Sunday night the Kansas City Chiefs went into Buffalo and beat the Bills 27-24 moving on to the AFC Championship game next Sunday against the Ravens in Baltimore. Beating a red-hot Bills team in Buffalo was impressive. Chiefs star TE Travis Kelce, was a major factor in the win and his girlfriend, Taylor Swift, was in a suite cheering on her love interest.
After scoring a touchdown in the 2nd quarter of the game, Kelce formed a heart with his hands, something Swift has been doing during her Eras Tour, and raised his heart-shaped hands up toward the suite where Swift was watching the game. It was a sweet gesture of love and a departure from Kelce’s signature point-and-arrow gesture after a score.
So, what about this continuing love story between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce and the networks’ interest in focusing on their love during coverage of the Chiefs’ NFL games? Is it sweet - or is it becoming sickening?
While talking about Kelce’s hand-formed heart-shaped on our talk show today a few listeners echoed the sentiment that showing Taylor Swift’s every reaction to her boyfriend’s performance on the field is a joke and a distraction from the game of football. Others agreed that it’s sweet to witness the gestures during the games. And some listeners just wondered - why is this a big deal?
The Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce love story is adding a human element to the game and there is a strong precedent for creating human drama in the NFL. Many of the NFL pregame shows include in-depth features about players that have interesting stories of how they got to the NFL or the challenges they have faced recently in their lives. There has been a concerted effort on the part of the networks covering NFL games to provide as much of a human element as possible and the Swift/Kelce love story is a compelling story about a player that had a crush on a brilliant, young superstar singer who gave him a chance to have a date with her. Their date evolved into dating and now is being described as a love story. While Taylor Swift is tall for a female (she’s 5’11”) - Travis Kelce is a TE in the NFL and the image of Swift and Kelce personifies a “The Beauty and the Beast” couple.
It is understandable why the NFL would encourage the side story of Swift and Kelce as an emotional element in the context of the brutal NFL. Their story is good for business and any camera attention paid to Taylor Swift during a Chiefs' game DOES NOT really distract from the game. During coverage of every game there is reaction from fans in the stands and the camera shots of Taylor Swift jumping up and down and hugging to the point of nearly taking down those nearby in the suite is only replacing other shots of fan reaction.
The Chiefs play the Ravens in Baltimore this coming Sunday and it is almost certain that Taylor Swift will be there. The Chiefs are 8-3 when Taylor is in attendance and Coach Andy Reid, who may have had concerns about distractions in the beginning, now says, “Kelce is getting better with time. Taylor can stay around all she wants.”
But the question remains: is this true love or are both parties benefiting from the publicity they generate when they are together? Time will reveal the answer. My hope is that Travis Kelce is not devastated if things do not work out. Relationships are difficult - especially in a situation where one is a successful NFL star and the other is the biggest singing sensation in the world.
