The NFL has made sure that nearly every fan of the sport is well aware of the reported relationship between Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce and pop icon Taylor Swift.
Swift has frequently been shown during broadcasts of Chiefs’ games that she is in attendance for. NBC even aired a Swift-themed intro for Sunday Night Football in Week 4.
Fans of the NFL couldn’t escape the Swift-Kelce coverage even if they wanted to. And it sure seems like the NFL has no plans to stop their heavy focus on Swift during games moving forward.
ESPN obtained a statement from the NFL on the matter, which defended their focus on Swift by calling it a “pop-cultural moment”.
“We frequently change our bios and profile imagery based on what’s happening in and around our games, as well as culturally,” the NFL wrote in their statement on Wednesday via ESPN. “The Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce news has been a pop cultural moment we’ve leaned into in real time, as it’s an intersection of sport and entertainment, and we’ve seen an incredible amount of positivity around the sport.”
The NFL went on to say in their statement that they still believe the vast majority of their content has been focused solely on football.
“The vast majority of our content has remained focused on the game, our players, and a variety of other initiatives, including our Toy Story Funday Football alt-cast, the international games, and more.”
It seems like the NFL is going to ride this Swift-Kelce relationship as far as it goes. And truly, it is hard to blame them considering the additional eyes it has brought to the sport as a whole.
According to NBC, their broadcast of Sunday Night Football in Week 4 of the Kansas City Chiefs and the New York Jets, a game that Swift was in attendance for, brought in an average of 27 million viewers on NBC and Peacock. That makes it the second-most-watched NFL game of the season.
[ESPN]