President Biden will refuse to sit for a pre-Super Bowl interview on February 11, marking the second year in a row that the commander-in-chief has declined to use the most-watched television event of the year to speak to the American people. 

A spokesman for CBS News, which was set to host the interview this year, confirmed to Variety that the White House has declined to schedule Mr. Biden for a sit-down. “We hope viewers enjoy watching what they tuned in for — the game,” said a White House spokesman, Ben LaBolt. 

Mr. Biden refused to sit for an interview with Fox last year when the network was airing Super Bowl LVII. He instead sat for an interview with the streaming service Fox Soul, which is a subsidiary of the Fox Corporation that caters to Black and Christian audiences. He was interviewed by actress Vivica A. Fox. 

President Obama began the tradition of the presidential pre-Super Bowl interview in 2009. Over the course of his presidency, he was interviewed by journalists Matt Lauer, Bill O’Reilly, and Gayle King, among others. Mr. Biden sat for an interview with NBC’s Norah O’Donnell before the Super Bowl in 2021 and was interviewed by CBS News’ Scott Pelly in 2022. President Trump only skipped the Super Bowl interview once in 2018. 

Amid looming congressional action on the border and conflict in the Middle East, there is no shortage of topics the president could speak to voters about. Polling shows, however, that Americans may not want to hear from the commander-in-chief, given they overwhelmingly trust his predecessor more on a number of key issues, including the economy and the border. 

Mr. Biden could be missing out on what may be the most-watched event in television history. Last year, when he was interviewed by Fox Soul, the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles competed in front of a 115 million-household television audience — the largest television viewership of any event in history. 

This year could be even higher. During the 2023–24 season, the average home viewership of an NFL game was 17.9 million households — an increase of seven percent on average from last year. The Texans–Ravens playoff game in January drew more than 32 million viewers, making it the most-watched non-Super Bowl NFL game in history. 

Taylor Swift and Chiefs’ tight end Travis Kelce’s relationship may also help boost viewership for this year’s championship game. According to digital market strategist Charlotte Bausch, viewership of the Chiefs’ games — as well as NFL ratings overall — began to climb shortly after rumors of Ms. Swift and Mr. Kelce’s relationship were swirling before the NFL season started last year.