Lifestyle
The Swift-Kelce romance sounds like a movie. But the NFL swears it wasn't scripted
Fans hold up signs during the NFL game between Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs in Germany in November.
Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images
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Fans hold up signs during the NFL game between Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs in Germany in November.
Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images
Boy meets girl while she’s in the midst of a record-breaking world tour. Girl falls for boy, showing up to his football games and driving TV ratings, attendance and merchandise sales in the process. Boy’s team overcomes a bumpy season to win the AFC championship game. And the two, wearing matching bracelets, steal the spotlight with their embrace on the field.
Now boy’s team is headed to its fourth Super Bowl in five years. And people are betting not only on who will win, but how often girl — who has since been named Time person of the year — will be shown in the stands (assuming she can get there in time).
The romance of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce sounds like something straight out of a Hollywood movie — not to mention a huge win for the Kansas City Chiefs and the NFL itself. It’s created a legion of new football fans while also fueling PR stunt accusations and right-wing conspiracy theories, including that the league scripted their relationship to boost views.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell laughed off the notion at his pre-Super Bowl press conference on Monday, replying that “I don’t think I’m that good a scripter, or anybody on our staff.” But he was quick to acknowledge the positive impact Swift has had on the season.
“Obviously, it creates a buzz. It creates another group of young fans, particularly young women that are interested in seeing, ‘Why is she going to this game? Why is she interested in this game?’” Gooddell said. “Besides Travis, she is a football fan, and I think that’s great for us.”
The numbers say so too. Swift’s association with Kelce has generated an equivalent brand value of $331.5 million for the Kansas City Chiefs and the NFL, as of late January, according to Apex Marketing Group.
President Eric Smallwood told NPR that the figure is likely to grow, since it’s from before the Chiefs’ championship victory — which drew more than 55 million viewers to become the most-watched AFC title game in NFL history.
While there have been influential celebrity sports couples before, Smallwood says he’s never seen anything like this.
“It’s taking entertainment and mixing it with the top sport in the U.S., now with the top event of the year, viewing audience-wise,” Smallwood said. “It’s a phenomenon. It’s the Taylor effect for sure.”
Swift’s star power draws more female football fans
Taylor Swift watches a game between the Chicago Bears and the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri on September 24.
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Taylor Swift watches a game between the Chicago Bears and the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri on September 24.
Jason Hanna/Getty Images
Fans started speculating about Swift and Kelce’s budding relationship over the summer, as the first U.S. leg of Swift’s Eras Tour was in full swing.
The tour has grossed a record over $1 billion so far, selling out stadiums and boosting local economies along the way. Average attendance at a U.S. Swift concert in 2023 was over 71,000, versus more than 69,000 for regular season NFL games, according to Smallwood.
“She’s filled more football stadiums than any football team has this year, if you think about it,” he added.
Nora Princiotti, a football writer for The Ringer and a Swiftie, called the Eras Tour the pop culture event of the year.
“And midway through the first big leg of it, she starts dating Travis Kelce … the star tight end of this budding Kansas City dynasty,” Princiotti told NPR last month. “So you have these two elements of our last bits of monoculture sort of coming together, and it really created this phenomenon.”
Swift attended her first Chiefs game in late September, then 11 more. Her presence in the Kelce box, usually alongside family members and famous friends, thrilled fans watching on TV and social media.
The Chiefs-Jets game she attended on Oct. 1 averaged 27 million viewers — including 2 million women — making it the most-watched Sunday show since last year’s Super Bowl, according to NBC. By the end of the regular season, the NFL had seen its highest ratings since 2015, and the highest-regular season viewership among women since it started tracking the statistic in 2000.
Football is the most-watched sport in the U.S., and one of the most profitable, despite its myriad of issues involving race and diversity, concussions and other safety concerns, and its handling of athletes’ misconduct allegations off the field.
Women make up just under half of the NFL fanbase, but more than half of Swift’s. And it’s a demographic that the NFL has long struggled to reach, Princiotti said — until now.
“You see it in the numbers. You see it in the merchandise sales. I see it in my group texts with a lot of friends who do not normally follow football,” she explained. “They don’t have, suddenly, hot takes about the Jets’ defensive line, but they know what’s going on in a way that is different from before this started to happen.”
