Taylor Swift and American football are getting serious

Things are getting serious between Taylor Swift and the NFL

Lesson summary

Hi there, I’m Jeff and this is Plain English lesson number 623. Here at Plain English, we use stories about current events and trending topics to help you upgrade your English. We take a story-based approach, because that makes it much more likely that you’ll connect with, and remember, the English you’re hearing.

JR is the producer of Plain English and he has uploaded the full lesson—including the free transcript—to PlainEnglish.com/623. So if you’re looking for the transcript, that’s where you get it. PlainEnglish.com/623

I was not aware that they were a couple. Er…they weren’t a couple. They were…talking? Whatever they were, I was not aware of the rumors about them, until Sunday afternoon, September 24. And then, I couldn’t avoid it.

I’m talking about Taylor Swift, the global pop-star sensation, and Travis Kelce, a tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs football team. And since then, the news has only gotten bigger.

In the second half of today’s lesson, we’ll talk about the English expression “lean in.” What does it mean to “lean into something”? We’ll talk about that in depth. And JR has a song of the week. Let’s get started.

Football is smitten with Taylor Swift

Travis Kelce is one of the star players in America’s National Football League. He’s a tight end—he plays on offense and catches passes. He’s one of the best players to play that position in the history of the NFL; he holds a number of records. And Kelce plays for the Kansas City Chiefs; they won the Super Bowl last year.

Travis Kelce attended a Taylor Swift concert on July 8 at Arrowhead Stadium—that’s the stadium where the Chiefs play. The concert was during the football offseason. Kelce watched from a private box. He wanted to meet Taylor Swift and give her his number that night, but the singer was not available to meet fans.

Fast-forward to September, when rumors started to swirl that the two have connected and were beginning to talk to one another. Kelce was coy when he was asked about it on podcasts; it started to become a topic on sports talk shows.

The tone of the coverage was incredulity, almost tongue-in-cheek . Did anyone really think that Travis Kelce could just ask for Taylor Swift’s number and get it? Still, Kelce seemed to enjoy the questions, even as he deflected them.

Then, it all exploded on September 24. This is the game I watched: the Kansas City Chiefs played at home against the Chicago Bears. The game was broadcast on FOX, a television network.

And FOX had a camera, it seemed, permanently trained on one of the luxury suites. In the suite were Travis Kelce’s mom and Taylor Swift, sitting side by side, cheering on every good play by Kelce or his Chiefs—and that day, there were a lot of them.

FOX was smitten. They couldn’t keep the cameras off Taylor Swift. Here was Taylor Swift looking on nervously. Here she was jumping up and down after a touchdown. Here she was smiling and laughing with Mrs. Kelce.

Taylor Swift’s presence at the game took over the football news cycle that Sunday, and the whole next week. Other things did happen that week in the NFL. A game was played in London; another team set a scoring record; Usher was named the halftime performer for the Super Bowl.

Didn’t matter: the news was all about one fan in attendance at one game. The gossip went into overdrive. Were the two dating? They wouldn’t say.

The next week, it happened again. A different network, CBS, had the Chiefs game; they were a little more subdued, but still showed Swift and Kelce’s mom in the Kelce family box. Commentators Jim Nantz—who I love—and Tony Romo had some fun working Taylor Swift lyrics into their narration of the game.

Two weeks later, Swift appeared again at a Chiefs game—this one broadcast on Amazon Prime. Al Michaels, the legendary commentator, said before the game that he would not be talking about Taylor Swift; fans tuned in for the game, he said, they didn’t want to be distracted by celebrity cameos. Amen, I say!

But even that shows the power of Taylor Swift’s celebrity. The producers and commentators of a prime-time football game—which attracts an audience of about eleven million people—they had to meet and develop a strategy in advance for how to cover a singer sitting in the audience.

Later that same week, Kelce made an appearance on “Saturday Night Live,” a comedy show; and he and Swift were photographed holding hands. It is all but official: they’re together.

Why does America care so much about this? This is an interesting celebrity couple because they’re from two different worlds. Taylor Swift and the National Football League are two cultural sensations, two things that bring masses of people together, both in person and digitally. And although there is some overlap between the two fan bases, they’re generally different crowds.

Fans of football skew slightly male. But the strongest fans are much more likely to be men. It’s the opposite with Taylor Swift. Swifties skew slightly female, but the most adoring fans are mostly women.

For years, the NFL has tried to court more younger, female viewers. Now is their chance—and they’re leaning into it . The NFL has featured Taylor Swift-themed posts on its social media. The league and its broadcast partners are mostly taking full advantage of the wave of interest.

Since Taylor Swift has been featured in football broadcasts, viewership has spiked for Chiefs games. Fathers and their young daughters say that, for the first time, they are watching football together. Travis Kelce’s jersey sales are up 400 percent.

This sounds like a boon for the NFL, but what does Taylor Swift get out of this? It’s hard to imagine her becoming more popular than she already is, but I suppose it’s possible. At one point this summer, she had 23 of the top 50 streamed songs on Spotify.

But I have read that there are a lot of male Swifties that are embarrassed to be Taylor Swift fans. They don’t want to admit that they like the same songs as teenage girls. So maybe this will help them gain societal acceptance for liking Taylor Swift; who knows?

There is a little bit of a backlash. A lot of football fans—and I include myself in this—I just don’t want the game to be interrupted by gossip about the dating life of the players. I don’t care! I tune in for the game. Talk about it all you want on the talk shows, but during the game, just focus on the field—that’s what I think, anyway.

Here’s a question. What if it doesn’t work out? The league has almost 1,700 players; it put its Taylor Swift publicity into overdrive because she is dating one player. And isn’t Taylor Swift famous for throwing shade on ex-boyfriends in her lyrics?

All I have to say is…for the sake of the NFL, this romance had better work out, because the league is putting a lot of stock in just a single person.

JR’s song of the week

All right, it’s Thursday. JR has a song for us. It’s “Blame it On Me” by George Ezra. He wrote it at age 18. Here’s what he said about the song: “I was saddled with student loans, and I realized there were so many opportunities to play music, so unless I got busy, I could only blame myself.”

So there you have it. “Blame it On Me” by George Ezra is the song of the week, thank you JR.