We can presume by now that every Philadelphia 76er and Flyer who wants to do so has mouthed the empty sports platitude, "Nobody believed in us." It's just what you say, and more to the point it's what you say when you've given no indication that anybody should believe in you, including you.
But this time, that omnibus nobody package also includes the team's owners, landlords, and whoever decided to book Bruce Springsteen at Xfinity Mobile Arena next Friday. After finishing off the Celtics in Game 7 on Saturday, the Sixers will play New York on that very same floor in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series that night; bumping the concert up or back a night won't work, either, because the Flyers are set to play Carolina in Games 3 and 4 of their Eastern Conference semi Thursday and Saturday. The Sixers then have their own Game 4 on Sunday. Thus, it would behoove Kyle Lowry, Garnet Hathaway, and all other involved employees of both teams to make this addendum to their finger-wagging: "Nobody believed in us, including us, and The Boss, too. Maybe Little Steven, but that's all."
We mention Lowry and Hathaway because, as their respective teams' oldest players, they are the one likeliest to remember Springsteen, or the way he once held sway over the American musical landscape. That seems unlikely because Springsteen's heyday happened well before Hathaway was born and at a moment when Lowry was just barely in kindergarten, and nobody expects either one to have the Boss on their Spotify lists. He is an oldies act now, as we must all become.
But Bruce still draws folks his own age, enough to do arena tours at the entirely coincidental age of 76. And he remains a sufficiently milky cow, audience-wise, that that he doesn't make room for mere sports teams as a general rule. They must make room for him.
Except for now. Now, o you amalgamated grandparents of Satan's America, Bruce Springsteen is the one getting bumped. The man tours all the time, age be damned, while the Flyers and Sixers have made the second round of the playoffs in the same year only four times since 1983, which was also the last year that either team won a championship. They play in the same arena but are essentially ships that pass in the night, typically without noticing each other at all. By this time of year, one or both of those ships is traditionally up on blocks.
But the Flyers won the right to stick around by oozing past Pittsburgh Thursday in Game 7 of their series, a 1-0 overtime scrape whose only real failing was that it didn't last four times as long, while the Sixers won a spirited game of tease-killing the Boston Celtics in Game 7 on Saturday. It was their first series win over the Celtics since 1982—right around the height of the Springsteen craze, as it happens.
Thus, the return, and then the swift and crushing end of one of the great and enduring stereotypes of the age—Springsteen And Sportswriters. It is tough to know when the idea that sportswriters, who in this gag are largely middle-aged and white, are Springsteen's most devoted acolytes took root, but it has blossomed and spread like cranberry bogs ever since. Who knows, it may have actually been true at one point. When conversations about the musical genius of The Boss began in press boxes, hotel lobbies, airports, or late hours taverns, the less devoted of the breed would typically make slow but perceptible withdrawals to another part of the room; Bruce surely is it for some in the trade, but others prefer the peace and quiet of louts in fistfights over whose quarter was on the skittles table and therefore the owner of the next game.
In a mild upset, just given the size of the industry relative to that of The E Street Band, Springsteen's fame has outlasted most sportswriting, and certainly those sportswriters who found him the zenith of dude entertainment. Most of them either retired, got phased out, were fired for cheating on expense accounts, or their newspapers and magazines collapsed under the weight of nepo-baby ownership that didn't like the idea of people reading and immediately shut down Daddy's shop to devote more time to their dream of operating a string of cannabis stores on Highway 359.
Plus, and let's be kind here, Springsteen is Springsteen and this is 2026. Music has changed repeatedly since his zenith, and the triumphs of his catalog now stand alongside the fact that he is both as old and as vital as he is and can still warrant arena dates. This is not an evaluation of his work, to be clear; your vagrant typist saw him opening for David Clayton Thomas five decades ago and enjoyed it fine. (And yeah, we dare you to google David Clayton Thomas.) We're not reviewing his discography here, or really anywhere else. Who do you think you're dealing with, Carson Daly?
It's just that there is something culturally hilarious about Springsteen having to move a long-awaited gig in Philly, which is close enough to his Jersey Shore antecedents to count as something like his home court, to the end of the month because the Sixers and Flyers took the arena at the same time and have first dibs. The last time this postseason time-share happened simultaneously was 2000, when the Sixers were being dope-slapped at the hands of Reggie Miller's Indiana Pacers and the Flyers were bouncing Jaromir Jagr's Pittsburgh Penguins from the postseason. Jagr, by the way, is like Springsteen in that he is still playing professionally; he's 54 years old and as such quite likely a more devoted Springsteen fan than your average contemporary sportswriter.
It could have been worse for Springsteen, though, as he also has gigs at Madison Square Garden next week. His first show, May 11, is the night before the first If Necessary game between the Sixers and Knicks, and his second, May 16, is slated for the night before a prospective Game 7. For a local music eminence to have two weeks of shows bumped for the stylings of Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, and V.J. Edgecombe would be both a tribute to their mutual staying power—especially that of the Sixers, who have lost seven consecutive second round series going back to 2001—and a laugh.
And the Flyers? Their last brush with a deep playoff run came in 2010, or nine coaches ago, including, you will not be surprised to learn, John Tortorella. Besides, the Flyers got waxed last night by Carolina in Game 1, 3-0, and by any reasonable reckoning of the teams' relative strengths will be happy to make it to May 16. That would be Game 7, although Springsteen will be miles from Raleigh by then...in so many ways.
