Is Taylor Swift Ruining the NFL?
A closer look at the game attendance records of celebrity-status sports fans
By Anna McClean
Football fans have been up in arms over Taylor Swift stealing the spotlight at Chiefs games this season, as the cameras have repeatedly spotted her cheering on her boyfriend, Travis Kelce.
While the four-time album-of-the-year winner may have been the center of attention at stadiums across the country for each of her three plus hour concerts this year, The New York Times calculated that she is only shown for an average of 25 seconds per football game. That’s about .23% of the time, which is so insignificant you’d think it’d be simple for critics to just “Shake it Off” (Taylor’s version).
Swift even said in Time’s “Person of the Year” interview that she does not decide or know when the cameras will be on her suite. So what’s with all the “Bad Blood”?
I am having a hard time finding any backlash about Bon Jovi or Matthew McConaughey’s history of game-day appearances. And nobody bats an eye when Jack Nicholson, Drake, Spike Lee, Will Smith, Jay-Z, and Justin Timberlake are consistently courtside. The media has never questioned whether a singer like Bon Jovi deserved a seat in owner of the New England Patriots Robert Kraft’s suite or a friendship with former Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, but there has been suspicion around Swift from “The Very First Night” of her NFL appearances.
From MAGA-hat wearers who think her current relationship is part of a “Mastermind” political plan to die-hard football fanatics who feel that she is destroying the “Reputation” of the game, there are many Americans who feel that Swift’s already-minimal broadcasted presence should be no higher than 0%.
At the risk of sounding like a “Mad Woman,” this is a story we know “All Too Well” because it turns out that even a global record-setter is still the “Anti-Hero” in male-dominated spaces.
Personally, I think everyone needs to “Clean” up their attitude and queue “The Man” on repeat because Kelce and Swift’s “Love Story” might be the “End Game,” and she is here to “Stay, Stay, Stay.”