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President Barack Obama has been an avid sports fan since before he took office in 2008. Although his football allegiance lies with the Chicago Bears, he is typically asked to pick his favorite team in the Super Bowl. 2016 is the last calendar year of his presidency and with that also the end of his annual Super Bowl pregame conversations. Here are a few throughout the years:
In 2011, President Obama took the bipartisan course when it comes to picking a Super Bowl winner. He told Fox's Bill O'Reilly "Once my Bears lost, I don't pick sides. I want a great game."
2012 was more of the same when it came to choosing a winner between the New England Patriots and New York Giants. Despite Obama's unwillingness to give Matt Lauer his pick on NBC, it did sound like he was leaning towards Eli Manning and company. He turned out to be right as the Giants won the championship game at Lucas Oil Field in Indianapolis 21-17.
Scott Pelley of CBS Evening News interviewed Obama to ask him his Super Bowl pick in 2013, but rather than simply continuing the pattern of sly non-answer, the president took a different tone.
He focused his conversation on the safety of youth football stating that, "We want to make sure that people after the game are going to be okay." He didn't explain much about the two teams in the Super Bowl, but he did casually mention that he had "wings waiting for him" at the White House.
O'Reilly had the honor of talking to him in 2014. Most of the conversation was dominated by questions about the Benghazi attacks and talk of the health care roll out troubles.
Obama did talk more football in 2015, though it wasn't about the game itself. His talk focused more on Deflategate with NBC's Savannah Guthrie, since news of that had just broken out. He still thought the Patriots would beat the Indianapolis Colts despite the deflated balls in the AFC Championship game
But the key moment of the 2015 Super Bowl pregame interview had to be the moment where he had a beer. Pinky out!