Taylor Swift Turned Me Into the Worst Type of Fan

In his 1960s comedy sketch The 2000 Year Old Man, Mel Brooks states “we mock the things we are to be”. Brooks’ character - a 2000 year old yiddishkeit kvetch- has nonetheless accumulated great wisdom after living through the Stone Age, Industrial Revolution, and every era up until his present. In sharing this line of wisdom with the audience, he’s reminding everyone that if you live a long life, at some point you will become the person that you once despised, derided, and most likely made fun of. 

Unfortunately, I’m now experiencing Brooks’ aphorism. All thanks to Taylor Swift. 

Swift has made me the type of sports fan I always mocked. The person that whines and bitches whenever a celebrity overtakes the narrative of the sporting world; The person who questions the values and integrity behind why Americans watch sports, thinking that any sports league can become a pawn for a larger agenda. 

In a little bit, I’ll describe more in detail about this my fan persona. But first, let’s take a step back.  

A year ago, before Taylor Swift was a twinkle in Travis Kelce’s eye, I rooted for the Chiefs.

As a woebegone Jets fan, I needed a new outlet for enjoying football. At a Halloween party, I made new friends who were die-hard Chiefs fans and they invited me to watch games at the local Chiefs bar called Don’s. Six days a week, Don’s was a relaxed dive bar with dive bar staples like billiards, Big Buck Hunter, and Golden Tee. But come Sunday, it was a sea of red jerseys packed together butts to nuts.

The gameday atmosphere consisted of camaraderie and unity of two hundred fans watching five monitors - all tuned into the only game that mattered. Applauding, high-fiving, and jeering “HOW BOUT THOSE CHIEEEEEEEEFS” - it was that one collective heartbeat energy that made Don’s a sanctuary of sports fandom. 

I went to Don’s for eight games, including two in the playoffs. Although I watched the Chiefs’ Super Bowl win elsewhere (I was rooting for the Eagles), it was special to have been on the journey with those new friends as they celebrated their second title in four years. 

This season, I sought out to replicate my attendance at Don’s. I went to Don’s for a few September Chiefs games, but come Week 4 - the Chiefs played the Jets. Since I was rooting against the Chiefs in this game, I decided to forgo Don’s and watch on my friend’s couch. 

It was on that couch where I had my first Taylor Swift-at-Chiefs-game sighting. I felt slightly irritated - a shade of annoyance different than that from the Jets being down 17-0. 

Not being a Swiftie or truly comprehending Taylor Swift’s global popularity, I thought maybe the camera turning to her would be a one time thing. But throughout the game, the camera’s attention of Taylor Swift began to snowball. 

In the ensuing weeks, the Chiefs were featured several times on Prime Time and the Taylor Swift sightings were getting out of hand. 

I decided to stop going to Don’s. Pause my Chiefs allegiance, I told my friends a spinoff of the “it’s not you, it’s not me” treatment; “it’s not you, it’s not me, it’s Taylor Swift.”

Let me set the record straight. I previously had nothing against Taylor Swift. Her music is objectively good and she appears to be a friendly, decent human. But the more the cameras cut to Taylor Swift in her suite, week after week, the more I resented what she represented. 

She represented a change in the spectacle and marketability of a football game. She became the lodestar of a trend where the promotion of a sports game itself isn’t about the athletes involved, but more about the personality promoting it. 

Although she’s one of the most revered figures in the world, Swift marks a trend in which less-decorated mere mortals are trying to get involved. 

Sports are being promoted by young millennial and Gen Z content creators, whose balance of charisma and relatability garner a loyal following. Through their social media savviness, content creators can grab more views and likes for an athlete than that athlete could for themself. 

Watching a game through the eyes of a content creator is the way of the future. Every time the camera pans to Swift, cheering with Brittany Mahomes after a touchdown, we’re experiencing the game through her eyes. 

This is the future of sports - content creator feeds, VR, etc. - experiencing sports vicariously through someone else. 

But this change also highlights a disturbing truth in sports that teams, players, and games in and of themselves aren’t good enough entertainment. Rather, sports has become a subset of pop culture, piggybacking on non-athlete public figures to generate more money.

Just as with the death of Sports Illustrated and the decline of long-form sports writing, we’re trending away from the clandestine faceless world of essayists and moving towards on-camera individuals promoting games. Although Taylor Swift is not filming herself, her being filmed is effective enough. 

She represents a new wave of how people consume sports, one that might take me - a self-described sports purist - time to adjust. I believe the overarching beauty in sports lies in the fact one can find meaning in a game like one does in a painting. But then again, I’m also not naive that the art world includes promotion, ownership, and in such also a cut throat billion dollar industry.

This trend of influencers and pop icons promoting sports is part of the new landscape. But while its clear Swift has generated revenue for the NFL, her leverage seems to muddy other domains within the world of sports.

Is she really advancing sports, specifically women’s sports?

Last week, I was scrolling through Instagram when I landed on a collaborative post between ESPN and ESPNW. 

