{"id":19205,"date":"2024-02-09T09:49:32","date_gmt":"2024-02-09T14:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/sport\/a-taylor-swift-love-story-how-pop-icon-is-bringing-a-new-young-audience-to-the-nfl\/09\/02\/2024\/"},"modified":"2024-02-09T09:49:33","modified_gmt":"2024-02-09T14:49:33","slug":"a-taylor-swift-love-story-how-pop-icon-is-bringing-a-new-young-audience-to-the-nfl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/sport\/a-taylor-swift-love-story-how-pop-icon-is-bringing-a-new-young-audience-to-the-nfl\/09\/02\/2024\/","title":{"rendered":"A Taylor Swift love story: How pop icon is bringing a new, young audience to the NFL"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Arrie Flathouse took her first steps to Taylor Swif<\/a>t\u2019s hit song \u201cTim McGraw.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pop icon was a constant part of the now 16-year-old Arrie\u2019s childhood as she grew up in the Houston area with two older sisters who adored Swift. Arrie came to love Swift, too, dressing up as her for Halloween and listening to her albums.<\/p>\n

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GO DEEPER<\/p>\n

What Taylor Swift songs capture the 2023 NFL season: Dear John, Karma, Anti-Hero<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Arrie never got much into football, though, despite having a mom, Kara, who spent her weekends tuned into college and NFL<\/a> games. That included games played by the Chiefs<\/a> since Kara, like Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes<\/a>, is a Texas Tech alum. Despite Kara\u2019s attempts to get her daughters interested, football never clicked with Arrie, so Kara usually spent those weekend afternoons watching games alone.<\/p>\n

But that changed last summer after Arrie saw clips of the \u201cNew Heights\u201d podcast, on which one of the hosts, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce,<\/a> described his attempts to give Swift his number via a friendship bracelet.<\/p>\n

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Anyone know how to get a bracelet to @taylorswift13<\/a>? \u2026 asking for a friend \ud83d\ude05 @BWWings<\/a> <\/p>\n

New episode premieres NOW!<\/p>\n

Tap in: https:\/\/t.co\/lmQ8fLH1IO<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/4yYr8HSb0m<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 New Heights (@newheightshow) July 26, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The little exchange had quite an impact on Arrie.<\/p>\n

Already a devoted listener to the podcast, Kara got so excited when her daughter started talking about the Kelce clips. Over the following months, social media worked its magic, and by the time Swift showed up to her first Chiefs game<\/a> in late September, Arrie was tuned in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is crazy,\u201d Arrie said. \u201cThis isn\u2019t Swifties\u2019 theories. This is for real. So that\u2019s when I started watching football because I was like, \u2018If she\u2019s gonna be at the games, I\u2019ve got to see her.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Arrie has since tuned into pretty much every Chiefs game, embracing not only the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce<\/a> romance but the entire Kelce family. She\u2019s watched Amazon Prime\u2019s documentary about his brother, Eagles<\/a> center Jason Kelce<\/a>, became a devoted listener of the Kelce brothers\u2019 \u201cNew Heights\u201d podcast and even started watching Eagles games.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if Taylor is not there, I think I enjoy (the game) a lot more,\u201d said Arrie, whose parents promised to buy her a Travis Kelce jersey soon.<\/p>\n

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\"go-deeper\"\/<\/div>\n
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GO DEEPER<\/p>\n

2024 Super Bowl party props sheet: Taylor Swift, Reba McEntire, Usher, commercials and more fun bets<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Kara smiles listening to her daughter describe her newfound interest in a sport she bonded over with her own dad. Kara doesn\u2019t want to push too hard, but she loves it when she sees Arrie\u2019s head pop over the stair banister if she hears football on the TV. Much to Kara\u2019s delight, that tends to lead to quality time together watching games with her daughter. It\u2019s also led to questions about the sport itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been really fun for me,\u201d said Kara, who posted a viral video in the fall about her glee that Swift finally converted her daughter to a football fan. \u201cI love it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Flathouse family isn\u2019t an anomaly. Far from it. Swift\u2019s arrival on the football stage has led to countless stories of football-loving parents bonding with their Swiftie kids. Even Chiefs CEO Clark Hunt is hearing them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI frequently have dads come up to me and say, \u2018My 10- and 12-year-old daughters never used to watch football, but they now tell me anytime the Kansas City Chiefs are playing to tell them so they can watch,\u201d Hunt said this week in Las Vegas, where the Chiefs are preparing to face the San Francisco 49ers<\/a> in Super Bowl LVIII. \u201cI was at a function a little over a week ago and I had a woman, probably in her mid-20s, who came up to me, introduced herself as a Swiftie and told me her entire family is Dallas Cowboys<\/a> fans and that she used to not follow football at all, but now she\u2019s all-in on the Kansas City Chiefs. I think there are a lot of examples like that out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

One story just like that belongs to Todd Kale, a Cowboys fan who posted a now-viral video of his 11-year-old daughter Briley reciting football facts from the couch.<\/p>\n

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The Kale family lives near Houston. They\u2019re Cowboys season-ticket holders and their five daughters love going to games. They know the big-name Dallas players but never really watched the game with their dad, instead embracing the atmosphere of a game day or just enjoying eating hot wings, their Sunday ritual, rather than engaging much with the actual football.<\/p>\n

