Who cares about Tayor "f-cking" Swift. Did you hear was Jason Gay said about the Bears!
"You may ask why you’re reading about Taylor Swift in a sports column, but come on: would you prefer to read about the Bears? The Wyomissing, Pa. native did not witness NFL competitiveness, not even close." They do not suck. Haha.
Taylor Swift Mania Upstages NFL Sunday
Yes, you are reading about the universe’s biggest pop star in a sports column. As someone once sang, you need to calm down.
Taylor Swift set off a frenzy when she joined Donna Kelce—mother of Kansas City’s Travis Kelce—at the Chiefs’ game against the Bears on Sunday.
By Jason Gay, WSJ
Taylor Swift attended an NFL game this weekend, because of course she did. It was only a matter of time before our nation’s two most powerful entertainment forces collided, and the double-unicorn magic happened Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, where a suite-nested Swift watched the local Chiefs demolish the sad-sack Chicago Bears, 41-10.
As a middle-aged sportswriter, I am contractually obligated to make a clunky Dad joke here using the title of one of Swift’s songs, but I’ll do everyone a favor, and resist this, for at least one more paragraph.
You may ask why you’re reading about Taylor Swift in a sports column, but come on: would you prefer to read about the Bears? The Wyomissing, Pa. native did not witness NFL competitiveness, not even close.
Instead, a woman who sold out Arrowhead for two nights in July saw the defending Super Bowl champion—perhaps, hmmm, The Last Great American Dynasty—crush a franchise that appears to have given up on the sport of football altogether.
(If you could travel back in time to 1985 and tell the performers of the underappreciated hit “The Super Bowl Shuffle”—No. 41 on the Billboard 100—how today’s Bears would acquit themselves before a fellow genius of pop music, they never would have stopped crying behind their sunglasses and ROZELLE headbands.)
Swift is perhaps the only star on earth with the fame to overwhelm an NFL Sunday. Her appearance happened at the perfect moment, as that other nexus of football and celebrity—Colorado and Coach Prime—is sliding down the charts after a 42-6 thrashing Saturday by the webbed feet of Oregon.
Only Swift Mania could steal the day on an afternoon the Miami Dolphins scored a staggering 70 points, the allegedly-pitiful Arizona Cardinals smoked the Dallas Cowboys, and Indianapolis kicker Matt Gay (no relation, alas) kicked four field goals of 50 yards-plus to sink Baltimore.
Also please spare a thought for Usher, just named the halftime act for the upcoming Super Bowl, now likely on a long walk while kicking an empty aluminum can. The singer barely enjoyed a couple of hours to celebrate the gig of a lifetime…before a total Swiftie eclipse.
(Taylor’s never taken the halftime gig, another signal of her clout. She doesn’t need the NFL.)
Remember, the NFL is an industry that wakes up every morning believing it is the most important enterprise on earth. Have you heard how solemnly people on TV talk about the NFL? They act like they’re talking about the Cuban Missile Crisis! And even they could not resist going goo-goo for the Eras Tour queen. Patrick Mahomes got asked about her. So did Andy Reid.
Television did its best to cover Swift’s appearance, but honestly I found the coverage a tad timid. Howard Cosell would have barged into Taylor’s suite with his cigar and yellow blazer, given Swift autographed copies of both his autobiographies, invited her to dinner at the Savoy Grill, and signed her to a two-year contract on “Battle of the Network Stars.”
Of course, there was a subplot to Swift’s appearance in K.C.—the unconfirmed gossip that she’s “dating” the Chiefs’s All-Pro tight end, Travis Kelce. It was Kelce who invited Swift to a game, and lightly-sourced rumors of mutual interest have percolated for weeks, playfully goosed by Kelce’s hirsute brother, the Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce.
As if on cue, Swift’s suite buddy at Arrowhead was revealed to be Kelce matriarch Donna, which only turbocharged the speculation, as did Swift’s very spirited reaction to a Kelce touchdown reception, as well as a video of Swift and Kelce (the latter dressed in what appears to be a denim Matisse tuxedo) leaving the stadium, and jumping into a convertible getaway car, presumably off to crush tape on next week’s opponent, the New York Jets. (OK, so they don’t need to crush tape.)
Is this real? Are they conspiring on a playful goof for the media? Does it really matter? At the moment, there is surely a secure room of celebrity headline writers devoted to coming up with a nickname for a Swift-Kelce pairing. Swift C? Trav-Tay? I’m warning you: whatever they come up with, it will be truly awful.
I may not have majored in Taylor Swift in college, but I have at least an amateur’s knowledge, and historically, if Swift is dating someone—and especially if she’s broken up with someone—she’s going to relay info via clever hints in song lyrics and music videos, and not on some Jumbotron in between DraftKings commercials.
As for Kelce, he’s got ample charisma, and celebrity of his own. He’s hosted “Saturday Night Live” and slid neatly into the retired Rob Gronkowski’s parking spot as the Chatty Tight End Pretty Much Everyone Likes. I don’t know if he’s a deep Swiftie or a passing fan—it’s unclear if he’s more of a “Fearless” or “Folklore” guy, or would consider changing his uniform number to 13—but he appears open to the in-season attention this will provoke.
Be prepared: we are walking into a watershed moment in the inane life of the Sports Distraction Conversation—i.e., the off-the-field issue allegedly becoming a third rail in an athlete’s on-field life. We are only one dropped Kelce TD pass away from a morning sports radio show called something like Scoober & The Gruff asking callers if Taylor Swift is about to ruin Kansas City’s hopes for a repeat. We are bracing for a world in which Andy Reid is asked if he’ll hold practice when Swift releases “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” and Swift writes a revenge anthem mocking Jim Rome—and it’s great.
These are volatile, factionalized times in entertainment, and the only two indestructible powers in sports and showbiz are working together. Bring it on, I say. Coach Prime and Colorado are about to face USC. Football needs the juice.
Write to Jason Gay at Jason.Gay@wsj.com
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