After every Super Bowl victory, the winning team makes the trip to Washington, D.C., to celebrate with the president at the White House. But this season, reports began to swirl that quarterback Sam Darnold and his team had already declined the invitation. The only problem? The narrative the internet ran with tells a very different story from what is actually happening on the ground.

“The White House has not responded to four inquiries from The Seattle Times,” the Seattle Times reported on February 18. “According to an NFL source who was not authorized to speak on the matter, no White House invitation has been extended to the Seahawks as of Wednesday, despite online speculation that the team had declined an invite.”

Here’s what happened: The rumors began after an unverified post on X from a user named ‘Ron Wright’ claimed the Seahawks had declined a White House invitation. The post generated 4.1 million views, but the Seattle Times’ update suggests that no invitation has been issued to the team. It remains unclear whether President Donald Trump will extend such an invitation to the Seahawks at all. And the Seahawks organization has been equally tight-lipped, with no player, coach, or official making any public statement on the matter.

For decades, U.S. presidents have welcomed championship teams to the White House in celebration of their titles. However, that tradition faltered during Donald Trump’s first term, when he withdrew an invitation to the Philadelphia Eagles in 2018 following their Super Bowl victory. Several players indicated they would not attend, so Trump canceled the visit altogether.

Tony's Top Prospects For QB For EAGLES

VIEW ALL TONY'S PICKS ON THE BIG BOARD

Other teams followed suit. That same year, the Seattle Storm mentioned they would forgo a customary White House visit after winning their title.

“It doesn’t feel exciting. Nobody wants to go,” Seattle Storm’s Sue Bird said back then. “It’s totally changed and that’s disappointing because it used to be something that most athletes looked forward to.”

But this tradition carries weight.

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter became the first sitting president to formally honor championship sports teams at the White House, inviting both the Pittsburgh Steelers and the World Series-winning Pittsburgh Pirates to celebrate their respective victories. That said, the Steelers and the Pirates were not even the first championship teams to make the trip to the White House.

Two years before their visit, Carter welcomed the 1978 NBA champion Washington Bullets. With all that, he became the first president to host title celebrations for winners of the NBA, MLB, and NFL.

That gesture of national recognition became a tradition, and for decades, championship teams made the trip to Washington as a matter of course. The tradition, however, has grown far more complicated in recent years.

From Philly to Seattle: the precedent in play

The speculation swirling around the Seahawks is not emerging in a vacuum. It is being shaped by a charged political climate and, more importantly, by real instances from the past. History, it turns out, has given this rumor plenty of room to breathe.

The most famous of those instances came in 2018, and it remains the most significant rupture the tradition has ever seen. For the first time in the history of the White House championship visit, an entire team’s celebration collapsed. President Trump stepped in with a public statement to explain why.

“The Philadelphia Eagles are unable to come to the White House with their full team to be celebrated tomorrow. They disagree with their president because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem, hand on heart, in honor of the great men and women of our military and the people of our country,” Trump said at that time.

That statement did not come out of nowhere. A wave of Eagles players (including safety Malcolm Jenkins and defensive end Chris Long) publicly refused to attend the event. Only five or fewer players were actually willing to show up, per ESPN reporter Don Van Natta. So, Trump called it off. In its place, the White House held what it called a “Celebration of America.”

When the Eagles won Super Bowl LIX last season, those memories came flooding back immediately. Speculation was swift: would history repeat itself? This time, the team did attend. Head coach Nick Sirianni led the Eagles to the White House on April 28, 2025, for a ceremony hosted by President Trump.

But not everyone made the trip. Jalen Hurts was absent, citing scheduling conflicts. The visit happened, but the image of a fully united championship celebration remained elusive. That brings us back to Seattle.

It will surely be interesting to see whether the White House extends an invitation to the team.

Seattle is among the most geographically remote NFL franchises in the entire league, sitting approximately 2,322 miles from Washington. So, logistical issues might arise if both sides agree for a visit.