Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s new relationship. After the popstar attended a few of Kelce’s games, the internet went wild. With this flurry of media attention, the question arose: did Swift put Kelce on the map?
Flannery:
I believe that Swift not only put Kelce on the map, but on the globe. She brought him world-wide fame. Before dating the 12 time Grammy-award-winner, Kelce was still famous. He held a world record for the most receiving yards by a tight end and won two super bowls as part of one of the best NFL teams. He was definitely on some kind of map. A small map perhaps, but still a map.
But when Swift waltzed into Arrowhead Stadium to watch the Kansas City Chiefs play the Chicago Bears, the last thing on anyone’s mind was football. Kelce’s instagram following jumped from 2.8 to 4.1 million within days. The next Chiefs game Swift attended had an average viewership of 28 million people, making it the most watched Sunday football game since the superbowl.
Although Kelce was famous before his relationship with Swift, his fame greatly increased when he became associated with the “Cruel Summer” singer. And it wasn’t just Kelce who became more famous because of Swift, I think that the Chiefs and the NFL became more famous as well. The Chiefs are an amazing team and they have won two superbowls in the last four years. While that is impressive, it is nowhere near as impressive as one of their players dating Swift. The NFL knows it. The Chiefs know it. ESPN knows it.
At every football game, the broadcasters use every possible chance to promote Swift’s ties to the team. They see the devotion of her fans, and try to use it to promote their brand. Are there fans like that for Kelce? Sure, there are diehard Chiefs fans who love their players and pay thousands of dollars to see their team. But they are Chiefs fans, not specifically Kelce fans.
Of course Kelce has 4.1 million instagram followers, but that pales in comparison to Swift’s fanbase. To put it into perspective, the NFL has 28.5 million followers on Instagram, and every single NFL team combined has 62 million followers. Swift has 274 million Instagram followers. She is a different level of famous.
Kelce was famous, on a football level; but if you don’t follow American football (aka the rest of the world) you would have no idea who Kelce is. Everyone knows who Swift is. She is above football games and press releases. The NFL, the Chiefs and Travis Kelce may be popular in America but, across the whole world, they’re practically invisible. Swift’s fame crosses that boundary. She didn’t only put Kelce on the map, she put him on the globe.
Elias:
As Flannery mentioned, the news of the budding romance between Kelce and Swift is all sports media seems to be capable of talking about right now. Don’t get me wrong, I am just as invested in this relationship as anyone else. I mean, come on, you have the most famous person in the world dating one of the best players and biggest personalities in the NFL.
With that said, there are rumors and opinions swirling around the country and the world about this relationship, and it appears to be an emerging view that Swift has somehow “put Kelce on the map.” As someone who watches football, I would ask, how can the second best tight end of all time not already be on the map? I am aware of Flannery’s statistics, but I question their relevance. How many Swift fans (Swifties) buy a player’s NFL jersey is not a metric of their success. No one expects a football player to reach the levels of fame that Swift has deservingly reached in her career, and that is for good reason.
Swift inspires generations of people with her revolutionary style of writing music and her humble persona. Kelce inspires the next generation of football players with his 10,927 career passing yards and his two super bowl rings. It is simply unfair to compare the fame of the two lovebirds when their fame applies to such different sectors and areas of culture and society.
Popular culture includes every in-tune member of society. Being a fan of the Chiefs and watching the NFL is the result of a personalized passion for the great American pastime of football. Everyone who watches football knows who Kelce is, in the same way that everyone who engages in popular culture knows who Swift is.
The overarching theme here is that Swift and Kelce operate on completely different maps, and it is in no way, shape, or form fair to either of them to try and gauge their fame and popularity by pitting them against each other. Kelce has never aspired to have Swift’s levels of fame. The only map the tight end has ever aspired to be on is the map of football greats whose names are forever enshrined in the Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
This isn’t an argument that Swift isn’t more popular than Kelce. In fact, it is quite the opposite. The level of Swift’s fame is so vast that it almost feels incomprehensible. This is a type of fame that no one has ever enjoyed as a private citizen. But most importantly, it is also a type of fame that Kelce has never wished to have for himself.
It is time to accept that they are the rulers of their own maps, and that is what makes them so powerful as a couple. There is no doubt that they are the most influential and potent couple in the game right now. They have a monopoly over the media and have caught popular culture by storm and I am all for it – as long as they are allowed to keep their own maps.
