Arrie Flathouse takes her first steps to Taylor Swift’s hit song “Tim McGraw.”
The pop icon was an integral part of the childhood of Ally, now 16, who grew up in the Houston area with her two older sisters who idolized Swift. Ellie also fell in love with Swift, dressing up as her for Halloween and listening to her albums.
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Ellie never had much interest in football, though, despite having a mom named Kara who would watch college and NFL games on the weekends. That includes games played by the Chiefs, as Kala and Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes are both Texas Tech alums. Although Carla tried to get her daughters interested in football, Allie never liked football, so Carla usually watched games alone on weekend afternoons.
But that changed last summer after Ali saw a clip from the “Next Level” podcast in which one of the hosts, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, described trying to offer a friendship bracelet to S. Swift provided her own number.
Does anyone know how to buy a bracelet? @taylorswift13? …seeking friends 😅 @BWWings
New episodes premiere now!
Click: https://t.co/lmQ8fLH1IO pic.twitter.com/4yYr8HSb0m
— New Height (@newheightshow) July 26, 2023
This small exchange had a great impact on Ali.
Kara, already an avid listener of the podcast, was excited when her daughter started talking about the Kells clip. Over the next few months, social media worked its magic, and when Swift attended a Chiefs game for the first time in late September, Ali was paying attention.
“This is crazy,” Ali said. “That’s not Swift’s theory. It’s real. So that’s when I started watching football games because I thought, ‘If she’s going to play, I have to meet her.'”
Since then, Ali has followed nearly every Chiefs game and embraced not only Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s romance, but the entire Kelce family. She watched the Amazon Prime documentary about her brother, Eagles center Jason Kelce, became an avid listener of the Kelce brothers’ “New Heights” podcast and even started attending Eagles games.
“I think I would enjoy (the game) more even if Taylor wasn’t there,” said Ali, whose parents promised to buy her a Travis Kelce jersey soon.
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Kara smiled as her daughter described her new interest in a sport with which her own father had a close bond. Kara didn’t want to push too hard, but when she heard the football game on TV she would see Ali’s head poking out of the stair railing, and she was delighted. Much to Carla’s delight, this often leads to quality time watching games with her daughter. It also raises questions about the sport itself.
“That’s really fun for me,” Kara said. She posted a viral video in the fall about how happy she was that Swift was finally letting her daughter become a football fan. “I like it.”
The Flathouse family is not unique. Far away. Swift’s arrival on the football stage sparked countless stories of intimacy between football-loving parents and Swift’s children. Even Chiefs executive Clark Hunt heard them.
“I often have dads come up to me and say, ‘My 10- and 12-year-old daughters never used to watch football, but now they tell me every time the Kansas City Chiefs play so they can watch,” Hunter said Speaking in Las Vegas this week, the Chiefs are preparing to face the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl 8. “A little over a week ago, I attended an event, and a woman, probably in her 20s, came up to me, introduced herself as Swiftie, and told me that her whole family was a Dallas Cowboys fan, and she had never used Follows football, but now she’s all for the Kansas City Chiefs. I think there’s a lot more like that.”
A similar story belongs to Cowboys fan Todd Kale, who posted a video of his 11-year-old daughter Briley reciting football facts while sitting on the couch, which is now available on It went viral on the Internet.
The Kale family lives near Houston. They are Cowboys season ticket holders and their five daughters love going to games. They knew the big names in Dallas but never actually attended a game with their dad, instead embracing the game-day atmosphere or simply enjoying eating hot wings as their Sunday ritual rather than participating in an actual football game.
But because of her sister, Briley, the middle child in the family, has been a fan of Swift since she was a child and passed her love for Swift to her younger siblings. Todd isn’t sure how Briley first learned of Swift’s connection to Kelce, but a few months ago he was watching Sunday night’s game with his wife and realized Briley was in the living room inside. She started asking questions: What is safety? What is a cornerback? How many points is a touchdown worth?
It didn’t take Todd long to realize where this was coming from.
