Superstars
Kelce and Taylor Swift – a marketing gift for the NFL
Are Taylor Swift and NFL star Travis Kelce a couple? photo
© Chris Pizzello/Ross D. Franklin/Invision/AP/dpa
For weeks there has been a topic in the NFL that is often debated more passionately than touchdowns: the relationship between Travis Kelce and superstar Taylor Swift. It’s a gift for the league.
At the weekend, the singer and the Kansas City Chiefs football professional appeared in public together, fueling the couple rumors that have been causing the huge Swift cosmos and Kelce’s fan base to collide for three weeks. Real fresh love or just an extremely successful PR stunt? Probably also because there is no clear announcement from the two yet, the attention is huge – and the NFL is happy.
Since Swift celebrated the Chiefs’ 41:10 win over the Chicago Bears on September 24th from a box at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, literally freaked out at Kelce’s touchdown and was apparently having a great time with his mom Donna (who has been there since the Super Bowl (a little star himself with his two sons in February), the matter is clear to many fans and observers: Something is going on. After the game, the two walked hand in hand through the stadium’s catacombs and finally drove away together in a convertible.
It’s not just the Internet that’s gone completely crazy since then. US media are also keen on every detail – and are happy when Kelce fuels the excitement with self-ironic jokes. Over the weekend, he not only had dinner with Swift, but also made a brief guest appearance on the comedy show “Saturday Night Live.” By the way, so did Swift, after which both were said to have been at the afterparty for hours.
A stroke of luck for marketing
According to US media, 383,000 new followers were added to Kelce’s Instagram account in the week after the game against Chicago alone. The NFL’s official merchandise provider, Fanatics, said demand for Kelce’s jerseys has increased 400 percent and he is now among the top five players in the league. The assumption is obvious: Taylor Swift’s millions and millions of fans are of course concerned with their idol’s possible new partner – and the NFL is rubbing its hands for free marketing to a young and female target group who are relatively involved in the full-contact sport of American football shows the least interest.
“It’s worldwide, man. Everyone has fun with it,” Kelce said at a recent press conference in his role as a Chiefs professional. “I know I brought this on myself. I’m lucky that I’m having fun with it so far and, and that’s really important, it doesn’t bother anyone here,” he said about the locker room of the Kansas City football team. which is already one of the teams that gets a lot of coverage. After all, the Chiefs have won two of the last four Super Bowls and have arguably the most exciting quarterback in the league in Patrick Mahomes.
The same Mahomes not only waved from the field in the direction of Swift when he found out about the first visit, but, according to an ex-NFL quarterback, is also otherwise happy about the situation. “For the first time in his life, the focus isn’t on him, he’s not the guy in the locker room that everyone’s talking about, and he can just breathe a little and do his thing in the shadow of that spotlight that Travis Kelce created there has,” said TV expert Ryan Fitzpatrick on Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime. The Chiefs won 19:8 against the Denver Broncos – and Swift was in the box again and cheered with Mahomes’ wife Brittany about the playmaker’s touchdown pass.
American football is number one in the USA
As big as the NFL is in the USA – no other sport is as popular with American TV viewers – the league is so small compared to Swift. 28.5 million people follow the NFL’s official Instagram profile. With 16.8 million followers, Odell Beckham Jr. is the NFL professional with the largest online following, according to data service provider Statista. Travis Kelce is at 4.2 million. Swift? Has 274 million followers.
Of course, the irritation of numerous men is justified, most of whom recently had to hear from their daughters or partners in an online prank that Kelce only really became famous thanks to Swift, and who sometimes reacted to this in a very disbelieving and therefore very entertaining way. Kelce is the benchmark at his position as a tight end, he played a huge role in the Chiefs’ two Super Bowl victories and is Mahomes’ favorite passing stop. Beyond the NFL, hardly anyone knows him, especially outside the USA.
Swift, on the other hand, is probably the music star par excellence at the moment. According to US media, her current Eras Tour generates $13 million in ticket sales every concert evening alone; she usually plays three shows in a row in one city. Forbes reported Swift has already earned $92 million from the tour and estimates her net worth at $740 million. This even impressed the notoriously grumpy New England Patriots coach Bill Bellichick, an avowed fan of the singer. “Travis has had a lot of big catches in his career, but this would be his biggest,” he said after Swift’s first visit to a Chiefs game.
She can be seen in South America from November 9th, so fans who come to the Chiefs’ game against the Miami Dolphins on November 5th in Frankfurt/Main will almost certainly not see her as a surprise guest in the stadium, but will have to wait for her Tour dates await in summer 2024, when she will give a total of seven concerts in Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg and Munich. The NFL is on summer break at the time. Kelce may not be in the audience like he was a few weeks ago in Kansas City, but backstage.