She’s not cheer captain, and she’s not on the bleachers. She’s in a suite, sitting right next to the star player’s mom.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are at the center of sports media amidst appearances by the singer at several Kansas City Chiefs games following some flirtatious messages from the professional football player to the singer.
It’s an adorable story for us Swifties. The cute tight end, fresh off of a Super Bowl win, son of one of America’s favorite families, gives his number to Miss Americana herself via a friendship bracelet — a Swift concert staple — and the rest is history.
It’s an even more adorable story for the National Football League. The star tight end, fresh off a Super Bowl win, son of one of America’s favorite families, scores Miss Americana’s loyal fans as viewers of Chiefs games, and the cash comes rolling in.
The NFL has been blessed with a development in Kelce’s and Swift’s personal lives that have resulted in a Sunday Night Football viewership increase among women ages 18-24 and over 35, making for an additional over 2 million female viewers, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
But before I try to convince my boyfriend who doesn’t watch football to dress up with me as Kelce and Swift for Halloween, there are some patterns that go beyond playful media and an increase in jersey sales that are worth examining.
While I can appreciate the rhetoric that suggests that Kelce’s sudden influx of, according to The Hollywood Reporter, almost 500,000 Instagram followers and a 400% increase in jersey sales since the first game she attended in support of Kelce, is yet another numerical representation of the cultural power of Swift, there is a deeper, uglier truth here.
The continued coverage and commentary on the relationship between Kelce and Swift is not because it’s been a slow news week, or because it’s the hard hitting stuff that people really want to know. It is instead due to the massive traffic and financial gain that it has brought the NFL and its merchandise suppliers, as well as a distraction from the negative and sometimes criminal associations with the organization. And with a relationship this new, and an opportunity this fleeting, considering the fact that Swift resumes her tour next month, sports media has to get creative.
Of course, Swift is not naive to the fact that as a celebrity she is going to be a topic of conversation in the media. She is, however, fiercely selective of which parts of her life she lets us see. When she writes songs that allow her listeners into the deepest parts of her heart and mind, she trusts them with the details about her life that she is willing to share. At the same time, by leading an intentionally private life, careful not to discuss the details of her romantic involvements with the media, Swift sets a boundary that allows her and her loved ones to maintain some peace.
Swift told us that in life, we’ll do things greater than dating the boy on the football team.
Maybe it’s the 12 Grammys, record-breaking tours, or her status as one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time that tell me Swift has definitely backed herself up on this.
So then why, now that she is linked to Kelce, is their very new, highly speculative relationship the largest topic of conversation?
In a CNN op-ed, independent journalist Frankie de la Cretaz presents the idea that Swift’s decision to accept Kelce’s invitation to one of his games in the wake of a few less successful attempts by Kelce to get the singer’s attention is the sole reason that there are so many more women and girls watching football. In other words, Kelce finally got the girl, saved the day and that is what’s making women watch. This theory completely disregards the fact that before this news cycle and after it, women have and will continue to watch football. 46% of the NFL fan base are women and girls, according to USA Today.
By blurring the lines between a convenient marketing opportunity, and a platform for patriarchal practices to be modeled on a national scale to a newer, mostly young, female audience, the NFL is taking the story of Swift and Kelce’s rumored romance to the bank and way too far beyond.
Alongside statistical misconception, is the all too familiar mill of conspiracy theories and narratives that paint Swift, the woman in the equation, as an aggressor that has been skillfully acquired by Kelce, but of whom Chiefs fans should be wary. Swift, a Pennsylvania native, is known to be a proud Philadelphia Eagles fan. Some believe that, as something of an Eagles spy, Swift is going to get into Kelce’s mind and compromise his psyche, therefore ruining the Chief’s chances at another Super Bowl win.
Though theories of this nature may be unique to the world of football, narratives that portray Swift as a threat to the men with whom she is involved issue a warning to anyone that dare begin a romantic relationship with Swift that there, inevitably, will be a song written about the poor soul down the line.
As we are making puns with song lyrics, speculating about future football player related albums, and forming newer and more bizarre conspiracy theories about the situation, we are contributing to a conversation that Swift has been actively opposing for years; the motives, morals, and details of her dating life.
In their op-ed, de la Cretaz notes that the men at the helm of sports media are the ones that are advancing some of these narratives with the constant coverage and commentary in the interest of financial gain, despite Swift’s team’s wishes to minimize speculation on the issue. According to The Guardian, as Kelce put it in he and his brother’s latest episode of their podcast, the NFL and sports media, are “overdoing it.” This robs Swift of her control of a very new, very sensitive part of her life. As a feminist consumer of this feminist artist’s work, this pattern doesn’t sit right with me.
The romantic in me hopes that we see more of them. It’s nice to see two people that are elite in their respective fields show appreciation for each other’s greatness. It would, of course, be fun to see a real life rom-com play out. You definitely could make this stuff up, but now, you don’t have to. And that’s the thing.
These are real people that are often confused for commodities or good pop culture Halloween costumes And while they may not be new or entirely opposed to the public’s commentary on the more intimate details of their lives, as Kelce did offer his perspective on the podcast, it’s always good that as a society, we look at who is really in control of these narratives, especially once money is involved.
Hint: It isn’t Swift.