Taylor Swift mania has officially taken over the NFL.
Ever since the pop superstar was first linked to star Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, you can’t read a story about the NFL without Taylor Swift’s name popping up.
And when Taylor showed up at Arrowhead Stadium for the Kansas City Chiefs game against the Chicago Bears, sitting in a box with Kelce’s family, the internet went absolutely insane.
The result was over a 1200% increase in sales of Kelce’s jersey, pushing him past even star Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, as well as an increase of over 300,000 followers for Kelce on social media.
And it doesn’t appear that the Swiftie effect is going to be slowing down any time soon. Taylor also attended the Chiefs game this weekend on the road against the New York Jets, and this time the NFL and NBC fully embraced the increased attention that she brought to the sport.
Before the game even started, the network was hyping up Swift’s appearance at MetLife Stadium using her song “Welcome to New York.”
And prior to kickoff, NBC presented a Taylor Swift-themed explainer for the game featuring The Voice host Carson Daly.
From there, things didn’t get any better for NFL fans who are already experiencing Swift fatigue after only two weeks.
According to Front Office Sports, Taylor was shown 17 times during the broadcast of the closer-than-expected game – not counting the commercials for Swift’s Eras Tour movie coming to theaters this month.
While football fans who were tuning in to watch the game may have been annoyed by the constant Swift coverage, NBC was clearly loving it: The game ended up averaging nearly 27 million viewers, with a peak of nearly 30 million viewers. This was up nearly 10 million viewers from the previous week’s edition of Sunday Night Football, which drew around 19 million.
Oh, and it was also the highest viewed NFL game since the Super Bowl back in February.
It was clearly a win for the NFL and NBC, one that they were happy to embrace. Which begs the question: Is the entire relationship just a marketing ploy for the NFL?
It’s a theory that’s been circulating on social media, but really took off after the viewership numbers for this Sunday were announced.
And it doesn’t seem entirely unrealistic. Taylor’s fanbase is largely made up of demographics that generally don’t tune into the NFL as much: Young females.
In fact, all of the biggest demographic gains for this weekend’s Sunday Night Football broadcast were among women: 53% among girls 12 to 17, 24% for women 18 to 24, and 34% for women older than 35.
Only stoking the fire is the speed with which the NFL has rushed to embrace their newest power couple. After the game, the league changed their header photo on X (formerly known as Twitter) to feature shots of Swift watching the contest, while changing their bio on the Instagram-owned Threads to highlight the Chiefs’ 2-0 record with Taylor in attendance.
And the timing of the relationship is seen by some as more than a little suspect, with the hype surrounding the release of Swift’s Eras Tour movie.
Of course Taylor doesn’t really need NFL fans when it comes to selling tickets to her movie. But fans also noticed another strange tie-in between the two: Amazon Prime, which recently dropped a documentary on Kelce, is airing one Chiefs game this year on Thursday Night Football, and it happens to be the night before Swift’s Eras Tour movie is released.
And some have also pointed to Kelce recently signed with the Creative Artists Agency (CAA), a Los Angeles-based talent agency, as further evidence that the relationship with Swift is nothing more than a marketing ploy.
Of course manufactured relationships between celebrities is nothing new. (Why do you think the Kardashians are constantly in the news?)
And if the NFL, or Travis Kelce, were looking for a marketing ploy to boost their profiles, a relationship with the biggest superstar on the planet is probably the best way to do it.
Whether it’s real or just a giant setup meant to increase ratings, it’s working. But as Taylor Swift Mania continues its grip on the NFL, fans are only getting more suspicious that it’s not a real relationship at all.
