I’m old-school. I admit it. I started watching pro football when Ben Davidson and George Blanda were playing for the Oakland Raiders, and football was about what took place on the field and not in the stands. But the National Football League is doing the right thing by exploiting the budding romance between Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and pop superstar Taylor Swift. It’s good for the game.
The NFL isn’t made up of a bunch of curmudgeons unfamiliar with the impact of social media and the connection between athletes and entertainers. It’s clear those in charge of marketing and promoting the league recognize the unique opportunity Swift’s relationship with Kelce, the league’s best tight end, presents. It’s proven to be a golden opportunity to expose the NFL to a coveted demographic of younger viewers, especially women.
We’ve heard about the immediate economic impact the pairing has caused: a 400% spike in the sale of Kelce’s jersey; a surge of 400,000 followers on Kelce’s social media following; a 63% increase in female viewers aged 18-49 for the Chiefs-Bears game in Week 3, the most-viewed contest of that weekend attracting 24.3 million viewers.
Kelce’s mom, Donna, wasn’t wrong when she said on the podcast “Got It From My Momma,” that the NFL “is laughing all the way to the bank.”
During last Sunday’s game between the Chiefs and New York Jets at the Meadowlands, cameras cut to Taylor Swift roughly 17 times, showing her in a suite with Kelce’s mom and an entourage that included Sophie Turner, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Hug Jackman, Sabrina Carpenter, and Brittany Mahomes. They also twice promoted her upcoming movie of her Eras Tour. The game attracted an estimated 27 million viewers, making it the most-watched show on Sunday since Super Bowl LVII on Fox in February. The national TV household rating of 12.9/35 represented a 15% increase from last year’s Week 4 telecast. Big numbers mean big money.
Kelce admitted on the podcast he shares with his brother Jason, the Philadelphia Eagles center, that the NFL is “overdoing it a little bit for sure” when it comes to spotlighting his new relationship, but don’t expect the league to pull back anytime when Swift is in the building. Donna Kelce said she has been told by NFL officials that “the Kelce family has done more PR for football than they could have paid a million dollars to a PR firm.” That’s true.
It helps that Kelce has the type of personality that can seemingly deal with all the attention. He was asked more questions about his relationship with Swift during a media session on Friday than he was about the Chiefs game on Sunday against the Vikings in Minnesota. He didn’t shy away from the inquiries into his private life. “As all the attention comes, it feels like I was on top of the world after the Super Bowl and right now even more on top of the world so it’s fun,” Kelce said, adding, “You’ve got a lot of people who care about Taylor for good reasons. You just got to keep living and learning and enjoying the moments.”
There’s no confirmation Swift will attend Sunday’s upcoming game in Minneapolis, but the city’s mayor is ready to welcome the pop star. He sees dollar signs, too. “We know all too well the positive impact Taylor Swift has on the cities she visits,” Mayor Jacob Frey said, according to TMZ. He was referring to her two sold-out concerts at U.S. Bank Stadium in June, which led to a record-setting weekend for tourism.
The Kelce-Swift friendship goes deeper than economic revenue. It’s connecting football fathers with their daughters. Former Giants quarterback Eli Manning told People, “I’ve never convinced the three of my girls to sit down on a Sunday and watch a whole lot of football,” said the father of four girls and one son. “But once they found out Taylor Swift was at the game, there were three girls glued to the TV just to watch it, trying to figure out who Travis Kelce was and what was going on. It was funny to see their reaction and how Taylor Swift being out at the football game drew their attention to watching football.”
Sure there are some haters, as there are with anything these days. Traditional football fans just want to see football. But the NFL is doing the right thing by using Swift’s relationship with Kelce to generate interest and income. It also bonds fathers with daughters. It’s good for the game.