A Taylor Swift Love Story: How Pop Icon Brings a New, Young Audience to the NFL

Arrie Flathouse took her first steps on Taylor Swift's hit 'Tim McGraw'.

The pop icon was a constant part of now 16-year-old Arrie's childhood as she grew up in the Houston area with two older sisters who loved Swift. Arrie also grew to love Swift, dressing up as her for Halloween and listening to her albums.

However, Arrie never had much to do with football, despite having a mother, Kara, who spent her weekends at college and NFL games. That included games played by the Chiefs, as Kara, like Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes, is a Texas Tech alum. Despite Kara's attempts to pique her daughters' interest, football never clicked for Arrie, so Kara usually spent those weekend afternoons alone watching games.

But that changed last summer after Arrie saw clips from the “New Heights” podcast, in which one of the hosts, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, described his attempts to give Swift his number via a friendship bracelet.

Does anyone know how to get a bracelet? @taylorswift13? … ask for a friend 😅 @BWWings

New episode premiering NOW!

Enter: pic.twitter.com/4yYr8HSb0m

— New Heights (@newheightshow) July 26, 2023

The little conversation had quite an impact on Arrie.

Already a devoted listener of the podcast, Kara got so excited when her daughter started talking about the Kelce clips. Over the next few months, social media worked its magic, and by the time Swift showed up for her first Chiefs game in late September, Arrie was tuned in.

“This is crazy,” Arrie said. “These aren't Swifties' theories. This is real. So then I started watching football because I thought, 'If she wants to be at the games, I have to see her.'

Arrie has tuned into virtually every Chiefs game since, covering not just the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce romance, but the entire Kelce family. She's seen Amazon Prime's documentary about his brother, Eagles center Jason Kelce, became a devoted listener of the Kelce brothers' podcast “New Heights” and even started watching Eagles games.

“Even if Taylor isn't there, I think I enjoy the game a lot more,” said Arrie, whose parents promised to buy her a Travis Kelce jersey soon.

Kara smiles as she listens to her daughter describe her renewed interest in a sport she bonded over with her own father. Kara doesn't want to push too hard, but she loves seeing Arrie's head pop over the banister when she hears football on the TV. To Kara's delight, this often leads to quality time watching games with her daughter. It has also led to questions about the sport itself.

“It was a lot of fun for me,” said Kara, who posted a viral video in the fall about her joy that Swift had finally turned her daughter into a soccer fan. “I love it.”

The Flathouse family is not an anomaly. Far from it. Swift's arrival on the football stage has led to countless stories of football-loving parents bonding with their Swiftie children. Even Chiefs CEO Clark Hunt hears them.

“I often have dads come up to me and say, 'My 10- and 12-year-old daughters never watched football, but they now tell me when the Kansas City Chiefs are playing to tell them so they can watch.' Hunt said this week in Las Vegas, where the Chiefs are preparing to take on the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII, “I was at an event a little over a week ago and I had a woman, probably in her mid-20s, who went to came up to me, introduced herself as Swiftie and told me that her entire family was Dallas Cowboys fans and that she had to give up following football altogether, but now she's going all in for the Kansas City Chiefs. I think a lot of this kind of examples.”

One such story belongs to Todd Kale, a Cowboys fan who posted a now-viral video of his 11-year-old daughter Briley reciting football facts from the bench.

The Kale family lives near Houston. They are Cowboys season ticket holders and their five daughters enjoy going to games. They know the great players from Dallas, but never actually watched the game with their dad, instead embracing the game day atmosphere or simply enjoying eating hot wings, their Sunday ritual, rather than worrying much about the real football.

But Briley, the middle child of the family, has become a Swift fan thanks to her older sisters and has passed on her love for Swift to her younger siblings. Todd wasn't sure how Briley first heard of Swift's connection to Kelce, but a few months ago he was watching a Sunday night game with his wife and realized Briley was in the living room. She started asking questions: What is a safety? What is a cornerback? How many points is a touchdown worth?

It didn't take long for Todd to realize where this came from.

