The Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots will meet on Feb. 8 to play in the 60th Super Bowl, the championship game of the National Football League (NFL). It’s certain to be the most highly viewed television program of the year in the United States. But football isn’t just a mainstay of U.S. culture—it’s also an enormous business.

What is the relationship between football and the U.S. military? Does football lead to violence in American society? And are Super Bowl commercials worth their enormous cost?

The Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots will meet on Feb. 8 to play in the 60th Super Bowl, the championship game of the National Football League (NFL). It’s certain to be the most highly viewed television program of the year in the United States. But football isn’t just a mainstay of U.S. culture—it’s also an enormous business.

What is the relationship between football and the U.S. military? Does football lead to violence in American society? And are Super Bowl commercials worth their enormous cost?

Those are just a few of the questions that came up in my recent conversation with FP economics columnist Adam Tooze on the podcast we co-host, Ones and Tooze. What follows is an excerpt, edited for length and clarity. For the full conversation, look for Ones and Tooze wherever you get your podcasts. And check out Adam’s Substack newsletter.

Cameron Abadi: One expression of football’s specific role in American life is its relationship with the United States military. How would you characterize that relationship?

Adam Tooze: There was a scandalous phase where it emerged in the early 2010s that the U.S. military was paying the NFL. So, this was actually just secret advertising, but de facto, the NFL was receiving funds from the U.S. military for the staging of flags at the beginning of games, the honoring of veterans, the whole works. It was actually paid advertising coming out of the recruitment budgets of the U.S. military. This was exposed by a senatorial committee led by [Jeff] Flake and [John] McCain and stopped as far as I’m aware.

So, there’s no longer a commercial arrangement. But because this was established as a precedent, the NFL has continued to do........

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