She loves the player, and you love the game

ALEX GILLIES
GRAPHIC DESIGNER

ALIVIA GILES
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

2/12/2024

Taylor Swift sent shockwaves through the NFL when she began attending Kansas City Chiefs football games to support her boyfriend – Chiefs tight end, Travis Kelce – in Sept. 2023. Many NFL fans view Swift as a “distraction” and have taken to social media to complain about coverage of the superstar at games.

Amid a record-breaking world tour, chart-topping music releases and major career announcements, the attention has been stripped from Swift’s work and put on something as trivial as how many seconds she is on screen during a three-hour football game.

Seconds is not an exaggeration. At most games, Swift is on screen for under 25 seconds in total. Football games are constantly interrupted by commercials, commentary and other celebrity attendance coverage. Eminem got as much screen time when he attended multiple Detroit Lions games. 

So, when NFL fans say Swift is disrupting the game, I just can’t believe that’s true. A talented and successful woman sitting in a spectator box watching a football game is not a distraction to NFL fans, it is a perceived threat.

The reality is that NFL fans are not comfortable with Swift’s success and level of fame. They don’t want to be reminded of it in a space where toxic masculinity has historically been the norm and where women have largely been excluded.

But now, these fans have no choice but to acknowledge that Swift’s mere presence at Chiefs games continues to have a significant impact on the NFL.

The NFL latched onto the Swift/Chiefs connection because they knew what it would do for the organization. Swift’s presence brought in a whole new audience. The sale of official NFL Kansas City Chiefs merchandise increased significantly.

No other person is popular enough or powerful enough to make the NFL that exciting by their mere presence at games. No player or coach can make merchandise sell like Swift has or get so many people paying attention to football like Swift has. 

Swift has shown girls and young women that they have every right to consider themselves football fans. These new fans have entered a world that they have generally not been let into. This inclusion has built community and strengthened connections between friends, family members and partners.

However, instead of celebrating that the sport they love is becoming more inclusive, so many NFL fans are uncomfortable and angry. Whether they know it or not, this blatant hate toward Swift has harmful implications.

It must be upsetting and frustrating for Swift to receive backlash for something as simple as attending her partner’s games, but this negativity has the potential to impact the girls and young women who look up to her just as much.

The message from these NFL fans is loud and clear: They don’t think Swift should attend NFL games, but if she does, they don’t want to see her. Because even if you are the biggest artist in the world, you have to make yourself smaller to keep other people comfortable.

If you feel that you can’t be respectful of Swift, at least have respect for the young girls who hear what you are saying about someone they admire and are absorbing and internalizing every hateful word.