Chiefs victory would irk the right people
WHEN Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs take the field for their third consecutive SuperBowl appearance to face San Francisco 49ers next Sunday, a decent portion of the watching American public will be getting riled up by two people who will dominate the coverage – Tony Romo and Taylor Swift.
The pair met briefly on the field in Baltimore last Sunday, after Mahomes burnished his greatness even further by leading Chiefs to a third straight AFC title, when Swift appeared to assure the NFL analyst that he was doing a good job.
Romo probably needs that reassurance, even if it came from a newly converted American football fan. The former Dallas Cowboys quarterback has not had a good season behind the microphone and has been pilloried by the unforgiving judge and jury of social media for inane remarks such as ‘in games like this, the ball matters more than any game’ as he said at one point during Chiefs’ hard-fought win over the Baltimore Ravens.
It’s only a few years ago that Romo was considered the best thing about NFL’s television coverage. When he first came into the booth, he won a legion of fans with his mix of enthusiasm and clairvoyance. His uncanny ability to accurately call plays before they happened seemed like a gift. This reached a pinnacle during the 2019 AFC Championship game between the Chiefs and the New England Patriots, when Romo successfully predicted six plays in the final nine minutes.
CBS were certainly impressed as not long after that, they signed Romo to a ten-year deal that was worth $18 million annually, making him the highest-paid sports analyst in television history, which is one of the reasons that social media critics will seize on any slight mistake he will make during the SuperBowl next weekend.
Of course, what might take the heat off Romo is the number of times that cameras pan to Taylor Swift. The biggest pop star in the world will apparently be flying into Vegas from Tokyo on a private jet to cheer on her beau, Travis Kelce, the superstar tight end of the Kansas City Chiefs.
Last week’s AFC Championship game between the Chiefs and the Ravens was the most watched in history. As was the Chiefs’ divisional play-off game with the Buffalo Bills, which had more than 50 million viewers. The NFL was already the most-watched thing on American television — 29 of 30 of the top-ranked shows in the US in 2023 were NFL games. But viewership, especially among women, has sky-rocketed because of the presence of Swift. NFL merchandise has also gone through the roof since Swift has become a Chiefs fan. Back in September, when the singer’s relationship with Kelce became public, his jersey sales increased by more than 400%. Tickets for this year’s SuperBowl are the most expensive in history, the cheapest coming in at just under $10,000 while one estimate is that Swift’s appearances at Chiefs games has added $330 million in brand value to the franchise and the NFL, although we are not sure how they calculated that. Not everyone is happy about this version of love’s (and capitalism’s) young dream. The nutjobs have been out in force, claiming it is all a conspiracy, that SwiftKelce’s relationship is some sort of CIA deep-state plant to ensure Joe Biden remains in the White House and that the NFL is fixed so the Chiefs win the SuperBowl. Failed Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was out of the blocks with this last week when he said on Twitter: ‘I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl? And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall. Just some wild speculation over here, let’s see how it ages over the next 8 months!’
Think about this for a moment. Someone who ran for President suggests, in all seriousness, that two very famous and very goodlooking 34-year-olds are only in a relationship to convince people to vote for Biden.
Swift has already annoyed the crazy MAGA base a few years ago by courageously calling out Donald Trump as a racist and white supremacist while Kelce had previously advertised and marketed Covid vaccines — and has been nicknamed ‘Mr Pfizer’ by some of these same nutjobs for his drive to get people vaccinated.
The most sensible voice in all of this came on one of those shouty sports talk shows. On his Fox Sports show, Colin Cowherd called the people complaining about Swift as ‘weird, lonely, insecure men’ who resent women.
‘The fact that the world’s biggest pop star is dating a star tight end, who had one of his greatest games ever, and a network puts them on the air briefly, that it bothers you, what does that say about your life?’ Cowherd said on “The Herd”.
Cowherd pointed out that Swift appeared onscreen for less than 25 seconds during the broadcasts of Chief games and contrasts the venom directed at her with the reaction to male celebrities who attend sporting events, like Matthew McConaughey, Eminem, Drake and Jack Nicholson.
‘We celebrate it . ... But a talented and beautiful woman is on the air — one who would never pay attention to lonely men — and it bothers them. This anger says nothing about Taylor Swift. It says everything about the men bothered by it,’ Cowherd concluded.
Or, as Swift said a few weeks ago, ‘I’m just there to support Travis. I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads and Chads.’
For most of the season, Kelce’s disappointing form was being blamed on his relationship with the world’s biggest entertainment star. As all champions do, Kelce, Mahomes and the Chiefs came alive in the playoffs. The pair’s telepathic understanding has been key to Chiefs’ extraordinary success under Andy Reid and when the quarterback found his friend in the second quarter of last week’s Championship game against the Ravens, Kelce’s catch made him the greatest-receiving tight end in the 104year history of the NFL.
The broadcast went to see what Taylor Swift made of this historic moment. As they should. And if the Chiefs make more history this week, they should do again. And maybe Tony Romo will find the right words to capture the mood.
That’s why I will rooting for the Chiefs this Sunday — and hoping Tony Romo finds his mojo again. Just so it annoys all those angry Brad and Chads, wrapped up in their absurd conspiracy theories. In such a worrying and frightening time for the United States, America’s Game has never been freighted with more significance.