Candy Lee, a professor of journalism and integrated marketing communications at Northwestern University, says while some Swifties may be driven by a passion for the game, many are driven by “heart’s passion.”
“We all enjoy rooting for the ‘win,’ even if it’s our team, the romance, the celebrity,” she told NPR over email. “In this case, it brings sparkle to the game for a group of fans of entertainment, which is what both [the Eras Tour] and football season have in common.”
The path to Las Vegas wasn’t necessarily direct
Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift celebrate after the Kansas City Chiefs win AFC Championship Game at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore on January 28.
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Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift celebrate after the Kansas City Chiefs win AFC Championship Game at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore on January 28.
Patrick Smith/Getty Images
A lot of things had to go right this season for Swift, Kelce and the Chiefs to end up where they are now, as Smallwood pointed out.
“I don’t think you can write the script for this,” he said.
The two were able to travel to each others’ events — and generate buzz — despite their jam-packed schedules. Swift was able to travel to Chiefs games from her South America concerts, while Kelce used the team’s bye week to attend one of Swift’s concerts in Argentina.
The defending Super Bowl champs had a rocky season on the field, marked by offensive struggles and injuries, including Kelce’s. Smallwood says that the majority of Super Bowl ad spots were sold in November, at which point no one could have predicted the Chiefs would be one of the teams on the field.
“A lot of things have to happen and it happened,” Smallwood said. “It happened for the benefit of the NFL, the benefit of the Super Bowl, and the benefit of the Chiefs — not to mention the [San Francisco] 49ers.”
The surge in viewership definitely helped the NFL sell advertising around its games, Smallwood says. It also means new advertisers, particularly in the health and beauty industries, may be getting in on the Super Bowl action to try to reach the growing female fan base.
The Super Bowl is already one of the most popular TV events each year. Last year’s Chiefs vs. Eagles matchup — which pitted the two Kelce brothers against each other — was the most-watched U.S.-based telecast of all time, drawing an average of 115.1 million viewers across all platforms.
This year’s could draw even more viewers, thanks in large part to Swift.
The “Taylor Effect” is poised to make the Super Bowl even bigger
Coasters from Westside Storey commemorating Swift and Kelce’s relationship are displayed in Kansas City, Mo., on Monday.
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Coasters from Westside Storey commemorating Swift and Kelce’s relationship are displayed in Kansas City, Mo., on Monday.
Nick Ingram/AP
A Seton Hall Sports Poll released Wednesday found that 72% of Americans plan to tune into the Super Bowl, up from 66% last year.
When asked if they thought Swift had anything to do with that decision, or that of anyone in their household, 21% of respondents said yes. That number was almost twice as high for 18-to-24 year-olds.
“From a marketing perspective, the NFL and its advertisers couldn’t do any better,” marketing Professor Daniel Ladik, chief methodologist for the poll, said in a statement. “The viewership for this game is on a seemingly inexorable march toward more viewers, and this year Taylor Swift may be playing the role of drum major — at least for 18-34 year olds, a market that almost everyone covets.”
Other polls drew similar conclusions.
A recent survey of 2,000 Americans by the online lending marketplace LendingTree found that 24% of Gen Z-ers and 20% of millennials are more interested in football because of Swift. Eighteen percent of Americans — and 31% of Gen Z-ers — said they’re rooting for the Chiefs because of her.
And 16% of Americans said Swift had influenced them to spend money on football, such as buying memorabilia or signing up for a streaming service to watch games.
“If there’s one thing that people should’ve learned all too well by now, it’s that you should never be surprised by the enormity of Swift’s influence,” LendingTree chief credit analyst Matt Schulz said. “We’ve seen it with her records and concerts, of course, but we’ve also seen it in movies, politics, and now football.”
Earlier this week, Swift announced that an extended version of her Eras Tour concert film, which set multiple box office records of its own after it was released in October, will head to Disney+ in March. The following month she will release her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, which she announced at last weekend’s Grammy Awards.
Just like with the concert, Swifties are more likely to be watching the Super Bowl on screen than in person, though a study from one company found that 1% of them would sell an organ to pay for the experience. And if the how-to guides cropping up online this week are any indication, the Swift-themed watch parties are likely to be very glittery.
Kevin Kline plays actor Richard Bean, and Laura Linney is his sister-in-law Kristen, in American Classic.
