Looks like Travis Kelce may have found his good luck charm in Taylor Swift.
The Kansas City Chief tight end, 34, has produced more than twice the yards received when Swift was in attendance, 34, according to a graphic shown by CBS during the Sunday, October 22, game versus the Los Angeles Chargers. When Swift was in the bleachers, Kelce gained 99 yards per game versus 46.5 when he’s “left to his own devices,” (a not-so-subtle reference to her song “Anti-Hero”).
Swift has made an appearance at four of Kelce’s NFL games this season. The “Lover” singer first attended a game at Arrowhead Stadium when the Chiefs played the Chicago Bears in September, where she made her connection public with Kelce.
With Swift in the stands, the Chiefs have taken home the win every time — winning 41-10 against the Bears, 23-20 versus the New York Jets, 19-8 against the Denver Broncos and 31-17 versus the Chargers.
very important update pic.twitter.com/LhZvI1QAzb
— NFL on CBS
(@NFLonCBS) October 22, 2023
Since her debut, the NFL has made Swift a focal point of its coverage. After a so-called “media frenzy” surrounded her appearances, the Thursday Night Football production team even had a meeting to discuss their plans ahead of the Broncos game.
“Our crew talked about it this morning,” sports broadcaster Al Michaels, who works with Prime Video and NBC Sports for Thursday Night Football, said prior to the game earlier this month. “You can’t make a sideshow the show. The vast majority of the audience are tuning in to watch a football game. There are people, I don’t know how many, it could be a sizable number, but it’s certainly not a majority, that if you trained the camera on her all night long, they’d be satisfied with that. This is not what we’re doing [sic] to do.”
Michaels, 78, said that the network planned on doing “everything in moderation” regarding showing Swift during the game.
“There might be an appropriate shot or a couple. I don’t know what the number is going to be,” he told the outlet. “If Kelce scores six touchdowns, who the hell knows what we’re going to do. But for the most part, just in moderation. The game is still the important element here, by far. That’s our thought. After that, you sort of make it, one of my favorite words, ‘farcical.’”
The move to showcase Swift during these games has caught the attention of celebrities including Kelly Clarkson, who compared the coverage to watching The Real Housewives.
“It’s not hilarious how it is literally taking over the NFL for people that like watching sports now,” Clarkson, 41, said during an October 20 episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show.
After making their romance known, the pair have been spotted out to dinner twice in New York City and even made surprise cameos on Saturday Night Live earlier this month.
A source told Us Weekly that Swift is “really happy and excited” about her new relationship with Kelce. While they haven’t said they’re in love yet, the insider said her friends think they’re “heading in that direction.”
“She’s at the relationship stage where she looks forward to seeing him, getting calls from him, spending time with him,” the source told Us. “She has butterflies in her stomach and she hasn’t had that in a while. She feels safe and comfortable around him physically and emotionally.”
