Arrie Flathouse took her first steps to Taylor Swift’s hit music “Tim McGraw.”
The pop icon was a fixed a part of the now 16-year-old Arrie’s childhood as she grew up in the Houston space with two older sisters who adored Swift. Arrie got here to love Swift, too, dressing up as her for Halloween and listening to her albums.
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Arrie by no means acquired a lot into soccer, although, regardless of having a mother, Kara, who spent her weekends tuned into school and NFL video games. That included video games performed by the Chiefs since Kara, like Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes, is a Texas Tech alum. Despite Kara’s makes an attempt to get her daughters , soccer by no means clicked with Arrie, so Kara normally spent these weekend afternoons watching video games alone.
But that modified final summer season after Arrie noticed clips of the “New Heights” podcast, on which certainly one of the hosts, Chiefs tight finish Travis Kelce, described his makes an attempt to give Swift his quantity through a friendship bracelet.
Anyone understand how to get a bracelet to @taylorswift13? … asking for a good friend 😅 @BWWings
New episode premieres NOW!
Tap in: https://t.co/lmQ8fLH1IO pic.twitter.com/4yYr8HSb0m
— New Heights (@newheightshow) July 26, 2023
The little trade had fairly an impression on Arrie.
Already a devoted listener to the podcast, Kara acquired so excited when her daughter began speaking about the Kelce clips. Over the following months, social media labored its magic, and by the time Swift confirmed up to her first Chiefs recreation in late September, Arrie was tuned in.
“This is crazy,” Arrie stated. “This isn’t Swifties’ theories. This is for real. So that’s when I started watching football because I was like, ‘If she’s gonna be at the games, I’ve got to see her.’”
Arrie has since tuned into just about each Chiefs recreation, embracing not solely the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce romance however the whole Kelce household. She’s watched Amazon Prime’s documentary about his brother, Eagles middle Jason Kelce, grew to become a devoted listener of the Kelce brothers’ “New Heights” podcast and even began watching Eagles video games.
“Even if Taylor is not there, I think I enjoy (the game) a lot more,” stated Arrie, whose dad and mom promised to purchase her a Travis Kelce jersey quickly.
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Kara smiles listening to her daughter describe her newfound curiosity in a sport she bonded over together with her personal dad. Kara doesn’t need to push too exhausting, however she loves it when she sees Arrie’s head pop over the stair banister if she hears soccer on the TV. Much to Kara’s delight, that tends to lead to high quality time collectively watching video games together with her daughter. It’s additionally led to questions on the sport itself.
“It’s been really fun for me,” stated Kara, who posted a viral video in the fall about her glee that Swift lastly transformed her daughter to a soccer fan. “I love it.”
The Flathouse household isn’t an anomaly. Far from it. Swift’s arrival on the soccer stage has led to numerous tales of football-loving dad and mom bonding with their Swiftie youngsters. Even Chiefs CEO Clark Hunt is listening to them.
“I steadily have dads come up to me and say, ‘My 10- and 12-year-old daughters never used to watch football, but they now tell me anytime the Kansas City Chiefs are playing to tell them so they can watch,” Hunt said this week in Las Vegas, where the Chiefs are preparing to face the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII. “I was at a function a little over a week ago and I had a woman, probably in her mid-20s, who came up to me, introduced herself as a Swiftie and told me her entire family is Dallas Cowboys fans and that she used to not follow football at all, but now she’s all-in on the Kansas City Chiefs. I feel there are a lot of examples like that on the market.”
One story similar to that belongs to Todd Kale, a Cowboys fan who posted a now-viral video of his 11-year-old daughter Briley reciting soccer details from the sofa.
The Kale household lives close to Houston. They’re Cowboys season-ticket holders and their 5 daughters love going to video games. They know the big-name Dallas gamers however by no means actually watched the recreation with their dad, as an alternative embracing the environment of a recreation day or simply having fun with consuming sizzling wings, their Sunday ritual, reasonably than participating a lot with the precise soccer.
But Briley, the center baby of the household, grew up a Swift fan thanks to her older sisters and has handed the love for Swift onto her youthful siblings. Todd wasn’t certain how Briley first realized of Swift’s connection to Kelce, however a few months again, he was watching a Sunday night time recreation together with his spouse and realized Briley was in the lounge. She began asking questions: What’s a security? What’s a cornerback? How many factors is a landing price?
It didn’t take lengthy for Todd to notice the place this was coming from.