“Someone she really likes is now involved in something I really like, and that really interests her,” Todd said.
Since then, Briley has watched more Chiefs games and learned about the sport itself, absorbing everything.
“It’s every dad’s dream. … She used to love football, but I think she just loved the experience of it,” Todd said. “Now she knows a lot more about the sport.”
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Swift has been a storyline all season — Kansas City has won nine of the 12 games she’s played in — and the Chiefs’ trip to the Super Bowl will only take that to an even higher level .
“There’s no question that as a fan, she cares more about the team than we do,” Hunter said. “It opens up a fan base for a whole new demographic of people that we really don’t have among young women. You’ve seen that in a lot of ways, especially with our TV ratings. As Kelce said, because Swift is part of the team. employees, so their income is much higher.”
Hunter isn’t wrong about TV ratings. The average audience for Chiefs’ regular-season primetime games this season is up from the previous two seasons (a 39.4% increase compared to last year alone), and the percentage of viewers is also up (up 3%), according to Nielsen . The ratings surge continued into the playoffs. The Chiefs’ divisional round win over Buffalo averaged 50.4 million viewers, making it the most-watched divisional round or wild-card game ever. The Chiefs’ victory over the Ravens was the most-watched AFC Championship game ever, averaging 55.47 million viewers.
Apex Marketing Group told FOS that Swift has created $331.5 million in brand value for the Chiefs and the NFL.
The number includes print media, digital media, radio, television, highlights and social media and dates back to Swift’s first game in September. https://t.co/xUzMDsqIgE pic.twitter.com/Ruj5FM7g81
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) January 28, 2024
The league’s social media team also played an important role in reaching new audiences. Ian Trombetta, the NFL’s senior vice president of social and influencer marketing, said the team embraced Swift for her first game in September to try to notice all the new eyeballs on their feed without overdoing it.
Trombetta said that while strategies vary by platform, the theme remains consistent throughout the season. For younger platforms like TikTok and Snapchat, there are even more reasons to embrace Swifties in their posts.
“We’re not just posting content on social media, but we’re also thinking about how our partners are covering this,” Trombetta said. “So that could be broadcast partners. It could be sponsors and so on. When you combine all of that When all taken into account, it could become very, very topical in terms of coverage. And, for us, I think it’s really a reminder to take a broader view of all coverage and understand our role in it. “
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According to Trombetta, Swift’s presence on the NFL stage has helped create record engagement and triple-digit growth in consumption across platforms. He said their audience continues to skew younger, and the male-to-female ratio is also diverse.
With her Eras tour making a stop in Tokyo, Swift’s Super Bowl attendance is up in the air, and if Swift is there to watch the Kells-Chiefs take on the San Francisco 49ers, the league’s social team will be taking some time to learn about her arrival and reaction, but with a lot going on between football and acting surrounding the Super Bowl, it’s not just Taylor Swift’s social dynamic.
“I think we’ve reached that point now, and overall, it’s something to celebrate,” Trombetta said. “It’s a positive for the league, the Chiefs, the Kelce family, certainly Travis, and I think it’s a positive for Taylor as well. So we’re going to continue to look at it in different ways, but Also respecting their relationship. So not invading any privacy and looking for clues on certain lines that might be covered and keeping the game front and center. That was really important to us.”
Still, there’s no question that the league has attracted new fans thanks to Swift, and the Flathouse and Kale families can attest to that.
On Sunday, the Flathouse family will host an “I’m in My Super Bowl Era” themed party to commemorate the Chiefs-Swift crossover.
There will be a giant garland of friendship bracelets, as well as appropriately themed food and drink, including “electric” mocktails in honor of a word Kells often used.
But what about next season, when Swift’s magic may be over? That doesn’t matter to Ali, who plans to continue watching NFL games.
“I think I’m addicted now,” Ali said.
—Sports NewsNate Taylor contributed to this report.
(Photo illustration: Daniel Goldfarb/ Competitor;
Photo: Jamie Squire, Patrick Smith and Sarah Steele/Getty Images)