David Giesbrecht/MGM+
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David Giesbrecht/MGM+
American Classic is a hidden gem, in more ways than one. It’s hidden because it’s on MGM+, a stand-alone streaming service that, let’s face it, most people don’t have. But MGM+ is available without subscription for a seven-day free trial, on its website or through Prime Video and Roku. And you should find and watch American Classic, because it’s an absolutely charming and wonderful TV jewel.
Charming, in the way it brings small towns and ordinary people to life, as in Northern Exposure. Wonderful, in the way it reflects the joys of local theater productions, as in Slings & Arrows, and the American Playhouse production of Kurt Vonnegut’s Who Am I This Time?
The creators of American Classic are Michael Hoffman and Bob Martin. Martin co-wrote and co-created Slings & Arrows, so that comparison comes easily. And back in the early 1980s, Who Am I This Time? was about people who transformed onstage from ordinary citizens into extraordinary performers. It’s a conceit that works only if you have brilliant actors to bring it to life convincingly. That American Playhouse production had two young actors — Christopher Walken and Susan Sarandon — so yes, it worked. And American Classic, with its mix of veteran and young actors, does, too.
American Classic begins with Kevin Kline, as Shakespearean actor Richard Bean, confronting a New York Times drama critic about his negative opening-night review of Richard’s King Lear. The next day, Richard’s agent, played by Tony Shalhoub, calls Richard in to tell him his tantrum was captured by cellphone and went viral, and that he has to lay low for a while.
Richard returns home to the small town of Millersburg, Pa., where his parents ran a local theater. Almost everyone we meet is a treasure. His father, who has bouts of dementia, is played by Len Cariou, who starred on Broadway in Sweeney Todd. Richard’s brother, Jon, is played by Jon Tenney of The Closer, and his wife, Kristen, is played by the great Laura Linney, from Ozark and John Adams.
Things get even more complicated because the old theater is now a dinner theater, filling its schedule with performances by touring regional companies. Its survival is at risk, so Richard decides to save the theater by mounting a new production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, casting the local small-town residents to play … local small-town residents.
Miranda, Richard’s college-bound niece, continues the family theatrical tradition — and Nell Verlaque, the young actress who plays her, has a breakout role here. She’s terrific — funny, touching, totally natural. And when she takes the stage as Emily in Our Town, she’s heart-wrenching. Playwright Wilder is served magnificently here — and so is William Shakespeare, whose works and words Kline tackles in more than one inspirational scene in this series.
I don’t want to reveal too much about the conflicts, and surprises, in American Classic, but please trust me: The more episodes you watch, the better it gets. The characters evolve, and go in unexpected directions and pairings. Kline’s Richard starts out thinking about only himself, but ends up just the opposite. And if, as Shakespeare wrote, the play’s the thing, the thing here is, the plays we see, and the soliloquies we hear, are spellbinding.
And there’s plenty of fun to be had outside the classics in American Classic. The table reads are the most delightful since the ones in Only Murders in the Building. The dinner-table arguments are the most explosive since the ones in The Bear. Some scenes are take-your-breath-away dramatic. Others are infectiously silly, as when Richard works with a cast member forced upon him by the angel of this new Our Town production.
Take the effort to find, and watch, American Classic. It’ll remind you why, when it’s this good, it’s easy to love the theater. And television.
The ritual of meeting up and hanging out at a coffee shop in L.A. is a showcase of style filled with a subtle site-specific tension. Don’t you see it? Comfort battles formality fighting to break free. Hiding out chafes against being perceived. In the end, we make ourselves at home at all costs — and pull a look while doing it.
It’s the morning after a night out. Two friends meet up at Chainsaw in Melrose Hill, the cafe with the flan lattes, crispy arepas and sorbet-colored wall everybody and their mom has been talking about.
Miraculously, the line of people that usually snakes down Melrose yearning for a slice of chef Karla Subero Pittol’s passion lime fruit icebox pie is nonexistent today. Thank God, because the party was sick last night — the DJ mixed Nelly Furtado’s “Promiscuous” into Peaches’ “F— the Pain Away” and the walls were sweating — so making it to the cafe’s front door alone is like wading through viscous, knee-high water. Senses dull and blunt in that special way where it feels like your brain is wearing a weighted vest. The sun, an oppressor. Caffeine needed via IV drip.
The mood: “Don’t look at me,” as they look around furtively, still waking up. “But wait, do. I’m wearing the new Dries Van Noten from head to toe.”
