Just how valuable has Taylor Swift been to the NFL this season?
On September 24, 2023, Taylor Swift’s catapult into football stardom officially began as she would unexpectedly attend a game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Chicago Bears, confirming the circulating rumors of her romantic involvement with star tight end Travis Kelce.
By attending just 12 regular season games this year, Taylor Swift has helped increase the National Football League’s brand value by over
For comparison, that’s the total amount that Tom Brady made in salary over 23 seasons, more than 3.5 times more than Michael Jordan earned in salary over 15 seasons, and more than 9.4 times more than Serena Williams earned in salary over 27 years.
But how exactly does this work? And how does the league even come up with that number? Well, the answer is actually quite simple.
This season, every game that Taylor attended gained record TV viewership which in turn helped generate more ad dollars for the NFL. The estimate comes not just from TV, but instead from an evaluation of print, digital, radio, video, social, and everything inside and out of the football world. And at the height of her stardom thus far, brands across all industries jumped at the chance to earn some serious dough through capitalizing on her popularity.
For Michael Davies, Vice President of Programming at Fox Sports, this meant that it was
whenever Taylor decided to travel from coast to coast to attend a big game.
“I remember Fox was the first game that she showed up at and when we had heard that her appearance was a possibility. And then it became more like, okay, if you catch Taylor Swift, make sure we get that on the air. I think there was even a small bounty on the table for the camera guys that got a shot of it. We showed the reactions and it spiked on Twitter. It was incredible for us.”
Michael Davies, Fox Sports
But the TV industries weren’t the only overnight “Swifties” who were swept into the sensation as others looked to capitalize off of the social media avalanche that ensued.
As Swift would break the internet by doing the earth shattering activity of eating a chicken tender with “seemingly ranch” Heinz wasted no time and got creative with their marketing.
Travis Kelce saw a significant growth in his personal brand as well. Following the first appearance of the couple together, he saw a
In jersey sales across various merchandise websites and significant growth on his social media accounts amidst the hype that would last for months to come.
On January 13th, 2024, NBC affiliate streaming service Peacock took a massive swing of their own. Broadcasting the Wild Card matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins, the service would be the first to exclusively stream a playoff game on their platform, challenging the traditional TV viewing experience.
The game would be the most streamed event of all time, earning over
viewers and hundreds of thousands of new subscribers.
But while these figures were impressive for brands across virtually all industries, what was perhaps even more significant about the superstar’s impact was the demographic that she was able to attract.
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