It is the story that has dominated the sports, entertainment, and mainstream news cycle. The burgeoning relationship between Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and international pop superstar Taylor Swift. The Chiefs and Kelce have gone from relative worldwide unknowns to superstars overnight. If the Chiefs thought defending their title would be hard, dealing with this new level of fame will be something else entirely.
The Swift-Effect
The pop star will watch Kelce and the Chiefs take on the New York Jets on Sunday night at MetLife Stadium, according to multiple reports. Her presence has sent ticket prices soaring more than 40 percent — from $83 to $119 – according to TickPick, an online marketplace.
Swift’s presence at last Sunday’s Chiefs home game against the Chicago Bears, caused a spike in the TE’s jersey sales. According to sportswear and fan merchandise company Fanatics, Kelce’s jersey was one of the top five for the NFL on Sunday. His jersey had a 400 percent spike in sales.
The Bears vs. Chiefs game delivered a total audience of 24.32 million viewers and scored the highest among female demographics across the ages of 12-17, 18-49 this week.
“It’s estimated Kelce currently makes around $5 million a year in off-the-field earnings, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he doubles that number” said Bob Dorfman, the Creative Director at marketing agency Pinnacle Advertising, according to the outlet.
“Kelce was already one of football’s most successful endorsers before his hot romance, but now he’s sizzling hot — swiftly grabbing the attention and buying power of a whole new fan base and demographic.”
NFL fans may think that everyone knows about football and that it’s extremely popular. But the reality is, American football is the 10th most popular sport worldwide. The majority of its fan base is domestic.
Kelce’s Chiefs’ teammate, superstar QB Patrick Mahomes has 5.8 million Instagram followers. The sports greatest QB of all time, Tom Brady, has 14.4 million followers.
Swift has 273 million Instagram followers.
The Convergence Of Sport And Global Superstardom
As a part of every media session the Chiefs’ players and coaches have, questions about Swift have been and will be asked. That’s all well and good when the team is winning. What happens if they lose two straight?
The presence of Swift, presumably for the rest of the season, means there will be a new set of media members descending on Kansas City and visiting NFL cities. These members don’t really have any interest in the game, but want to know about Swift and Kelce.
This is the Taylor Swift effect.
There will certainly be a monetary gain for Kelce, the Chiefs and the league for as long as this relationship lasts. But there will also be another part to the circus. How will the Chiefs handle this new level of intense spotlight and scrutiny?
Swift has a famous “girl squad” of friends that include Selena Gomez, Karlie Kloss, Lorde, Emma Stone, Blake Lively, Gigi Hadid, and Sophie Turner, to name a few. What happens when Swift and her famous gal pals start showing up? This will become quite the spectacle.
To be fair, in the grand scheme of things this is not a big deal. If the Chiefs players can’t deal with Kelce’s new found mainstream celebrity status, thats an internal problem. That means players can’t separate what happens on the field from innocuous social media and TMZ headlines.
Regardless, the Chiefs have now become must-see TV for a whole different set of people.
