Jim O'Donnell: Will the NFL push Patrick Mahomes as its Michael Jordan?
A BILLION DOLLAR ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESS founded by bookmakers and vagabond jocks will once again rule the American pop cultural skies Sunday.
Pandemic be damned, Super Bowl 55 is affording the NFL an extraordinarily rare air lane to bid adieu to the old and dramatically coronate the most marketable of the new (CBS, 5:30 p.m.).
Cut to its core, the lofty tilt between ancient Tom Brady and Tampa Bay vs. future-friendly Patrick Mahomes and his Kansas City Chiefs could prove to be the most beneficial game to a profit uptick by the NFL since Super Bowl III.
SB III was the mystical Sunday afternoon when Joe Willie Namath and the New York Jets - 18-point underdogs - "upset" Earl Morrall and the Baltimore Colts 16-7 in one of the most curious NFL championship games ever played.
That outcome greatly accelerated the credibility of the NFL-AFL merger and cemented the path for pro football to overtake Major League Baseball as "America's game."
It also elevated Namath to the sort of crossover celebrity that has enveloped few on the national football landscape.
(Did anyone think Morrall would wind up on "The Brady Bunch?" Or co-star alongside Ann-Margaret in the bubble gum-accessible 1970 movie classic "C.C. and Company?")
The sharpest brains behind the NFL today realize the single greatest thing that could happen to the league's business side would be the emergence of its own young Michael Jordan.
That would be a charismatic superstar who overcomes all odds, defies space and convention and stokes the imaginations of the young in ways more normally reserved for the latest release from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Tom Brady - even at age 25 - didn't meet all of those Indeed criteria.
Patrick Mahomes at age 25 does.
He creates magical things with a football. He is a master of Gen Z visual improv.
Even in a game dependent upon a couple of dozen chorus liners, Mahomes is all about memorability and marketability.
Brady and the Bucs certainly could win SB 55.
That would be a victory for 43-year-olds everywhere who go to bed at 8:30 p.m., take meticulous care of themselves and project all the let's-chat pizzazz of a hedge fund manager who has a summer home out near Julie Andrews in the Hamptons.
Mahomes is the "it" guy and the QB of "the now" in the NFL.
He's also positioned to move a whole lot of product in the next decade.
And by nightfall Sunday, Mahomes should be the lead pop comet in the cultural skies over America.
STREET-BEATIN': Very exciting that The Weekend will star in the Pepsi halftime show down at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. Fellow Canadian Drake - The Weekend's mentor - must be tied up in the studio looping Toronto Raptors chants. ...
Raymond James, incidentally, is a financial services firm headquartered in St. Petersburg. (And has nothing to do with Ray Romano or "The King of Queens.") ...
Most notable of the "newbie" advertisers scheduled during the SB 55 telecast will be Robinhood, the stock trading app caught in an uproar after the populist GameStop short squeeze. Founding CEO is 34-year-old Bulgarian-American Vladimir Tenev. ...
With 30-second spots going for close to $5.5 million and more adroit corporations trying not to scratch against the battered national mood, legacied advertisers including Coca-Cola and Budweiser will be sitting this one out. (Although Cedric the Entertainer is in a Bud Light promo.) ...
Jim Nantz and Tony Romo will be calling their second Super Bowl for CBS. But will it be Nantz's last at The Fisheye? Negotiations for a new deal are reportedly snagging over money. ...
None of the five legal sports gaming books in Illinois - BetRivers, PointsBet, DraftKings, FanDuel and William Hill - are knocking 'em dead with pre-SB promotions. (With all of the free fiat currency out there, it's surprising how little imagination any of the quintet has displayed.) ...
Speculation about Chuck Swirsky returning to Chicago sports talk radio - while keeping his Bulls p-b-p roost - will not go away. (He could walk in tomorrow and still be one of the best ever.) ...
If Jeremy Colliton slays the nay and pushes the Blackhawks into the playoffs, fans will circle Thursday night's 6-4 win over Carolina as a key game of passage. As Eddie Olczyk confirmed, the line of Patrick Kane, Alex DeBrincat and Pius Suter provided timely backbone. ...
And the inimitable "West Coast" Cody Westley, offering two predictions on Super Bowl 55: "If they let it play out organically, KC, 45-10. And if they more than likely want to hold the TV audience, KC, 31-27."
• Jim O'Donnell's Sports & Media column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.