I think I can safely speak for most football fans when I say: Enough with the Taylor Swift.
The pop superstar has been the topic of conversation in the NFL lately after rumors of her budding relationship with star Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce were seemingly confirmed when Taylor appeared at Arrowhead Stadium to watch the Chiefs take on the Chicago Bears a few weeks ago, sitting in a box with Donna Kelce.
Since then NFL fans have been inundated with Taylor Swift coverage any time the Chiefs are on the field – and even sometimes when they’re not.
Even Travis Kelce thinks that the networks are “overdoing it” when it comes to talking about his new girl, saying on his New Heights podcast that the NFL isn’t used to having superstars of Taylor’s caliber at their games:
“I just think the NFL isn’t used to celebrities coming to games. Basketball has it figured out, they’re all court-side, they’re all sitting there, they show them once or twice, but then they get back to the game.
The NFL is like, ‘Look at all these A-list celebrities at the game! Keep showing them! Show them, show them!’
Dude listen, you show them once, let them know they’re there, maybe after a touchdown you get a little clip. But you can’t be overboard with it. People are there to watch the game, right?”
But the whole thing has been a major win for the league: The Sunday Night Football broadcast of the Chiefs game versus the Jets a few weeks ago, when it was announced beforehand that Taylor Swift would be in attendance, drew the biggest television audience for any NFL game since the Super Bowl, and averaged nearly 27 million viewers for the contest.
So obviously the NFL is going to do their best to capitalize on the legions of Swifties who tune in.
But even Saturday Night Live is calling them out for going too far.
On last night’s SNL, the show parodied the NFL broadcasts that are more focused on Swift than the football game with a skit that was actually pretty hilarious (especially by recent SNL standards).
The skit featured Kenan Thompson as Curt Menefee on FOX NFL Sunday, who is clearly over the Swift talk, trying to keep the show on track with a bunch of co-hosts and reporters who only want to talk Taylor.
At one point, Pete Davidson appears as a sideline reporter dressed all in Swiftie gear at a Philadelphia Eagles and New York Jets game, disappointed that Taylor Swift is nowhere to be seen. Kenan asks Davidson why he thinks Taylor Swift would be at a Jets-Eagles game, and Davidson wonders why he’s even at the game:
“Because that’s your job, Kenny. You are a football analyst.”
Davidson then proceeds to break down…a picture of Taylor sitting in the box at a Chiefs game.
And back in the studio, Kenan’s fellow analysts, Howie Long, Terry Bradshaw, Michael Strahan and Jimmy Johnson proceed to argue about who is the bigger Taylor Swift fan, before an exasperated Kenan throws it to somebody who “actually wants to talk football” – and it’s Travis Kelce himself.
The tight end appears on the screen giving an annoyed, “Yes, please!” to end the skit, echoing his real-life comments that the NFL is overdoing it with their Taylor coverage.
The whole thing will probably hit home for football fans who are over all of the Taylor Swift talk during their NFL Sundays.
Of course Taylor Swift herself also made an appearance on SNL later in the evening to introduce musical guest Ice Spice, so even if you were tuning in to get away from seeing her for awhile….well, at this point resistance might just be futile.
