By Steve Buckley The Athletic
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The beauty of Super Bowl week, from an NFL marketing perspective, is that so many mish-mashy, dim-bulb storylines are wafting in the air that sometimes the real stuff ends up getting lost.

Case in point: The NFL has confirmed a report from The Athletic’s Michael Silver that the league won’t be stenciling an “End Racism” message behind either end zone for Sunday’s Super Bowl LIX matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. You may have missed this news, what with all the clamoring for Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce’s responses to wacky questions about Taylor Swift.

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But, yes, it’s true: “End Racism” will be absent from Super Bowl LIX. In its place will be “Choose Love.” According to Silver, this will be the first time the “End Racism” slogan hasn’t been featured at a Super Bowl since 2021. During this year’s NFC Championship Game, “End Racism” was on display at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field. At the AFC Championship Game, “Choose Love” and “It Takes All of Us” were stenciled behind the end zones at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. Those statements, but not “End Racism,” will be featured at Sunday’s Super Bowl.

This is the part of the story where it needs to be pointed out that President Trump will be in attendance for Super Bowl LIX, making it the first time a sitting president is on hand for pro football’s Big Game. And that turns the absence of the “End Racism” stenciling into even more of a political football, if you will. As a point/counterpoint, the discussion begins here: Is there a connection between Trump’s appearance at the Super Bowl and the jettisoning of the on-field “End Racism” message?

But there’s an easy way to remove politics and still be able to talk about these end-zone slogans. Remember, this is the Super Bowl, an annual sports extravaganza that encourages us to rate and rank everything from team colors to television commercials. We do a roll call of each team’s celebrity fans, and then hand out grades. We do deep dives into each city’s best-known foods. We judge the play-by-play broadcast teams, as well as the national anthem performer(s). The halftime show is critiqued as though it’s the opening night of a Broadway blockbuster, which in many respects is precisely what it is. (Can Kendrick Lamar possibly deliver a halftime show on par with what Prince gave us at Super Bowl XLI? Can anyone?)

We thus have license to judge Super Bowl end-zone messaging. In this case, “End Racism” vs. “Choose Love.”

And there’s no competition here at all. It’s “End Racism” by a mile.

“End Racism” is bold. It’s strong, powerful, meaningful. It’s a statement. Even if you do not agree with the message — that is, if you’re the type who sees absolutely no racism in this country so what’s the big deal, and so on — “End Racism” does have a way of stopping many of you in your tracks to do some pondering.

Now let’s discuss “Choose Love.”

In a vacuum, it’s wonderful. Who would not choose love? As NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy told Silver, “We felt it was an appropriate statement for what the country has collectively endured, given recent tragedies, and can serve as an inspiration.”

But given that “End Racism” represented an alternative, this discussion can’t be held in a vacuum. And “Choose Love” is unremarkable when placed on a reviewing stand next to “End Racism.”

“Choose Love” is safe. It’s G-rated. It’s guaranteed not to offend anyone. It doesn’t inspire a discussion … or soul-searching.

You know what “Choose Love” is? It’s a Hallmark greeting card. It’s a message inside a fortune cookie. It’s a forgettable bumper sticker. It’s that big billboard you see on the side of the road when traveling from one state to another — “Welcome to Wisconsin. Choose Love!”

You just look at “Choose Love” and you go, “Um, OK.”

You may be of the opinion that performative end zone art doesn’t do much to combat racism. And to be sure, the NFL is proud of what it believes is a strong DEI initiative, even as the White House is going in a different direction.

“We got into diversity efforts because we felt it was the right thing for the National Football League, and we’re going to continue those efforts because we’ve not only convinced ourselves, I think we’ve proven ourselves that it does make the NFL better,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said on Monday during his annual Super Bowl Week state-of-the-game news conference, per NFL.com.

“We’re not in this because it’s a trend to get in or a trend to get out of it,” Goodell said. “Our efforts are fundamental in trying to attract the best possible talent into the National Football League, both on and off the field.”

These are powerful words by the commissioner. When we get around to doing a ranking of “NFL Commissioner State of the Game Super Bowl Week News Conferences,” surely Goodell’s remarks from this week will be contending for top honors.

Until then, we’re left with ranking Super Bowl End Zone Inspirational Messages.

For such visible messaging, I’ve got “End Racism” at the top. “Choose Love” gets my meh button.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.