SWIFT'S NEXT CONQUEST? THE NFL

In 2023 Taylor Swift dominated the music industry. Sales, streams, tickets, merch—no one got close to Swift’s level of superstardom. She even rounded out the year topping the box office with the most successful concert film of all time.

The National Football Leage has become not only the biggest brand in sports but, by every metric, the most powerful entity in American media. Companies line up to throw billions at the NFL for a piece of game-day action. Nothing is bigger in the U.S. of A., except for Taylor Swift, who fills more stadiums than league franchises.

Swift’s world and the NFL collided when Tay started dating all-pro Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. She attended nearly every Chiefs game in the second half of the season—and viewership ballooned to new heights. The AFC Divisional round logged 50m+ viewers, the most ever for an NFL Divisional playoff match. Numbers from 1/28’s AFC Championship game point to nearly 56m.

While the NFL and CBS (the network that carried AFC and Chiefs games every week) isn’t directly crediting Swift’s involvement for the increase in eyeballs, the content they’re delivering in-game and post-game on social media says otherwise. Reports find Swift generating $330m+ in “brand value” for the Chiefs and the NFL via TV, print, digital and social-media reach since Tay attended her first game on 9/24/23. Kelce’s jersey sales have increased 400%.

Any major-league team doing as well as the Chiefs at this point in the season would arguably enjoy the same popularity—would-be NFL champs tend to be popular on their way to the Super Bowl. But only this team has been bathed in the most special of all special sauces: Swifties. It is Taylor's fans, of course, who are pushing the numbers into the stratosphere. They are following with rapt attention their heroine's relationship with Kelce. Watching her real-life storybook romance—who doesn't want to date a football hero?—every week on live television is the most compelling docuseries they could have imagined, a dream come true. One could make the case that the Kelce-Swift saga, playing out as the Chiefs continue to win, is one of the few things in Tay's public life beyond her control. This is down to fate.

And now the Swifties, Kelce, the NFL, the Chiefs, the CBS brass and the rest of the world will get to see Swift at no less than the Super Bowl. And all this excitement not for a performance but a "mere" presence; assuming Tay instructs her jet crew for an immediate departure from Japan, she will attend SBLVIII as a girlfriend, not an artist. The jocks miffed by all the Swift coverage will just have to take the “L” on 2/11. The audience investment at this year’s Super Bowl will be unlike anything the NFL has ever seen. Are you ready for it?