Taylor Swift’s shine is also rubbing off on the NFL due to her relationship with footballer Travis Kelce. This particularly pleases the league boss.
As a private citizen, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is a fan of Taylor Swift and her music. With his wife and two daughters he has already been to two concerts by the currently most successful and best-known singer in the world. But as head of the National Football League, he is currently very happy when it comes to the 14-time Grammy winner. Because their relationship with footballer Travis Kelce from the Kansas City Chiefs has a positive impact on the league.
“We can count ourselves very lucky,” said Goodell, when asked about the Taylor Swift effect, at his press conference at the start of Super Bowl week in Las Vegas. Swift’s presence at Chiefs games allows the league to attract new audiences to the sport of American football. The league boss proudly reports that the number of female spectators in the NFL last season increased by nine percent.
NFL Commissioner: “This is great for us”
And in his opinion, the “Swifties” also played a part in this. The singer’s fans wanted to know why their idol “goes to the games and is interested in sports.” Swift’s interest is in her Travis. But the 34-year-old is also “a football fan. And that’s great for us.”
The Apex Marketing Group has calculated that the brand value of the Chiefs and the NFL has increased by $331.5 million (almost €308 million) in the last few months thanks to Swift alone – the victory in Baltimore almost two weeks ago and the Super Bowl on the night from Sunday to Monday (12:30 a.m. German time) against the San Francisco 49ers are not even taken into account in these numbers.
Another indication of the Taylor Swift effect: In the spots during the Super Bowl, companies booked significantly more advertising for health and beauty products than in previous years – at a price of seven million dollars for 30 seconds.
“Swift’s presence is expected to have a significant impact not only on viewership but also on its demographic makeup,” Paul Hardart, a marketing professor at New York University, told CNN.
“Swift has a huge, loyal fan base. And her relationship with Kelce adds an element of intrigue and romance to the Super Bowl, making it even more attractive for companies to advertise with her.”
But the train is also going in the other direction. Just a week after Swift attended a Chiefs game live in the stadium for the first time on September 24th last year, the league asked Fox, CBS, NBC and ESPN to advertise the film, according to the New York Post about the singer’s “Eras” tour – without asking for anything in return. ESPN and NBC complied with the request and showed corresponding clips in the preliminary reporting.
Huge endorsement deal for Kelce
And for Kelce, too, the increased interest in him as a friend of a world star is paying off in hard cash. For Pfizer’s new advertising campaign last year for a double vaccination against Covid-19 and flu, he is expected to collect $20 million – a significant jump considering that Kelce – after all, is currently one of the best, if not the best, tight end in the world League – was previously said to have earned “only” five million dollars a year from all of his other advertising activities. Kelce receives $14.3 million per season from the Chiefs.
Although Swift has another concert in Tokyo on Saturday, she will be in Las Vegas in time for the finale, which begins at 3:30 p.m. local time – thanks to flying east over the date line.
Your presence at the Super Bowl is a prerequisite for numerous bets surrounding the Super Bowl. If Swift is seen eating a hot dog on television, she will return 12 times her stake. And BetUS pays 6 to 1 if Travis Kelce proposes to her after the game during the broadcast on CBS. Nothing better could happen to the NFL.