Coming all the way from Cherry Hill to New Orleans, Zack Rosenblatt (‘09), an East alumni, covered the 2025 Super Bowl game for The Atlantic and a side story on Jalen Hurts for the New York Times. As a senior writer and most of his content revolving around the New York Jets, this was a nice change.
“Just being at the Super Bowl and in the locker room, on the field, covering a team that I grew up watching was surreal,” said Rosenblatt.
Beginning his writing journey in F087 and becoming an entertainment/culture editor for Eastside, he is a prime success story for many young and aspiring sports writers at East.
This Super Bowl, being the second one he has covered, his first being 2020 with the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs, really hit home.
“Talking to the players about the week, especially with Philly being there [which was] a huge media contingent, and just seeing how the vibe was going into the week, it really did feel like the Eagles wanted it more,” Rosenblatt observed.
Attending the Super Bowl as a writer and not just a fan, Rosenblatt got behind the scenes access which is limited to journalists and media coverage.
“Super Bowl week as a reporter, you get there on Monday and you’re there for the entire week. I was able to do this cool thing where they were doing a preview of all the food they were going to sell at the stadium on Sunday. I got free access to all this local cuisine and I was very full but that was a great experience,” said Rosenblatt.
With this year’s game taking place in New Orleans, a city known for their vibrant and energetic culture, the anticipation for Sunday’s game built up all throughout the week. The sense of rivalry was present as Eagles fans arrived and heard music along with chanting upon leaving his hotel room. It was clear the Eagles brought a different type of edge to the Big Easy.
As for other events leading up to the big game, Rosenblatt mentions Radio Row,sets lined with broadcasting from different radio and TV shows in which celebrities are frequently spotted and interviewed.
Approaching game time, Rosenblatt expressed that everything felt much more serious when they got to Caesar’s Superdome. He described it as what he thought to be the loudest stadium in the NFL, having covered Saints games there in the past, with screaming and cheering reverberating off the walls. From the moment the Eagles came out of the tunnel, the Eagles fans had readily taken over the stadium.
As the game progressed, Rosenblatt commented that not even Eagles fans expected the birds to be so dominant in the game.
As for the halftime show performance, Rosenblatt explains he is a fan of Kendrick Lamar’s and enjoys his music. Although, he said that it was nothing like a concert, noting that the artist was performing more for the camera than the audience, with video equipment rotating around Lamar.
“That was a performance that went viral for a few reasons and being there and seeing the diss track about Drake and where he says ‘A minor’ and everyone says it at the same time. It was definitely cool being part of that in the crowd,” Rosenblatt recalls.
After the game, there was a rush of excitement from the Eagles; they were blasting music, shotgunning beer, and smoking cigars in the locker room. It was like a dream come true. Until the pressure set in.
“Once I go to the postgame, go to the locker room, take that all in, take notes and everything of what I’m seeing and then I sat down to finally write and I felt the pressure. Covering the Super Bowl is different than just covering any other football game and I know a lot of people are going to read it so I felt pressure to really deliver,” Rosenblatt honestly remarks.
Rosenblatt explains his writing process as he tries to bring the reader somewhere they could not physically be, acknowledging the great opportunity he had to cover the game in a way not everybody else can.
The day after the game, when the victory finally began to set in, Rosenblatt described that the city was “…hungover on both alcohol and the feeling of conquering the Chiefs.”