The Super Bowl LX matchup is set, and it will be a blast from the past—but with upstart new personalities. 

Seattle clinched the NFC championship late Sunday, beating the Rams 31–27 at Lumen Field. The Seahawks will face the Patriots in the Super Bowl on Feb. 8 at Levi’s Stadium, after New England secured the AFC title earlier Sunday, beating the Broncos 10–7 in snowy Denver. 

The upcoming Seattle-New England clash will be a revival of Super Bowl XLIX in February 2015, won by the Patriots 28–24. That game, played in the height of the Tom Brady era against Seattle’s famed Legion of Boom defense, is most famously known for then-Seahawks coach Pete Carroll electing to pass in a short-yard situation with a chance to win a second-straight title. Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler, however, intercepted a throw from Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson to seal the victory for New England. 

There is plenty of history, meanwhile, involved in the upcoming game as first-year Patriots head coach and former star linebacker Mike Vrabel is attempting to become the person to win a Super Bowl with a single franchise as both a player and a head coach. New England also clinched its 12th Super Bowl appearance, extending its record for the most of any NFL team. A seventh victory for the Patriots would break a tie with the Steelers for the most Super Bowl wins. 

Patriots quarterback Drake Maye, meanwhile, is looking to claim a NFL title in just his second season and further assert his rapid ascendency into one of the league’s top stars. 

Seattle will see quarterback Sam Darnold extend his remarkable—and lucrative—career rejuvenation after prior stops with the Jets, Panthers, 49ers, and Vikings.

“This is a special group, and I wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else,” Darnold said of his Seahawks teammates. 

Initial betting lines have the Seahawks favored by 3.5 points.

NBC Eyes Viewership Record

The coast-to-coast spread of the two competing teams, meanwhile, gives a further boost to NBC as it looks to challenge, if not surpass, the U.S. television viewership record of an average of 127.7 million viewers set last year for Super Bowl LIX on Fox. 

The Comcast-owned NBC is leaning into its upcoming Super Bowl LX coverage by combining much of its promotion and ad sales for the event with coverage next month of the 2026 Winter Olympics and NBA All-Star Game. The Super Bowl will also represent one of, if not the single largest, event ever on its Peacock streaming service. 

The network and the NFL will enter the game with plenty of viewership momentum, with audience boosts seen during the divisional playoff round, the wild-card round, the regular season, and on streaming.

A large-scale winter storm covering much of the U.S. continues to wreak havoc on the sports world, forcing more game cancellations and postponements Sunday. 

Winter Storm Fern, stretching from New Mexico to New England and affecting nearly 200 million people, was beginning to move off the East Coast by Sunday night. By the time that happened, though, many more games were affected by the massive storm that covered much of the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic in ice while dumping nearly two feet of snow in parts of the Northeast.

Among the latest impacts:

• A home game in Memphis for the NBA’s Grizzlies against the Nuggets was postponed, with a new date to be announced. The Grizzlies are scheduled to be in Houston on Monday to play the Rockets. 
• A Bucks home game in Milwaukee against Dallas was similarly postponed as the Mavericks were unable to leave Texas because of inclement weather there. A new date for that game also hasn’t been determined. The Mavericks twice attempted, unsuccessfully, to depart. 
• The NBA moved up the start times of two games Monday due to weather issues. A Pacers-Hawks game will begin at 1:30 p.m. ET, while the 76ers-Hornets game will start at 3 p.m. ET. 
• The NBA G League rescheduled a Monday game between the Memphis Hustle and Stockton Kings in Southaven, Miss., to Feb. 19. 
• A top-flight women’s college basketball game between No. 17 Tennessee and No. 18 Ole Miss that was set for Monday has been postponed. A new date has not yet been set. 
• The Volunteers’ men’s basketball team has suffered a similar fate, as a Tuesday game against No. 21 Georgia is now happening on Wednesday. 
• Dozens of smaller schools made similar moves of games to new dates or start times.

The latest shifts follow hundreds of others made late last week in anticipation of the storm. Hundreds of colleges, in particular, will be spending the next several weeks working through the scheduled adjustments that this storm forced. 

Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

Snow Globe Game

Denver was not in the direct line of Winter Storm Fern, certainly by late Sunday afternoon, but heavy snow still disrupted the final quarter of the AFC championship game—won by the Patriots 10–7 over the Broncos. 

The game began with sunny, but cold, conditions, and after halftime, snow began to fall. By the fourth quarter, as snowfall intensified and the temperature dropped to 16 degrees, grounds crews needed snowblowers to clear the hashmarks. 

As that was happening, CBS briefly attempted to use digitally rendered yard lines in its broadcast. The network, however, quickly abandoned that when the virtual lines caused players from both teams, particularly the Patriots dressed in white, to appear translucent. 

“It’s low visibility,” said CBS play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz after a punt that was particularly difficult to track in the snow. “I’d love to tell you exactly where they marked the football. But, folks, it would just be a wild guess.”

As power outages grew Sunday across the country, particularly in the Southeast, the storm could prove to be a boon to the final viewership for both the AFC title game and the subsequent NFC championship game, played between the Rams and Seahawks.