With the Seattle Seahawks having won Super Bowl 60 over the New England Patriots, the tradition is that President Donald Trump and the White House would invite the team for a celebratory visit. With only a handful of modern exceptions, the tradition has endured since its inception in 1980, when the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Lombardi Trophy.
What is the situation with the latest expected visit?
Seattle Seahawks Says They’d Accept Donald Trump White House Visit If Invited
While the Seahawks have yet to receive an invitation from the White House, they are reportedly planning to accept it. The topic has become controversial since 2017, when players began opting out of the visit for personal or political reasons.
“I would hope [that we get invited],” head coach Mike Macdonald said during the NFL Combine week. “I mean, yeah… I don’t know. We’re going to get an invite, right? That’s how it works? Not really sure how it works.”
Macdonald was asked whether he’d prefer his whole team to go to the White House if they got invited, to which he alluded that he’d like it if they did.
“[But] we haven’t gotten an invite yet,” he admitted. “And then we’ll address it [if we get one].”
While Macdonald was careful not to make any certain statements, a source, via The News Tribune, said the team would accept a White House visit if it were invited.
Why Did Certain Super Bowl Winners Not Visit the White House in the Past?
In 1986 and 1991, the Chicago Bears and New York Giants didn’t visit the White House due to scheduling conflicts and wartime disruptions. The ’85 Bears, however, did get their visit commemorated in 2011 under the Obama administration.
Political conflict reared its head in 2017, when several players reportedly declined due to disagreements with Trump’s presidency. It got worse in 2018, when so many Philadelphia Eagles opted out of the visit that Trump rescinded the invite.
The following year saw a repeat of 2017, when several Patriots players declined the White House’s invitation.
In 2020, the presidential transition from Trump to Joe Biden, combined with COVID-19, disrupted the usual timeline for the Kansas City Chiefs to attend the White House event.
The following year, however, marked the last time players declined the invite in a notable way, as Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers visited Biden.
Given the state of the country’s political climate, it remains to be seen if players decline White House invitations moving forward.
