CNN: “President Joe Biden will welcome the Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the White House on Tuesday, an official tells CNN, marking yet another return to normalcy after the coronavirus pandemic and years of tension between the NFL and Biden’s predecessor, former President Donald Trump. The visit marks the first time since 2017 that a Super Bowl champion has visited the White House. In 2018, the Philadelphia Eagles were uninvited by Trump, who cited ongoing protests during the National Anthem, calling the player protests ‘disrespectful.'”
“A number of players had already announced they would forgo the visit, and one player told CNN that few of them had planned to attend anyway. The New England Patriots, who won the 2019 Super Bowl, ultimately did not attend the traditional White House ceremony, though both sides said it had nothing to do with politics. At the time, one player told The New York Times they’d rather meet with former President Barack Obama. In 2020, Trump congratulated the Kansas City Chiefs for their Super Bowl win, though he mistakenly tweeted that they hailed from Kansas, not Missouri. The team did not visit the White House to celebrate their win due to the pandemic.”