Are Taylor Swift and the NFL a good match?

15:08Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce and the publicity politics at play

The Kansas City Chiefs football game on Sunday was dramatically overshadowed by the presence of superstar Taylor Swift, who cheered from a private viewing suite after being publicly courted by star tight end Travis Kelce for months.

Their unconfirmed romance was all anybody could talk about, both in sports media and online. Culture writers Tyler Foggatt and Mel Woods talk about whether this is a PR stunt, or something more.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: Tyler, there's something really endearing about how excited [Travis Kelce] is that Taylor Swift showed up to the game. But I also want to bring up this Rolling Stone interview from 2014. Taylor said, "I feel like watching my dating life has become a bit of a national pastime, and I'm just not comfortable providing that kind of entertainment anymore."

This is a person who has an incredible amount of control over how visible she is, and she appears to be everywhere right now. Let's remember, she dated Joe Alwyn for six years, and it was way less public; we barely saw two pictures of them together. What's your read on her going to this football game, knowing that there's going to be a billion cameras there and they're all going to capture every micro moment of this? Because she clearly wants to be visible in this moment.

Tyler: [Joe Alwyn] clearly was someone who really wanted to be private, and Taylor embraced that for a while — maybe even enjoyed that after the comments she made in 2014 about how there was this whole rigmarole surrounding her dating life. She's made comments about feeling like she's been slut-shamed. That's kind of what Blank Space and some of the songs on 1989 are about.

I think that my sense, as a big Taylor fan, is that there was a period where she wanted to do the private, "I'm a normal person" thing — not really show up in public, not get mobbed by the paparazzi — then maybe, she gets a little bit tired of that…. I think she's really enjoying this period where she's able to be super public and every piece of her life is just being scrutinized by fans. I think that, as you say, she's been incredibly deliberate about her public image, and what gets seen and what doesn't. I think that she wanted this to be a spectacle — and it was.

Elamin: He lets her bejeweled, as they say. Mel, I'd like to frame this in a wider context. The NFL is its own kingdom, and Taylor Swift's empire is its own kingdom. It is giving Cleopatra traveling to stay at Caesar's villa…. This is a union of two great kingdoms — one of which stands to benefit, I think, more than the other one. I think the biggest winner of this relationship has got to be the NFL. What does Taylor Swift showing up to their games, cheering for one of their feel-good stars, do for the NFL?

Mel: I'm a lifelong NFL fan, and I also am a lifelong recognizer that the NFL is a problematic fave. The NFL as an institution is not a good force in America or in the world. It is actively evil in a lot of ways. Taylor Swift is, I would argue, one of the most powerful people in the world right now. She is one of the most famous people in the world by far.

Elamin: I don't know if you'd find an away team for that argument.

Mel: Exactly. And I think that her hitching her wagon to the beast that is the NFL is great for them. We saw that Travis Kelce jerseys sales went up by [almost] 400 per cent just because she showed up at the Kansas City Chiefs game.

Elamin: And it's not like they were low before. It's not like he was a nobody before.

Mel: No, he's one of the most popular players. His Instagram following [almost tripled] this week. And also, the NFL's been courting Taylor Swift to do the Super Bowl halftime show for years at this point. She's basically said, "I'm bigger than that." Without saying that, she's like, "I'd rather do The Eras Tour. I'd rather be doing everything else I'm doing right now," which makes sense because if they had Taylor Swift do the Super Bowl halftime show, there would not be enough people there going there for football. There would be people going to see The Eras Tour compressed into 15 minutes.

Tyler: The halftime show also doesn't pay.

Mel: No! And she's making so much money. I think that this is very intentional, but I also think that it is a PR boon for the NFL, to have all the Swiftie power come into this problematic institution and say it's great.

Elamin: Mel, Travis and Taylor have not officially confirmed they're dating, but one football game is all it took. My timeline is packed with all these videos of before, during and after. I've seen social media posts about them getting married. Is this healthy, for us to be this invested into an unconfirmed relationship?

Mel: I mean, my biggest takeaway from this is that Travis Kelce is in a hole that he will not be able to get out of. The only exit strategy from this is marrying Taylor Swift. Because if the relationship falls apart in some way, the Swifties are going to murder him. If it somehow impacts his performance on the field, the football fans are going to murder him. I do feel for this guy … but you cannot be just hanging out, just friends with Taylor Swift. That's not how the world works. I'm very curious to see where this goes in the coming months.

Elamin: Tyler, is it healthy for us to be this invested into a relationship?

Tyler: Of course not. But I don't think that anyone is a fan of the NFL or a Taylor Swift super stan because they are interested in their health.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jane van Koeverden.