“It definitely intrigued her that somebody she really likes is now involved in something I really like,” Todd stated.
Briley has since watched extra Chiefs video games and has picked up information about the sport itself, absorbing all of it.
“It’s every dad’s dream. … She liked football before, but I think she just liked the experience of it,” Todd stated. “Now she’s learning more about the game.”
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Swift has been a storyline all season — with Kansas City successful 9 of the 12 video games she has attended — and the Chiefs’ Super Bowl run has solely ratcheted that up a larger degree.
“There’s no doubt her being a fan has put a more intense focus on the team than we would’ve had otherwise,” Hunt stated. “It has opened up the fan base to a whole new demographic that we really didn’t have in young women. You’ve seen that in a lot of ways, specifically our TV ratings. They are much higher because of Taylor Swift being a part of the team, as Kelce says.”
Hunt’s not fallacious about the TV scores. Not solely did the common variety of viewers tuning into Chiefs regular-season prime-time video games enhance this season from the earlier two (a 39.4 p.c bounce in contrast to final yr alone), however so did the share of feminine viewers (up 3 p.c), in accordance to Nielsen. And that viewership bounce has carried over to the postseason. The Chiefs’ divisional-round win over Buffalo averaged 50.4 million viewers, making it the most-watched divisional-round or wild-card recreation ever. The Chiefs’ victory over the Ravens was the most-watched AFC Championship Game ever, with a median of 55.47 million viewers tuning in.
Taylor Swift has generated an equal model worth of $331.5 million for the Chiefs and the NFL, Apex Marketing Group tells FOS.
The determine consists of print, digital, radio, TV, highlights, and social media going again to Swift’s first recreation in September.https://t.co/xUzMDsqIgE pic.twitter.com/Ruj5FM7g81
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) January 28, 2024
The league’s social media staff has performed a huge function in ushering in new audiences, as nicely. The staff embraced Swift’s first recreation in September, attempting to take heed to all of the new eyeballs on their feeds whereas not going overboard, stated Ian Trombetta, NFL SVP of social and influencer advertising.
That theme has remained constant all through the season, although the technique varies relying on the platform, Trombetta stated. With a few of those who skew youthful, like TikTok and Snapchat, there’s extra purpose to embrace Swifties with their posts.
“We’re also thinking about this in the sense of not just what we’re posting on social media, but also how our partners are covering it,” Trombetta stated. “So that could be a broadcast partner. That could be a sponsor, etc. And when you take all that into totality, it can get pretty, pretty hot just in terms of the amount of coverage. And, so for us, I think it really was a reminder for us to take a broader view of all the coverage and understand our role in it.”
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Swift’s emergence onto the NFL scene has helped lead to record-setting engagement, with triple-digit progress in consumption throughout numerous platforms, per Trombetta. Their audience continues to skew youthful and diversify in male/feminine cut up as nicely, he stated.
Swift’s Super Bowl attendance is up in the air thanks to her Eras Tour cease in Tokyo, If Swift is there to watch Kelce’s Chiefs tackle the San Francisco 49ers, the league social staff will dedicate a while to her arrival and reactions, however with a lot occurring round the Super Bowl between the soccer and the spectacle, it gained’t simply be the Taylor Swift social feed.
“I think we’ve gotten to the point now though, that by and large, it’s been a very celebratory thing,” Trombetta stated. “And certainly a positive for the league, a positive for the Chiefs, a positive for the Kelce family, and obviously with Travis, and I think it’s been a positive for Taylor as well. So we’ll continue to lean into it in different ways, but also be respectful of their relationship. So not invading any privacy and looking to take cues where some of the lines might be on the amount of coverage and also keep the game front and center. That’s really important for us.”
Still, there’s little question the league has introduced in new followers thanks to Swift, as the Flathouse and Kale households can attest.
The Flathouse household on Sunday shall be internet hosting an “I’m in My Super Bowl Era” themed occasion in honor of the Chiefs-Swift crossover.
There shall be a large friendship bracelet garland together with appropriately themed food and drinks, together with an “electric” mocktail, in honor of a phrase Kelce likes to use a lot.
But what about subsequent season when the Swift magic could have run its course? It doesn’t matter for Arrie, who plans on nonetheless tuning into NFL video games.
“I feel like I’m hooked now,” Arrie stated.
— The Athletic’s Nate Taylor contributed to this report.
(Photo illustration: Daniel Goldfarb / The Athletic;
Photos: Jamie Squire, Patrick Smith and Sarah Stier / Getty Images)
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