But Briley, the middle child of the family, grew up a Swift fan thanks to her older sisters and has passed the love for Swift onto her younger siblings. Todd wasn\u2019t sure how Briley first learned of Swift\u2019s connection to Kelce, but a few months back, he was watching a Sunday night game with his wife and realized Briley was in the living room. She started asking questions: What\u2019s a safety? What\u2019s a cornerback? How many points is a touchdown worth?<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take long for Todd to realize where this was coming from.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely intrigued her that somebody she really likes is now involved in something I really like,\u201d Todd said.<\/p>\n

Briley has since watched more Chiefs games and has picked up knowledge about the sport itself, absorbing it all.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s every dad\u2019s dream. \u2026 She liked football before, but I think she just liked the experience of it,\u201d Todd said. \u201cNow she\u2019s learning more about the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"go-deeper\"\/<\/div>\n
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GO DEEPER<\/p>\n

Kelce aims to add ‘some hardware’ following Swift’s Grammy success<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Swift has been a storyline all season \u2014 with Kansas City winning nine of the 12 games she has attended \u2014 and the Chiefs\u2019 Super Bowl run has only ratcheted that up a higher level.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt her being a fan has put a more intense focus on the team than we would\u2019ve had otherwise,\u201d Hunt said. \u201cIt has opened up the fan base to a whole new demographic that we really didn\u2019t have in young women. You\u2019ve seen that in a lot of ways, specifically our TV ratings. They are much higher because of Taylor Swift being a part of the team, as Kelce says.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hunt\u2019s not wrong about the TV ratings. Not only did the average number of viewers tuning into Chiefs regular-season prime-time games increase this season from the previous two (a 39.4 percent jump compared to last year alone), but so did the percentage of female viewers (up 3 percent), according to Nielsen. And that viewership jump has carried over to the postseason. The Chiefs\u2019 divisional-round win over Buffalo<\/a> averaged 50.4 million viewers, making it the most-watched divisional-round or wild-card game ever. The Chiefs\u2019 victory over the Ravens<\/a> was the most-watched AFC Championship Game ever<\/a>, with an average of 55.47 million viewers tuning in.<\/p>\n

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Taylor Swift has generated an equivalent brand value of $331.5 million for the Chiefs and the NFL, Apex Marketing Group tells FOS.<\/p>\n

The figure includes print, digital, radio, TV, highlights, and social media going back to Swift\u2019s first game in September.https:\/\/t.co\/xUzMDsqIgE<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/Ruj5FM7g81<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Front Office Sports (@FOS) January 28, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The league\u2019s social media team has played a big role in ushering in new audiences, as well. The team embraced Swift\u2019s first game<\/a> in September, trying to be conscious of all of the new eyeballs on their feeds while not going overboard, said Ian Trombetta, NFL SVP of social and influencer marketing.<\/p>\n

That theme has remained consistent throughout the season, though the strategy varies depending on the platform, Trombetta said. With some of those that skew younger, like TikTok and Snapchat, there\u2019s more reason to embrace Swifties with their posts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re also thinking about this in the sense of not just what we\u2019re posting on social media, but also how our partners are covering it,\u201d Trombetta said. \u201cSo that could be a broadcast partner. That could be a sponsor, etc. And when you take all that into totality, it can get pretty, pretty hot just in terms of the amount of coverage. And, so for us, I think it really was a reminder for us to take a broader view of all the coverage and understand our role in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"go-deeper\"\/<\/div>\n
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GO DEEPER<\/p>\n

Taylor Swift at the Super Bowl would be a ‘gift from the gods’ for CBS’ broadcast<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Swift\u2019s emergence onto the NFL scene has helped lead to record-setting engagement, with triple-digit growth in consumption across various platforms, per Trombetta. Their audience continues to skew younger and diversify in male\/female split as well, he said.<\/p>\n

Swift\u2019s Super Bowl attendance is up in the air thanks to her Eras Tour stop in Tokyo<\/a>, If Swift is there to watch Kelce\u2019s Chiefs take on the San Francisco 49ers, the league social team will devote some time to her arrival and reactions, but with so much happening around the Super Bowl between the football and the spectacle, it won\u2019t just be the Taylor Swift social feed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve gotten to the point now though, that by and large, it\u2019s been a very celebratory thing,\u201d Trombetta said. \u201cAnd certainly a positive for the league, a positive for the Chiefs, a positive for the Kelce family, and obviously with Travis, and I think it\u2019s been a positive for Taylor as well. So we\u2019ll continue to lean into it in different ways, but also be respectful of their relationship. So not invading any privacy and looking to take cues where some of the lines might be on the amount of coverage and also keep the game front and center. That\u2019s really important for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, there\u2019s no doubt the league has brought in new fans thanks to Swift, as the Flathouse and Kale families can attest.<\/p>\n

The Flathouse family on Sunday will be hosting an \u201cI\u2019m in My Super Bowl Era\u201d themed party in honor of the Chiefs-Swift crossover.<\/p>\n

There will be a giant friendship bracelet garland along with appropriately themed food and drink, including an \u201celectric\u201d mocktail, in honor of a word Kelce likes to use a lot.<\/p>\n

But what about next season when the Swift magic may have run its course? It doesn\u2019t matter for Arrie, who plans on still tuning into NFL games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019m hooked now,\u201d Arrie said.<\/p>\n

\u2014 The Athletic<\/em>\u2019s Nate Taylor contributed to this report.<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Photo illustration: Daniel Goldfarb \/ <\/em>The Athletic;
Photos: Jamie Squire, Patrick Smith and Sarah Stier \/ Getty Images)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n