By Darlene Superville

The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — As a student, Donald Trump played high school football. As a business baron, he owned a team in an upstart rival to the NFL and then sued the established league. As president, he denigrated pros who took a knee during the national anthem as part of a social justice movement.

He added to that complicated history with the sport on Sunday by becoming the first president in office to attend a Super Bowl.

After flying from Florida to New Orleans, the Republican president met with participants in the honorary coin toss after he arrived at the Superdome, including relatives of victims of a deadly New Year’s Day terrorist attack in the historic French Quarter, members of the police department and emergency personnel.

Trump’s appearance at the Caesars Superdome to see the two-time defending champion Kansas City Chiefs lose to the Philadelphia Eagles, 40-22, follows the NFL’s decision to remove the “End Racism” slogans that have been stenciled on the end zones since 2021.

Trump recently ordered the cancellation of programs that encourage diversity, equity and inclusion across the federal government and some critics see the league’s decision as a response to the Republican president’s action. But NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the league’s diversity policies are not in conflict with the Trump administration’s efforts to end the federal government’s DEI programs.

Trump, who attended the Super Bowl in 1992, thought the Chiefs would win, with Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes the difference-maker.

“I guess you have to say that when a quarterback wins as much as he’s won, I have to go with Kansas City,” Trump said in a taped interview with Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier that aired during the pregame show. Trump said Mahomes “really knows how to win. He’s a great, great quarterback.”

The president played football as a student at the New York Military Academy. As a New York businessman in the early 1980s, he owned the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League. Trump had sued to force a merger of the USFL and the NFL. The USFL eventually folded.

Friction existed between Trump and the NFL during his first term as president.

Trump took issue with players kneeling during the national anthem to protest social or racial injustice. That movement began in 2016 with then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during “The Star-Spangled Banner” during an exhibition game in Denver.

Trump, through social media and other public comments, insisted that players stand for the national anthem and he called on team owners to fire anyone who took a knee.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, you’d say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired,'” Trump said to loud applause at a rally in Hunstville, Alabama, in 2017.

Trump watched Sunday’s game from a suite after flying in with a group of some of his closest Republican allies in Congress, including Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott of South Carolina. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had said he’d also be in the suite with the president. Trump saluted when the national anthem was sung. Mahomes’ family stopped by to visit with him.