The Museum Bowl, which pits leading art museums in the cities represented by the Super Bowl teams, is on again this year. In advance of the game, both the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) and the Nelson Atkins Museum offered a work by Édouard Manet, with a Manet from the losing museum to travel to the museum in the winning city for an exhibition.

Last year was an aberration – because CA law prohibited the wager – the director of SFMoMA in the losing city agreed to appear in a video wearing Kansas City-logoed merchandise, and the museum’s restaurant temporarily added Kansas City barbecue to the menu.

In 2023 when Kansas City and Philadelphia last faced each other in the Super Bowl, the Philadelphia Museum of Art loaned the Thomas Eakins painting Sailing to the Nelson-Atkins. This time around a Manet will be traveling from Kansas City to Philadelphia.

Good to know the tradition is back!