With The Eras Tour, her new movie, and the recent release of 1989 Taylor’s Version, Taylor Swift is on top of the world. While all of these are celebrated accomplishments, her newly discovered relationship with NFL star, Travis Kelce, is amongst the top stories covered in the news, podcasts, and articles today. This duo has brought the “Swifties” and football fans together which has sparked many trends and even debates on platforms such as Tik Tok. There is a viral Tik Tok trend where “Swifties” will record a football fan’s reaction while they say something along the lines of, “Isn’t it crazy that Taylor Swift put Travis Kelce on the map?” Although this is a silly social media trend, the idea of the NFL benefiting off of the exposure of Taylor Swift is real. Many fans have noticed that during a Chiefs game when Taylor Swift is in attendance, the camera flashes to showcase her and her A-list celebrity friends an excessive amount of times during the broadcast. When this first began, civilians argued that Taylor and Travis’ relationship was fake and it was all just a PR stunt in order to promote her new movie, and for the NFL to gain more female viewers. Over time, we’ve seen paparazzi pictures and videos of the two coming in and out of places such as Saturday Night Live, we’ve seen Taylor develop relationships with people such as Travis’ mom, Donna Kelce, and Brittany Mahomes, and we’ve heard Travis discuss his relationship very respectfully on his podcast, New Heights. Those who believed it was all a PR stunt, have slowly backed down overtime after noticing the overwhelming amount of evidence. But, why is the NFL still highlighting Taylor? Why is Coach Andy Reid talking about her in post-game interviews? Well, it’s because the NFL noticed the amount of attention this relationship has received, so the marketing team has chosen to take advantage of this in order to expand and engage their audience, and it has worked.
As a fellow “Swiftie”, I have found myself tuning in to podcasts and games that wouldn’t have even crossed my mind otherwise. Following Taylor’s first game as a Kansas City Chiefs fan, the NFL and Travis Kelce have only continued to grow an immense amount. Fanatics reported a 400% increase in Kelce’s jersey sales, which bumped him to the top 5 players in the NFL. New Heights, Kelce’s podcast with his brother Jason, was #1 on Apple’s charts. Kelce has gained over 860,000 followers on instagram within a week long span after Swift attended the Chiefs v. Bears game. This number has grown to over 1 million new followers to this day. The Chiefs also reported that they sold more tickets in a single season since the beginning of the 2023 season. This is all due to the new audience that Taylor Swift has introduced to the NFL which is predominantly female. Viewership among teen girls ages 12-17 has spiked 53% compared to any regular Sunday game. The Chiefs v. Jets game became the most watched Sunday show since the Super Bowl in February 2023. This game attracted on average 27 million viewers, says NBC Sports.
Throughout the NFL season, I have noticed an overwhelming amount of Swift and Kelce’s relationship on my Tik Tok for you page, my Instagram explore page and many more places. I believe that the marketing team for the NFL and Chiefs are doing a great job of promoting football to their new audience, in order to gain more viewership, resulting in more money. The Chiefs Tik Tok page has posted the majority of their content about Travis Kelce in order to target the range of female children or teenagers who are Taylor Swift fans. The NFL broadcasters will make comments about Taylor Swift occasionally or even reference her song lyrics. Even with a shout out as tiny as this, the whole world ends up talking about it. The chaos and excitement that the NFL is creating around this relationship is attracting more viewers which is their main goal.
While most of the content created around Swift and Kelce’s relationship is for entertainment, the NFL is always looking to generate more revenue. Some football fans believe that the NFL is starting to over-do it with the Taylor Swift mentions, but they are honestly just making smart business moves. If any company was in the position the NFL is in right now, they would do the same thing and take full advantage of the attention they are receiving. Taylor Swift is arguably one of the most famous artists in the world right now, and everywhere she goes gets at least a little hint of attention, it only matters what they make of it.