Over the past 6 months, football fans from around the United States have been taken aback by Taylor Swift, the global popstar who has dominated every corner of the music industry throughout the last decade, making an appearance at the Chiefs vs Bears game in Arrowhead Stadium on September 24th. Dating rumors between Swift and Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce soon overtook the internet. The couple had supposedly been seeing one another privately over the summer. As Swift continued to attend Chiefs games, the two were officially declared as dating and have made their relationship a public matter, with the entire world watching their every step. NFL fans had mixed feelings with some becoming tired of seeing Taylor on screen. Swifties were quick to defend her, saying that she simply wanted to see her boyfriend. So, who’s at fault here? Is Taylor overstepping her boundaries, or is there more happening behind the scenes to make this into the internet’s most talked-about celebrity relationship?
Many football fans have accused Taylor of consuming the game’s screen time, often met with online comments such as “The wall-to-wall coverage of Taylor Swift at this game is annoying AF,” and “I don’t even like football, and I agree it’s destroying football.” One online study that analyzed the amount of time Swift was on screen found she was on television across the country for around 30 seconds per game.
The New York Times went ahead and tracked the specific amount of seconds shown at each game, such as being on the screen for 12 seconds at the Chiefs vs. Raiders game, and 12 seconds the following week against the Bengals.
While on The Pat McAfee Show earlier in the season, Travis Kelce remarked that the “Majority of the world is having fun with it, outside all the cranky NFL fans…Hopefully, everyone understands we’re just two people in a relationship supporting each other and having fun with it.”
So, why are sports fans so tired of seeing her on-screen? Many might not even know who she is, or why she is such an important person; others simply dislike a successful woman enjoying her life and supporting her boyfriend.
Neither Swifties nor Taylor are to blame, however. Many have turned the blame onto the NFL themselves. Accused of oversharing her attendance at NFL games, fans of both sides believe the entire bit is simply for profit. At the AFC Championship game, CBS cameras panned on her in the press box. Seeing this, she swatted away, and viewers could see her mouth “Go away please” to the camera operators.
Slammed with hatred from football fans across the country, Taylor discussed her approach to their criticisms in an interview with TIME Magazine for being named “TIME’s Person of the Year.”
“There’s a camera, like, a half-mile away, and you don’t know where it is, and you have no idea when the camera is putting you in the broadcast, so I don’t know if I’m being shown 17 times or once… I’m just there to support Travis,” she said regarding her screen time. “I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads, and Chads.”
Many fans, both for Taylor and football alike, are left to wonder what the future of the league and the Swift/Kelce relationship will look like after the Kansas City Chiefs took home their 3rd Super Bowl Championship in just the last 5 years. Swifties are under the belief that she will accompany Kelce to The White House to celebrate the Chief’s back-to-back Super Bowl victory, while others think she will get back to writing music and preparing for not just resuming her renowned “The Eras Tour” in Melbourne, Australia on Feb. 26th, but also completing work around her two anticipated albums set to release later this year: “Reputation (Taylor’s Version)” (Not Confirmed), and “The Tortured Poets Department”, releasing April 19th.