The post was titled: “Could Taylor Swift attend the Super Bowl?”, in reference to the Swift’s concert in Japan the night before Super Bowl Sunday. The multi-paneled post takes you through the scenario of how she’ll make the Super Bowl on time. 

Sports social content is laden with these logistical hypotheticals. For the Jets to make the playoffs, here are the eight teams needed to lose…. Can the Knicks acquire LeBron? Here are a few trade scenarios….

But with this topic factoring in Taylor Swift’s flight details, different time zones, how many hours she’ll have to spare… I was appalled this is actual news on ESPN and ESPNW. Especially on ESPNW.

The W in ESPNW stands for women and they’re meant to highlight stories about women’s athletes, coaches, and teams. They’ve become the largest feed for growing awareness, interest and popularity in women’s athletics. 

So when I see them posting a gallery of slides for the logistics of Swift’s flight from Japan to Vegas…it almost feels insulting. 

An Instagram intended to uplift and inspire a new generation of female athletes and female fans, became this condescension of “Can Taylor watch her boyfriend play football?”

Because ESPNW’s tagline is “women x sports x culture”, I thought perhaps this was just part of their culture portion. I did some sleuthing and reviewed ESPNW’s 150 most recent posts to see how much “culture” is at play. Of those 150 posts, 138 featured a figure in the world of women’s collegiate and professional sports.

Of the remaining 12 posts, six were overtly about Swift. 

Of those six not directly about Swift, four were about Kristin Juszcyck (49ers fullback Kyle Juszcyzk’s wife) and one was about Jason Kelce.

As of one month ago, people care about Kristin Juszcyck because she designed a coat for Swift. We all know Jason Kelce’s connection. 

So out of 12 non-athlete or coach related posts, 11 were about Taylor Swift. Sorry ESPNW, but you can’t say you cover culture when you only focus on one cultural icon. 

The comments section in these Taylor Swift-centric posts reflect the angry opinions, not of trolls or misogynists; These commenters genuinely want to be educated and entertained by the achievements, highlights, and recaps of womens’ games. 

Yet the reason ESPNW cares about Taylor Swift is the same reason the NFL cares. It’s not about the integrity of their message, it’s all about money. 

So far, I’ve shared my observations of the phenomenon of Taylor Swift disrupting the sports industrial complex. She’s a product of this new age of “personalities over product” while blurring the line of the “pink-it-and-shrink-it” commoditization of female fans. 

But the real question - one at the heart of my essays and tenor of this newsletter - is, why do I care so much? Why, Adam, is this getting on your nerves?

Over time, my mild annoyance with Swift’s presence turned into a visceral irritability. Like a dog growling at an intruder, my anger towards Swift implies she’s encroaching on my territory - that of a tried-and-true, non-tangential football viewing experience. 

I remember the moment I snapped.

Three months of Taylor Swift cameos culminated into the Chiefs’ first playoff game, one played in -4 degree temperature with a -26 degree windchill. Missouri was enduring the same arctic freeze that affected Colorado, keeping me huddled inside my apartment for two days. It was one of those weekends when nothing is asked of you, no social FOMO, simply peaceful.

After watching the early Browns-Texans game (a dud), I was looking forward to watching a more competitive matchup, Dolphins-Chiefs. NBC began their broadcast of the Chiefs, panning around the brave, freezing fans of GEHA Stadium. After building up the perseverance of the die-hard Chiefs fans, the camera cutaway to a window pane full of condensation. It was Taylor Swift’s suite, one iced over as if it was cinematically designed to distort everyone inside. Through the frosted window, you could vaguely make out the profile Taylor Swift. The shot was unbecoming, almost like she was a captive prisoner unready for her closeup.

I sat on my couch trying to stay warm, but the burning anger did the job. I could finally articulate the anger, after months of figuring out why this Swift infiltration really mattered to me. Channelling that Mel Brooks quote, I had finally become what I always made fun of - the “stick-to-sports” guy. 

Over the past few years, the “stick-to-sports” guy had become on of the most unbecoming types of sports fans. In my eyes, he was a pariah, an embarrassment of riches. Adult men so sensitive, they stopped watching football because of Colin Kaepernick and basketball because players wore “Black Lives Matter” jerseys. Usually politically charged, the “stick-to-sports” guy had a deep-rooted anger to him, in which if his buttons were pushed long enough, he could become the shut up and dribble guy. 

But I realized the “stick-to-sports” guy doesn’t necessarily have to be politically or racially charged. The sentiment is for anyone who watches sports to relax and omit any recurring day-to-day frustrations or actual life-and-death issues.

For example, the “stick-to-sports” guy might be enjoying a World Series game, but after the broadcast returns from a mid-inning commercial break, he’s irritated by the action being halted by the whole stadium raising cards up for Stand Up to Cancer. It’s a good cause, but the “stick-to-sports” guy views this intermission as a buzzkill. Cancer is one of the most serious topics to address and embedding it during a game ruins the illusion that sports is independent of reality. 

