Taylor Swift, the Super Bowl, and Football

February 11th, 2024

The Green Bay Packers should have been in the Super Bowl and Matt LaFleur should have gotten a few votes for Coach of the Year. Damar Hamlin deserved to win Comeback Player of the Year after literally dying on the field. At least Tom Grossi won Fan of the Year.

Okay, Awards rant done.

I’ll be honest with all of you: I am totally ambivalent about Taylor Swift. I know that she has an army of exceptionally loyal/crazy fans nicknamed “Swifties” and has had her dating life perpetually analyzed. She is a megastar.

I don’t listen to her music. When I saw she was dating Travis Kelce, my only thought was that he always seemed like a class act. Then I went back to watching football. They’re both only a few years older than I am.

If you had told me when I started writing this that I’d include Taylor Swift in any of my blogs, I would not have believed you. She just doesn’t factor into my life the same way that football or baseball probably hasn’t factored into her fans’ lives.

That being said, one of the the most wholesome things for me this football season was watching an entire legion of Swifties go from asking “What’s a first down?” to occasionally providing better insight than the commentators and explaining the game to their fellow Swifties with Taylor’s songs and references from her life/career than I clearly don’t understand. Sure, the number of cutaways to Swift during games got a little tiring at times, but I wasn’t going to let that affect my viewing experience.

I love this sport so much that I am beyond thrilled to see a major influx of new fans. I wonder how many girls will watch this silly ball game with their fathers, brothers, and grandfathers simply to catch a glimpse of their icon or because their favorite singer’s boyfriend is playing. How many of them will try it out themselves this fall? Will some of them don on the official’s stripes like me and work to keep the game safe and enforce rules in youth and high school football?

Now there’s some people who are under the delusion that the NFL has rigged the Super Bowl so that Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift can endorse Joe Biden at the end of the Super Bowl (this is a political blog-you knew this was coming). Without spending a truly tremendous amount of energy and giving life to something this unhinged, how was this rigging supposed to work?

The massive conspiracy would have to include the NFL organization, the officials, and players and coaches on both teams that have millions of dollars on the line and a tremendous amount of competitiveness. Many already have more money than I could consider spending over the course of multiple lifetimes-they have nothing to gain by staying quiet.

Neither the Democratic Party nor the NFL should be confused with competent organizations. Ironically, outside of endorsing Phil Bredensen in Tennessee’s 2018 Senate race, Swift hasn’t spoken much about politics.

At the end of the day, there is football to watch. I will be rooting for Kansas City due to my undying hatred of the 49ers, on par with that of the Cowboys, Bears, and Vikings (Lions-you’re off the hook for now. You’re still the little brother of the division, but the suit fits).

After this season, I hope the some of the Swifties stick around. Obviously, I’d love for them to be Packers fans, but that’s beside the point. It is good for the sport to grow and bring in new fans, even if the method is unorthodox or the result of an international megastar dating an athlete.

Whatever happens today, I look forward to my Packers drafting well, extending Love’s contract, and seeing what the future holds. I look forward to pretending to understand gymnastics as I root for Simone Biles in the Olympics (she’s married to Packers safety Jonathan Owens). Its exactly my take on soccer-I have no idea what’s going on, but I will support Team USA in the World Cup and the Women’s World Cup (Sweden, you’re about one more win from getting put on the same list as the Chicago Bears. You don’t want that).

I also hope that Swift and Kelce do find some happiness and peace throughout all of this. Life is hard enough without being the center of a bizarre far-right conspiracy, living under a microscope, and whatever other stuff they deal with.

Go Pack Go!