Episode
The Social Responsibility of the NFL is to Make Money
- Podcast
- I Believe
- Published
- Feb 17, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1253
- Processing state
not_requested
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Summary
An eternity ago on a Sunday night. But it was never about Sunday night. Unseasonably warm in Dallas. Blue sky, few clouds. February but it doesn’t feel like it. Feels like a gift after the recent ice. The kind of morning where you leave the door propped open and let the air in. It’s gonna be a big day. The biggest day, actually, if you’re in the business of cold beer and television sets. Championship Sunday. Super Bowl Sunday. After tonight, there’s no more football until September. Seven months of nothing. Sure, there’s the draft, and some exhibition games, but those don’t draw eyes. Nobody can fill a Sunday the way the NFL does, and everybody in the bar business knows it. Marco knows it, too. He showed up at noon. Early for a dishwasher, but Super Bowl Sunday isn’t a regular Sunday. Double prep. Endless plates. The noise from the dining room sounds like a stadium even before kickoff, and by halftime, the dish pit looks like something you’d need a building permit to fix. Marco’s been washing dishes at The End Zone for three years. The busboys bring back tubs. They say they scrape the plates, but they don’t. He sorts through the mess and puts the plates and silverware in the slotted trays and sprays them down and feeds them into the machine. They come out smoking hot, and he burns his hands stacking them. The assistant manager tells him to go faster. There are no breaks. There is no time to take out the trash. He’s nineteen years old, and he’s never once called in sick. He doesn’t care who wins. The game matters because it brings the people, and the people bring the money, and the money is the whole point. If the Seahawks win, good. If the Patriots win, good. If the halftime show is in English or Spanish or Mandarin, good. Ray is the owner. He pays Marco time-and-a-hal…