Can’t Shake It Off: Taylor Swift’s Impact on the NFL
Taylor Swift is the female icon of this generation, representing female empowerment, and is known for criticizing sexism, racism and corporate greed all by writing a song, yet her impact on her fanbase doesn’t end with her influential songs, or by causing glitter dresses and beads to sell out rapidly. The celebrity has also brought quite an uproar to the football field due to her relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end, Travis Kelce, leaving football fans furious.
Ever since Swift made her first appearance at a Chiefs game back in September to see Kelce, the media and football fanatics immediately gave their commentary about the situation, leaving Swift and Kelce to be the punchline to every joke. One main comment that I heard all day Monday after the Super Bowl is that the Chiefs’ Super Bowl win was “scripted.”` Many believe this is solely because Swift is dating Kelce, and to keep up with viewership from all of Swift’s fans, the Chiefs would have to win.
Swift and Kelce just announced that they were officially dating in October 2023, and yet the Chiefs had already been winning. Super Bowl LVIII coincidentally happened to be a rematch between both teams from Super Bowl LIV in 2020, when Swift was nowhere close to the NFL so it’s not that big of a surprise they beat the 49ers again. In no way does this prove that Swift had any impact in the outcome of the game.
Another problem Chiefs fans have is that Swifties’ are coming to the game to see Swift. Are they coming to the game with intentions of seeing Swift or are they going to the game because she drew them to football since it adds interest for people who aren’t interested in only watching the game. Even if they were only buying a ticket just to see Swift, that’s still one more person watching football who wouldn’t otherwise; also, how is it her fault that fans are coming to see her? If anything, the celebrity brings all kinds of people to the football world, even people who would typically never watch football. This dynamic is pictured in Cetaphil’s Super Bowl commercial, depicting how a football fan dad and his Swiftie daughter combined their interests and watched football together. Not only is Swift increasing views, she’s also dramatically increasing profit for the Chiefs’ and the NFL as a whole
“Yesterday, Travis Kelce was one of the top five selling NFL players and saw a nearly 400% spike in sales throughout the Fanatics network of sites, including NFLShop.com,” a Fanatics spokesperson told the Associated Press.
Besides making the NFL profit from her appearance and diversifying the football audience, the addition of interesting details about players and their lives makes the sport much more interesting for people who aren’t entertained by a ball being thrown around or seeing people get tackled, I found it more entertaining to watch the Super Bowl this year because it was more than football. It was exciting to see Taylor there to cheer for her “Lover” and see her friends, including singer Ice Spice and actress Blake Lively cheer for Kelce too. Though I’m not an insane Taylor Swift fan, it truly was fun to cheer for her boyfriend on the field and be able to see football in a different way. Football doesn’t always have to be traditional Football to be enjoyable; the only change made was women’s viewership to the NFL.
Counterpoint: Taylor Swift has no long term benefit to the NFL
While I’ll be the first to admit that she gave us some pretty good headlines this season, Taylor Swift did not, however, bring a significant long term benefit to the NFL. More than additional revenue or added viewership, the appearance of Taylor Swift at Chiefs games this season only increased the number of stupid questions such as “What’s a first down?”, “Why doesn’t Travis throw the ball?” “Is Taylor performing at halftime?”, “Can we just have the camera on Taylor the whole time?”, or my all-time favorite, “They can’t play the Super Bowl unless she gets back from Japan on time can they?”
This whole relationship reeks of a publicity grab orchestrated by the NFL to help keep their headlines fresh and appealing. The addition of Taylor has given the league an appeal towards arguably the most insane fanbase that the world’s ever seen. The problem is, in the long term, this will not help the league; the moment that Taylor and the game are no longer intertwined, all of the Swifties will return to their old ways of ignoring the outside world and focusing only on their queen.
There’s no doubt that Swift’s presence in the football world brought added intrigue from more people than ever this season, but unfortunately, she’s also setting up the league for a massive viewership crash. Viewership was up 7 percent this season, tied for the second-highest year since 1995, but as Isaac Newton so wisely said, “what goes up must come down,” and I’m confident that rule will apply to NFL viewership in the next few seasons if she is no longer in the picture. The fans she brought to the game this year are what sports fans would call ‘casual fans’; when she’s gone, they will be too. At that time, barring the addition of another serious power couple within the league, I have no doubt that those viewership numbers will perform their scientific duties and come down. Taylor Swift’s unique and intriguing addition to the NFL world, while polarizing, is short term, and in a few years the NFL will not be better off because of it.
Then the question that everyone’s thinking: what happens if they break up? Well, first and foremost, knowing the barbaric grudges that Swifites have been known to hold, they will surely begin to boycott the NFL for who knows how long, bringing a considerable decline in viewership with it. As it relates to her relationship with Travis, personally, I hope they get married, no sense in dragging the whole world through this publicity circus unless they actually go through with it; otherwise what was all of this for?
