Good afternoon, and happy Monday to you as we emerge from the post-Super Bowl haze — officially saying goodbye to the 2025-26 NFL season while celebrating the champion Seattle Seahawks. We’ll have a lot more to say on the Seahawks’ win below, as well as a look ahead at next season’s favorites, for fans of the other 31 NFL teams. Even though the game itself was not always the prettiest (unless you like field goals and smothering defense), the prediction markets* think there is a strong chance the broadcast — boosted by Bad Bunny’s halftime show — reached or exceeded 128 million average viewers, which would not only break last year’s record as the most viewed Super Bowl ever, but also be the most watched television broadcast in American history. It’s just proof that football can get casual fans to watch even when the action is something only a seasoned aficionado can appreciate. With the NFL in the rearview, here’s what we’re watching in sports today:
🗓️ TONIGHT’S DANCE
The Main Events
Olympics:
🏅 Event finals in snowboarding, alpine skiing, speed skating, freestyle skiing, and ski jumping
🏅 Women’s big air final (snowboarding) - 1:30 p.m.
🏅 Mixed team relay finals (short-track speed skating) - 4:30 a.m. tomorrow
🏅 Mixed doubles gold medal game (curling) - 12 p.m. tomorrow
NBA:
🏀 Pistons (59%) at Hornets (41%) - 7 p.m.
🏀 Cavs (49%) at Nuggets (51%) - 9 p.m.
🏀 Thunder (69%) at Lakers (31%) - 10 p.m.
College Hoops:
🏀 Arizona (56%) at Kansas (44%) - 9 p.m.
🏀 Kentucky (9%) at Texas (91%) - 7:30 p.m. (WBB)
🏀 Oklahoma (46%) at Vanderbilt (54%) - 9 p.m. (WBB)
Soccer:
⚽ Villarreal (57%) vs. Espanyol (21%) - 3 p.m. (Spanish LALIGA)
All listed times are Eastern.
🔍 FIND THE EDGE
Patriot waylaid
The Super Bowl can be a funny thing sometimes. Because of the structure of the NFL’s calendar, we spend two full weeks dissecting every possible angle, statistic, storyline, and key matchup between the AFC and NFC champs, hyping up the Big Game to ridiculous levels as we satisfy the demands of the league’s media machine.
Then, after all that, we just have to hope that the on-field product actually lives up to the high bar we’ve set.
The sport has been blessed that it does so more often than not. Before last year, three straight Super Bowls had been decided by just a field goal, and the memories of even earlier classics (such as the Patriots’ 28-3 comeback, the Ravens’ lights-out win at the Superdome, or the Giants’ pair of upsets over New England) still linger. But not every game can be beautiful — and that was certainly the case for most of last night’s Seahawks-Patriots contest. No touchdowns were scored until the final 13 minutes and 24 seconds of the game, with punts and turnovers constituting 14 of the game’s first 18 drives. There was a serious possibility that a kicker, Seattle’s Jason Myers (who scored the most points for his position ever in a Super Bowl), might win MVP. That’s just the kind of night it was, mostly.
But that was also a testament to the two defenses — especially Seattle’s so-called “Dark Side” unit, which etched its name into Super Bowl lore with one of the most dominating performances in the game’s history. While Patriots quarterback Drake Maye’s final numbers actually look halfway respectable, they only got that way in garbage time, as he and the New England offense spent the vast majority of the game struggling to move the football at all. Through three quarters, the team was still below 80 total yards for the game; for context, the Pats averaged 95 yards per quarter during the regular season. Maye, who led the NFL with a 77.1 Total Quarterback Rating (QBR) during the regular season, had a putrid 16.3 QBR on Sunday, his worst game of the entire year.
With New England’s offense flailing, all Seattle’s offense had to do was avoid turnovers, make a few plays, and run the ball to victory. That’s exactly what they did — QB Sam Darnold had a fine (if nothing special) 53.0 QBR, five Seattle pass-catchers had between 25 and 65 yards, running back Kenneth Walker III earned MVP honors (the first for a RB since 1998) with 135 yards on the ground, and the Seahawks won the battle of forcing turnovers 3 to 0. The rest was history for the latest NFL champions.
Perhaps more interesting is the question that immediately follows: what next? The brand-new champs are at a crossroads right away, facing an impending sale, changes on the coaching staff, and Darnold’s contract — a bargain this year — becoming more expensive. The Seahawks were both the best team in the league and they benefited in the Super Bowl from facing a Patriots team that was not battle-tested, slipping through the AFC in a strange year that saw the dynasty Chiefs miss the playoffs (with Patrick Mahomes also injured), the Bills fail to capitalize on what many saw as their year, and the Broncos lose the conference title game with a backup QB.
That takes nothing away from the Seahawks’ victory, which was plenty earned against tough competition before the Super Bowl. But it does explain why, right away, the odds for next season’s title have Seattle favored but below 10% after adjusting the odds to add to 100% across every team. After a transitional year in the league, the question of what will happen next season is as open as ever.
📊 CHART OF THE DAY
Changing medal fortunes
The 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics have just started, but a bunch of medals have already been awarded out on the slopes, the rinks, and other icy locales. That means the prediction market odds around which countries will dominate the medal table are already shifting. Since last Tuesday, here are the nations with the biggest changes in odds — including Norway, the historical giant of the Winter Games, getting even stronger, while Germany and Canada saw their odds dip (and the host, Italy, improved a bit):
❄️ STAY FROSTY
What else we’re reading
Smart, short reads we liked while building today’s odds.
🏈 “Super Bowl LX Ends With Seahawks on Top — and at Crossroads” by Eric Fisher
🏀 “2026 NBA Trade Deadline: The Art Of Self-Preservation” by Hardwood Paroxysm
🏈 “NFL fans may need a new punching bag: The internet loves to make fun of Sam Darnold. Does a Super Bowl ring change that?” by Eben Novy-Williams
🏀 “Something strange is happening in college basketball” by Jordan Sperber
📰 “Death of a Sports Section” by Christian Red
👀 EYES UP
Next on deck…
Tuesday (2/10)
🏅 OLY: Event finals in cross-country skiing (2x), curling, luge, alpine skiing, freestyle skiing, ski jumping, biathlon, and short-track speed skating
🏀 NBA: Clippers at Rockets
🏀 NBA: Spurs at Lakers
🏀 MBB: Purdue at Nebraska
Wednesday (2/11)
🏅 OLY: Event finals in luge (2x), figure skating, alpine skiing, freestyle skiing, biathlon, speed skating, and Nordic combined
🏀 NBA: Spurs at Warriors
🏀 NBA: Thunder at Suns
🏀 WBB: Washington at Iowa
🏀 WBB: UCLA at Michigan State
Thursday (2/12)
🏅 OLY: Event finals in snowboarding (2x), short-track speed skating (2x), luge, alpine skiing, freestyle skiing, speed skating, and cross-country skiing
🏀 NBA: Bucks at Thunder
🏀 WBB: TCU at Baylor
🏀 WBB: Texas at Vanderbilt
⛳ Golf: AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am
🧠 Looking ahead
Stay tuned for more updates and in-depth analysis of these events and more as they unfold. We’ll be bringing you all the scores, highlights, and expert commentary.
Got a favorite team or sport you want us to cover more? Let us know!
All data current as of time of send.
— by Neil Paine
*Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.