After Seahawks’ Super Bowl win, what does being a Seattle sports fan mean?

SEATTLE — The confetti had barely settled on Fourth Avenue before the question started ricocheting from Maple Valley to Capitol Hill: if the Seahawks’ 29-13 demolition of the New England Patriots really delivered a second Lombardi Trophy, what does it now mean to carry the 12-flag?

For 40-plus years the answer was simple: expect the trapdoor. Comedian and Federal Way native Brian Nickerson built an act on that fatalism, turning near-misses into punch lines and warning that “the audacity to believe is just such an insane idea” in a market where the 2001 Mariners’ 116-win masterpiece was rewarded with two decades of October exile and the 1994 Sonics became the first No. 1 seed to drown in the opening round.

Then came Wednesday’s cloudless February parade, where punter Michael Dickson launched souvenirs into a sun-lit canyon of 12s, cornerback Devon Witherspoon cradled strangers’ babies for photos, and an estimated million people belted “SEA-HAWKS” until skyscraper windows rattled. Edmonds resident Darlene Miller, Seahawks earrings swinging beside her UW-purple jacket, watched the trophy ceremony with her son Michael—whose years-long health battles made the moment “special”—and pronounced the old cynicism officially on notice.

Vince Dingfelder, owner of Dingfelder’s Delicatessen, stood outside Lumen Field in a No. 12 jersey and summarized the civic dividend: “You can pick apart the NFL, but when you have a championship team what that means for small businesses, for neighbors, for the city—it’s priceless.”

Actor Rainn Wilson, Bellevue-raised, framed the triumph in regional terms on social media, recalling a 1970s Seattle that “had Boeing, salmon, logs and moss” before the Seahawks arrived. “A Super Bowl championship is not just for the city; it’s for the whole Pacific Northwest. It puts us on the world stage and we did it—both times—with the best defense.”

That defense, younger than any in the league, hung 17 opponent helmets like scalps in the meeting room and ground the Patriots into “boring,” brutal submission. The result doesn’t merely balance the heartbreak ledger; it rewrites the data set Nickerson once cited. His own Wikipedia entry—long tagged with the line about “disappointing performance of many Seattle teams”—now merits an update, he jokes, after a title run that felt almost predestined rather than miraculous.

Maple Valley’s Brandon Bogart brought his wife and daughter to the parade and admitted the old anxiety is “kind of changing. I hope the Mariners can get there next. I hope the Kraken can continue their success.”

Hope, not dread, is the new default. Yes, the Storm still own four WNBA titles, the Sounders remain the only MLS club to collect every North American trophy, and the 1979 Sonics banner still hangs. But the Seahawks’ second crown reframes the covenant: Seattle fans will still pay the emotional toll, still climb light poles after playoff wins, still wear Griffey, Edgar, Beast Mode, Sue Bird and Ichiro nostalgia on their sleeves—only now they do so believing another parade is possible, not improbable.

In the wake of a dominant February on Fourth Avenue, being a Seattle sports fan means you’re hardened by history, buoyed by the present, and—perhaps for the first time—unafraid to look down, because the trapdoor finally feels welded shut.