Daniel, left, wears Dries Van Noten mac, henley, pants, oxford shoes, necklace and socks. Sirena wears Dries Van Noten blouse, micro shorts, sneakers, shell charm necklace, cuff and bag and Los Angeles Apparel socks.
If a fit is fire and no one is around to see it, does it make a sound? A certain kind of L.A. coffee shop is (blessedly) one of the few everyday runways we have, followed up by the Los Feliz post office and the Alvarado Car Wash in Echo Park. We come to a coffee shop like Chainsaw for strawberry matchas the color of emeralds and rubies and crackling papas fritas that come with a tamarind barbecue sauce so good it may as well be categorized as a Schedule 1. But we stay for something else.
There is a game we play at the L.A. coffee shop. We’re all in on it — the deniers especially. It can best be summed up by that mood: “Don’t look at me. But wait, do.” Do. Do. Do. Do. We go to a coffee shop to see each other, to be seen. And we pretend we’re not doing it. How cute. Yes, I’m peering at you from behind my hoodie and my sunglasses but the hoodie is a niche L.A. brand and the glasses are vintage designer. I wore them just for you. One time I was sitting at what is to me amazing and to some an insufferable coffee shop in the Arts District where a regular was wearing a headpiece made entirely of plastic sunglasses that covered every inch of his face — at least a foot long in all directions — jangling with every movement he made. Respect, I thought.
Dries Van Noten’s spring/summer 2026 collection feels so right in a place like this. The women’s show, titled “Wavelength,” is about “balancing hard and soft, stiff and fluid, casual and refined, simple and complex,” writes designer Julian Klausner in the show notes. While for the men’s show, titled “A Perfect Day,” Klausner contextualizes: “A man in love, on a stroll at the beach at dawn, after a party. Shirt unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, the silhouette takes on a new life. I asked myself: What is formal? What is casual? How do these feel?” What is formal or casual? How do you balance hard and soft? The L.A. coffee shop is a container for this spectrum. A dynamic that works because of the tension. A master class in this beautiful dance. There is no more fitting place to wear the SS26 Dries beige tuxedo jacket with heather gray capri sweats and pink satin boxing boots, no better audience for the floor-length striped sheer gown worn with satin sneakers — because even though no one will bat an eye, you trust that your contribution has been clocked and appreciated.
Daniel wears Dries Van Noten coat, shorts, sneakers and socks. Sirena wears Dries Van Noten jacket, micro shorts and sneakers.
Back at Chainsaw the friends drink their iced lattes, they eat their beautiful chocolate milk tres leches in a coupe. They’re revived — buzzing, even; at the glorious point in the caffeinated beverage where everything is beautiful, nothing hurts and at least one of them feels like a creative genius. The longer they stay, the more their style reveals itself. Before they were flexing in a secret way. Now they’re just flexing. Looking back at you looking at them, the contract understood. Doing it for the show. Wait, when did they change? How long have they been here? It doesn’t matter. They have all day. Time ceases to exist in a place like this.
Daniel wears Dries Van Noten tuxedo coat, pants, scarf, sneakers and necklace and Hanes tank top. Sirena wears Dries Van Noten jacket, micro shorts, sneakers and socks.
Creative direction Julissa James
Photography and video direction Alejandra Washington
Styling Keyla Marquez
Hair and makeup Jaime Diaz
Cinematographer Joshua D. Pankiw
1st AC Ruben Plascencia
Gaffer Luis Angel Herrera
Production Mere Studios
Styling assistant Ronben
Production assistant Benjamin Turner
Models Sirena Warren, Daniel Aguilera
Location Chainsaw
Special thanks Kevin Silva and Miguel Maldonado from Next Management
Lifestyle
Nature needs a little help in the inventive Pixar movie ‘Hoppers’ : Pop Culture Happy Hour
Piper Curda as Mabel in Hoppers.
Disney
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Disney
In Disney and Pixar’s delightful new film Hoppers, a young woman (Piper Curda) learns a beloved glade is under threat from the town’s slimy mayor (Jon Hamm). But luckily, she discovers that her college professor has developed technology that can let her live as one of the critters she loves – by allowing her mind to “hop” into an animatronic beaver. And it just might just allow her to help save the glade from serious risk of destruction.
Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture
Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhour
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