This Taylor Swift x NFL bond is greater than sports, but not because she’s standing up for any political or cultural movement. Her presence - more than any other football outsider - has turned the NFL and its broadcasting networks into puppeteers, caring about a narrative unrelated to the achievements of the players and the outcomes of the games. 

Sports media has promoted this Truman Showesque coverage of the Kelce-Swift love story, in which tens of millions of girls are invested. If Kelce does well on the field, then he’s happy. If he’s happy, then Swift is happy. Swift’s joyous reactions for a Kelce touchdown or a Chiefs win are breadcrumbs leading to Swifties believing this is a successful relationship.

In sports, one’s topicality is tied to on-field team success. You simply talk about the teams still standing. When the Chiefs win and advance in the postseason, we continue to talk about Swift. 

The symbiosis of Kelce and Swift in accordance with the Chiefs’ Super Bowl run has turned me into another type of awful fan, something more delusional than the stick-to-sports guy. I’ve become a conspiracy guy. 

I’ve had plenty of past opportunities to become a sports conspiracy guy. Conspiracies sprout from lack of education, but are nurtured by anger. As a fan of teams that have been awful most of my life, I possess that sports-centric anger. I could used that anger to demystify the Patriots conspiracy, claiming their propensity to cheat. Ultimately, I believed Belichick and Brady were the best at their respective positions - two geniuses fortunate enough to intercept each others paths and maintain a relationship for twenty years. If I told you their dynasty was illegitimate, it would be based in jealousy - a case of hate ‘em cuz I ain’t ‘em. 

But now that we have Taylor Swift - someone who makes the NFL money hand over fist -  dating a guy who's playing in the most televised event …. It just seems too “practical”. 

I believe sports is theater unscripted, but Travis Kelce in the Super Bowl feels awfully scripted. 

This 2023 NFL season was the first one in which the “NFL is scripted” rumors gained traction. Rather than ignore those rumors, the NFL acknowledged and dispelled them. In fact, NFL network played into the rumors with a commercial that featured Travis Kelce (plus Jason and their mom, Donna).

I doubt that everything played out accordingly to the script, but just like everything on Kelce’s 2023 resume (SNL, myriad commercials, family documentary, number one podcast) seemed to prepare him for the national spotlight of courting Swift, has the NFL season been set up to give Swift as much exposure as possible? 

The Chiefs were good enough to make the postseason, but at 11-6 they weren’t as good as they’ve been in the past. Dominance doesn’t last forever and it seemed as if this postseason they could seem mortal. 

Patrick Mahomes would play his first career postseason games in which he was on the road and an underdog. The Chiefs could have lost both those games. 

After the Chiefs upset the Bills, the Super Bowl favorite Ravens with MVP Lamar Jackson were poised to end their postseason run. But the NFL assigned Shawn Smith to be the head referee. Smith had been notoriously biased against home teams - the only referee to tally more penalties on home teams than road teams. Over the last six seasons, Smith’s games feature the road team winning 60%, a top figure among 24 referees.  

Whether or not you think the games were fixed, I think they were at least massaged. With a few unsportsmanlike conducts here or a defensive holding on 3rd and Long there, I think the league did their part to give the Chiefs the best chance of making the Super Bowl. 

Now that the Chiefs are in the Super Bowl, I don’t see how they lose. 

It’s upsetting for me, a rational sports fan, to think the integrity of this postseason has been tarnished. But the NFL has aspirations for a final scene straight out of Disney. 

Picture this: The Chiefs win the Super Bowl. Red and yellow confetti cascade onto a jubilant Travis Kelce, donned with his gray Super Bowl LVIII Champions shirt. He’s dapping it up with teammates and coaches, but then from beyond the sea of confetti, amidst the celebratory pageantry, Taylor Swift runs out on the field to find Kelce. 

They embrace. They kiss. 

The kiss seen around the world. 

Travis gets his Super Bowl ring, symbolic of the inevitable engagement ring for Taylor not Sunday night, but soon enough). It’s so Hollywood, so cliche. But that’s what makes money. 

Taylor Swift has done a lot for the NFL’s pocketbook. By generating the NFL one third of a billion dollars, she’s helped the league make up for losses caused by the pandemic, while galvanizing a younger generation’s interest in football. As if there was a need to get more casual fans to watch a Super Bowl in Las Vegas, I’m sure she’s covered that as well. 

But she’s done me in - making me clamor about sticking to sports and conspiracies that the Chiefs were scripted to win the Super Bowl. 

Fortunately, once the Chiefs win, I believe the dust will settle. Kelce might retire. He and Taylor might move on from the NFL spotlight.  

Regardless what happens in the future, it’s time to focus on the present. 

We have just one football game left and I want to enjoy it. 

There’s nothing a Chiefs win could do to make me feel it wasn’t already rigged. I guess that’s how a conspiracy guy thinks. 

As time moves on, I hope to channel my inner-Mel Brooks and mock the thing that, for a brief period, I had become. 

Chiefs by 50.