Mike Francesa has had it with the nauseating Super Bowl pageantry

From Taylor Swift to Donald Trump — the Super Bowl 2025 broadcast was overrun with noteworthy appearances.Mike Francesa took to his postgame show with an opinion on the pageant that the Super Bowl has become: it’s too much.“What they have done to this game … Are we going to hear from everyone in Hollywood before the game starts?” he said.Fox’s broadcast featured actors Bradley Cooper and Jon Hamm introducing their favorite teams ahead of kickoff, countless shots of celebrities like Anne Hathaway and Swift in their suites and, of course, all the celebrity cameos during commercials.Francesa compared the Super Bowl to professional wrestling, wondering why “I need actors announcing the teams?”He added that the celebrity attention, particularly the introduction of the teams via the A-listers, does no favors in upping the ante for the game.“That so much takes away from the drama,” Francesa said.“That so much takes away from the feel that football has as teams come out of the tunnel.”With the ceremonious buildup to the game’s beginning, Francesa was also frustrated with the matchup kicking off about 20 minutes after the scheduled 6:30 start time.“I understand that it is a lot of money for a commercial,” he said.

“But what are we going to do, get to the point where the game starts at 9:00 at night?”Francesa’s displeasure with all of the gimmicks extended to some of the showings of players too, as he didn’t like the on-field pregame interviews with Patrick Mahomes and Saquon Barkley.Players are interviewed all week leading up to the game, which begged Francesa’s question, “What is there left to say? How many times are you going to do interviews?”Plenty of NFL fans get fired up over the seemingly endless features of Swift during Chiefs games, but perhaps the frustration extends further.The Super Bowl didn’t just show celebrities in attendance, but actually installed them into the production.“The overkill in this game has gotte...