN
• NCAA:
  • Men’s:
    • Clemson vs. North Carolina – 7:00pm | ESPN
    • OK State vs. Houston – 7:00pm | ESPN2
    • Texas Tech vs. Baylor – 9:00pm | ESPN
• Beisbol:
  • Caribbean World Series – from Miami
    • Venezuela vs. Panamá – 8:30pm | ESPN Deportes

Of course, as balls can tell you, the concept of starfucking peaked in 1998 with the 11th and final release in the Zane Entertainment Group’s “Starbangers” series. But far-be-it for anyone to tell the NFL what is and isn’t a hot trend.