I watched the Super Bowl because of Taylor Swift
And I loved it.
This was the first year I’ve watched the Super Bowl (or any kind of sporting event) in more than a decade.
Yes, it’s because of Taylor Swift.
I’ve been counting down the days until I see her in concert this summer, but until then, football has been seeping into my periphery. And it’s been kind of fun!
The infusion of Taylor’s fandom into the sport meant custom coats for Taylor Swift and Brittany Mahomes were the first time I saw football merch that wasn’t ugly. Friends were suddenly inviting me to sports gatherings that weren’t about beer and wings, but were themed with friendship bracelets and Taylor Swift music playing over the broadcasters. I’ve loved watching fans take to “taylorgating” in the parking lot of games, and leaving stadiums singing Swift songs. The Kansas City Ballet even choreographed the NFL’s theme song and challenged the San Francisco Ballet to a Super Bowl-themed ballet battle.
In Kansas City, little boys are going to school in their Chiefs jerseys, but so are little girls in custom sequined versions. They make Chiefs-themed friendship bracelets and trade them with their friends like they would at a Swift concert. Dads have even taken to TikTok to share their daughters’ newfound love of the sport, their Frozen dresses accented with Chiefs tutus and football helmets. On the evening of the Super Bowl, one said: “The last thing my seven-year-old daughter said to me before going to bed was ‘Please tell me who won the game when you wake me up.’ She follows football now because of Taylor.”
One Bills fan even went so far as to suggest that Taylor deserves credit for bringing empathy to football fans. He said guys like him that used to be “toxic assholes” are starting to experience this “camaraderie among fans of the same team and fans of different teams.” Watching the game with his daughter this season changed his perspective. “It’s a bad reflection on me that it took my daughter being involved in football for me to change my perspective on the game,” he said. “I should have been a better person before that, but I wasn’t.”
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
This infusion of camaraderie has been a welcome addition to a sport that, to me, felt represented only by beer commercials laden with American flags and running horses, and left men shooting those cans of beer with guns when a trans person tried to market them to a different audience. I never understood the yelling matches and violet skirmishes that broke out between fans. I resonated when I saw a comedian joke that no woman ever walks past a football stadium and says, “I want a man like that.”
So I’ve largely been absent from the sport. But maybe, so have others.
Until Taylor Swift.
Throughout the season, the media hounded players and coaches about Taylor Swift. I expected them to recoil, to say something like “ask me about the game we just played, not one of the fans in the box.” But they didn’t. They listed their favorite Taylor Swift songs, talked about how much they loved getting to know her, and danced to her songs at the Super Bowl after party.
During the season, Chiefs players exchanged friendship bracelets before a Jets game. When opposing fans screamed obscenities at a Bills game, Travis Kelce held up his hands in Taylor’s signature heart formation. On his podcast he explained, “Some pretty inappropriate things were said about Pat Mahomes. It was pretty whack… but I just wanted to make sure they knew it wasn't mutual. I don't hate you guys like you hate us, it's all love baby."
That Taylor’s fanbase was suddenly paying attention has been beneficial to the sport. When Taylor first appeared at a Chiefs game last August, viewership increased by 65.5 percent and ticket sales to future games tripled. The following week’s Jets game became the most-watched Sunday game since last year’s Super Bowl. The Super Bowl was the most watched television broadcast ever.
This influx has been led by women—among “Sunday Night Football” viewers this season, teenage girls increased by 53 percent over the first three broadcasts, women between 18-24 were up by 24 percent, and women over 35 were up by 34 percent. All of this led to a 20 percent surge in sponsorships for the game—including placements by women-centric brands like Dove that were new additions this year—plus an additional $331.5 million in brand value for the Chiefs and the NFL.
“It’s sort of a gift from the heavens for this all to happen,” Tim Ellis, chief marketing officer for the NFL told The New York Times, “but it’s our job now to ensure that these fans coming in will stay.”
One thing that would make us stay? Keep making football more like a Taylor Swift concert! If football wasn’t wrapped in loud graphics, clashing jerseys, beer helmets, and broadcasters speaking game vernacular, I might like it much better. What if, like Taylor Swift’s fandom, it had better music, prettier merch, friendship bracelets, easter egg drops for fans within the games, and more relatable commentators like Swiftie Zainub Amir, who, after teaching herself the sport this season, responded to lost plays with “Oh my God, that is so bad,” and when a coach got mad at a ref, with, “I would be mad, too.”
A friend informed me that football already markets itself in multiple different ways: There’s the traditional broadcast geared to football fans, the more lighthearted version where the Manning brothers talk over it, and the Next Gen Stats version filled with analytics. Nickelodeon even has a version for kids. I haven’t watched any of these because they aren’t my thing, but if there was a fifth version played through a new lens, maybe I’d be more interested.
There kind of is. This year, I paid attention to the season through New Heights, a podcast hosted by Chiefs player Travis Kelce and his brother, retired Eagles player Jason Kelce. The episodes dissect each game, but also how it affects their own lives. Jason’s wife and kids frequently make an appearance on the show recounting various parts of the season, like when Jason took his shirt off and jumped out of his box at a Chiefs game. He said his wife didn’t want him to do it—it was his first time meeting Taylor, but he rebutted: ”The first day I met you I was blacked out drunk and fell asleep at the bar. This is part of the charm!”
One incredibly cute video from the Amazon documentary Kelce showed Jason getting home after losing the Super Bowl to his brother’s team. His little daughter, with a pacifier in her mouth, says, “You didn’t winned. Uncle Travvy winned… I didn’t want Uncle Travvy to win.”
This lifestyle sports content reminds me of Lebron James’ The Shop, or sports documentaries like basketball’s The Last Dance, Formula 1’s Drive to Survive, and the Tour de France’s Unchained. I’ve loved all of these shows despite not loving sports. In these broadcasts we have access to the humanization of these athletes, the artistry of the sport, insight into what it’s like to reach for a big dream, and a behind-the-scenes peek at what it takes to get there. We become more involved in what goes into the game, the people who are playing it, we want to see them succeed.
That’s what got sidelines reporter Erin Andrews into the game. Andrews grew up watching football with her dad and learning all about the players. "I thought that all these guys were my friends because my dad would tell me such relatable stories about them that I became such a huge fan of the sport," she told People. My husband’s grandma is similarly invested in her teams. She knows the name of every football player on the Pittsburgh Steelers, and could tell you all about the family lives of the Pittsburgh Penguins. These people are important to her, that’s why she wants them to win.
That’s what got me involved this year. For the first time I knew something about the players and it was fun to root for them alongside my friends. That Taylor Swift won Best Album at the Grammys the same week that Travis Kelce won the Super Bowl was like watching a fairytale come to life. It was rewarding to see two people take their place in history because of their own hard work and ingenuity, and to be celebrated for it! It was the American Dream personified!
And it’s fun to root for someone. I loved taking part in the season with other Swifties this year. In addition to wings and beers and sticky floors and loud announcers, we have also gathered for empowering music playing over games interspersed with personal stories from both teams. We’ve had charcuterie boards and glasses of wine, we’ve been wearing pink jerseys and swapping friendship bracelets, and we’ve been gathering to watch our teams succeed. No matter who wins and loses.
Because of Taylor, I really loved getting into football this season.
And having another reason to be a fan!
Great article, Elle. I started watching when my daughter started playing Fantasy Football. I really got into the games. The Swift-Kelce romance was fun. I can see how a different perspective might encourage more enjoyment for a broader audience. Excellent insight.