“It definitely intrigued her that someone she really likes is now involved in something that I really like,” Todd said.

Briley has since watched more Chiefs games and picked up knowledge about the sport itself, taking it all in.

“It's every father's dream. … She used to like football, but I think she just liked the experience of it,” Todd said. “Now she's learning more about the game.”

Swift has been a storyline all season long – with Kansas City winning nine of the 12 games she has attended – and the Chiefs' Super Bowl run has only taken that to the next level.

“There's no doubt that her fanaticism has put a more intense focus on the team than we otherwise would have had,” Hunt said. “It has opened up the fan base to a whole new demographic that we didn't really have with young women. You've seen that in many ways, especially in our TV ratings. They are much higher because Taylor Swift is part of the team, as Kelce says.”

Hunt isn't wrong about the ratings. Not only is the average number of viewers tuning into Chiefs' primetime regular-season games up this season over the previous two (up 39.4 percent from last year alone), but so is the percentage of female viewers (an increase of 3 percent). , said Nielsen. And that viewership jump has carried over into the postseason. The Chiefs' divisional round win over Buffalo averaged 50.4 million viewers, making it the most-watched divisional round or wild-card game ever. The Chiefs' win over the Ravens was the most-watched AFC Championship Game ever, averaging 55.47 million viewers.

Taylor Swift has generated equivalent brand value of $331.5 million for the Chiefs and the NFL, Apex Marketing Group tells FOS.

The figure includes print, digital, radio, TV, highlights and social, going back to Swift's first game in September. pic.twitter.com/Ruj5FM7g81

— Frontoffice Sport (@FOS) January 28, 2024

The league's social media team has also played a big role in bringing in new audiences. The team embraced Swift's first game in September and tried to be aware of all the new looks on their feeds without going overboard, said Ian Trombetta, NFL SVP of social and influencer marketing.

That theme has remained consistent throughout the season, although the strategy varies depending on the platform, Trombetta said. With some of those being younger, like TikTok and Snapchat, there's more reason to embrace Swifties with their posts.

“We're also thinking about this in terms of not just what we post on social media, but how our partners post about it,” Trombetta said. “So that could be a broadcast partner. That could be a sponsor, etc. And when you put all that together, it can get pretty, pretty hot just in terms of the amount of coverage. And so for us, I think it was really a reminder for us to take a broader view of all the reporting and understand our role in it.

Swift's emergence on the NFL scene has contributed to record engagement, with triple-digit consumption growth across platforms, Trombetta said. Their audience is getting younger and diversifying in the male/female split as well, he said.

Swift's Super Bowl attendance is up in the air thanks to her Eras Tour stop in Tokyo. If Swift is there to see Kelce's Chiefs take on the San Francisco 49ers, the league's social team will spend some time on her arrival and reactions, but with so much happening around the Super Bowl between football and spectacle, it won't just be Taylor Swift's social feed.

“I think we're at the point now where it was a very celebratory event overall,” Trombetta said. “And certainly positive for the league, positive for the Chiefs, positive for the Kelce family, and obviously for Travis, and I think it's been positive for Taylor as well. So we will continue to pursue it in different ways, but we will also be respectful of their relationship. So not invading privacy and trying to give clues where some lines might be related to the amount of coverage, and also keeping the game front and center. That is very important to us.”

Still, there's no doubt that the league has brought in new fans thanks to Swift, as the Flathouse and Kale families can attest.

The Flathouse family is hosting an “I'm in My Super Bowl Era” themed party on Sunday in honor of the Chiefs-Swift crossover.

There will be a giant friendship bracelet streamer, along with appropriately themed food and drinks, including an “electric” mocktail, in honor of a word Kelce likes to use.

But what about next season, when Swift's magic may have run its course? It doesn't matter to Arrie, who plans to still tune into NFL games.

“I feel like I'm addicted to it now,” Arrie said.

– The athletics's Nate Taylor contributed to this report.

(Photo illustration: Daniel Goldfarb / The Athletics;
Photos: Jamie Squire, Patrick Smith and Sarah Stier / Getty Images)