Love it or hate it, having Taylor Swift at NFL games is a touchdown for broadcasters
On Sunday, The Kansas City Chiefs will take on the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Championship that will either send the Chiefs to the Super Bowl or, as some might be thinking about it, mark the end of “Football (Taylor’s Version).”
At least for the season.
The latter would likely please the dads, Brads and Chads of the world, who have taken issue with the attention being paid to pop star Taylor Swift when she attends NFL games to see her boyfriend Travis Kelce in action. But the truth is this: Leaning into Taylor mania is a no-lose game for broadcasters. So, for at least one more game, the haters might just have to, as Swift might say, focus on the players as they play, play, play…
Swift has regularly attended a slew of recent Kansas City Chiefs football games to support Kelce, the team’s superstar tight end, and broadcasters of those games have taken every opportunity to show Swift in the stands, cheering him on.
Because they can. And, ultimately, the decision on how many times Swift is shown throughout a game is up to that broadcaster, which has included the likes of CBS, NBC, FOX and ESPN – not the NFL, according to Alex Riethmiller, a spokesperson for the league.
“We wouldn’t give any direction to our broadcasters along the lines of, ‘we need more Taylor Swift or we need less Taylor Swift,’” Riethmiller told CNN. “It’s really up to the individual broadcasters in situations like this to determine what they think is best.”
By CNN’s count, Swift was shown during CBS’s broadcast of the Chiefs-Bills AFC Divisional playoff game no less than six times, which includes one cut to the singer during pregame coverage. That’s down from the reported 17 cuts to her during NBC’s broadcast of an October game that she attended to watch the Chiefs play the New York Jets.
In all, Swift has attended 11 games since September 2023, and with each appearance in the crowd, increasingly drawn what seems like as many cheers and jeers as the men on the field.
The frenzy is perhaps to be expected when the world’s biggest pop star scores an unexpected role on the highest-rated show on television. And though Swift won’t be getting an Emmy for this guest spot, there is a winner here: football.
Swift’s presence at Chiefs games has inarguably activated an audience who wouldn’t normally tune in to a football game, including numerous so-called “Swifties” who watch games they anticipate the “Anti-Hero” singer attending.
But the numbers tell us the full story.
Last Sunday’s playoff game between the Chiefs and the Bills was the most-watched divisional playoff game in history with over 50 million viewers, according to CBS. Swift was in attendance alongside Kelce’s brother, Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce – who went viral for his shirtless celebration of Kelce’s touchdown.
