The Super Bowl and what it means to Barnard students

With the Super Bowl coming up, what are Barnard students’ opinions on the classic American game? Who do they think will win Super Bowl LX?

Artwork by Kathy Cao/The Barnard Bulletin

By Zainab Anwar

February 5, 2026

American football has become central to many of the country’s traditions, with its combination of brute force, strategy, and spectacle. What started in 1869 as a rough, rugby-adjacent experiment between Princeton and Rutgers has evolved into a classic sport that dominates fall weekends. The game owes much of its origins to Yale University’s Walter Camp, the so-called “Father of American Football,” who in the 1880s altered aspects of rugby for a more structured game. From Friday night lights, to sold-out college stadiums, to the NFL’s billion-dollar Sundays, American football is embedded deeply into the country’s culture. How prevalent is football culture at Barnard?

Football has strong ties with the Ivy League. The conference officially formed in 1945 with an agreement that initially involved football, and it later expanded to include a variety of sports, formalizing a tradition that has existed for decades. Columbia Football, one of the oldest programs in the country, played its first game in 1870 and has had its historic highs and brutal lows. Today, Columbia Football operates within the Columbia-Barnard Athletic Consortium, meaning Barnard students are part of the same Division I athletic ecosystem, united by school pride even if football remains a men’s varsity sport at Columbia. Most recently, in November 2024, the Lions beat Cornell 17-9 to secure a share of the Ivy League Championship — the program’s first in 63 years.

Returning to the national stage, first played in 1967 as the result of the AFL-NFL merger, the Super Bowl was created to determine an undisputed professional football champion, a simple concept that quickly grew into a national obsession. That legacy continues with Super Bowl LX on February 8, 2026 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, featuring a high-stakes game — and to some, 2015 Super Bowl XLIX rematch — between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots. With the game set to start at 6:30 p.m. ET, alongside a halftime show featuring Bad Bunny, the event will be equal parts football and cultural moment, proving the significance of the 160 year old sport in America’s past and present.

With such an anticipated event coming up, I decided to go around Barnard’s campus and see how popular the game is and which team the majority of students on campus support. 

Of the students who expressed interest in football, most said that they stopped caring about the playoffs once their favored team was no longer in the running. Chicago native Ella Flores (BC ’28) said, “I don’t even know who’s playing, to be quite honest. Once the Bears were out, I stopped caring.” Many other students expressed similar sentiments, while those who did not care for football were mostly interested in the halftime show instead. 

Naomi Druker (BC ’29) said, “I am not really into sports. I’m from Japan, and football is not a big sport there, at all.” She added, “But, I like watching the Super Bowl because I love watching the halftime performers. I’m just excited for Bad Bunny, honestly.”

When asked which team they were more inclined to support, a majority of Barnard students chose the Patriots, mostly because the New England region neighbors New York. The general consensus on campus is that the Super Bowl is more of an opportunity to spend time with friends rather than a major sports event students keep tabs on. Moreover, students are especially looking forward to Bad Bunny’s halftime performance, particularly following the 68th Annual Grammy Awards, at which he became the first Latin American artist to win Album of the Year.

The Super Bowl’s relevance at Barnard reflects how American football has evolved alongside its audience. For many students, the Super Bowl is less about which team wins and more about shared experience: gathering with friends, engaging with pop culture, and participating in a collective national moment.