When Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce collide with prime-time TV

From a football perspective, the game Sunday night between the Kansas City Chiefs and the New York Jets is not must-see TV.

The Chiefs, favored by 8.5 points, are the reigning Super Bowl champions and are led by the NFL’s best player. The Jets are flailing after their 39-year-old would-be savior tore his Achilles tendon minutes into the season.

But many millions of people have tuned in anyway for a reason not related to sports: America’s most breathlessly covered situationship — between Kansas City’s All-Pro tight end, Travis Kelce, and pop music’s biggest star, Taylor Swift — is playing out on prime-time television.

“They are two of the biggest media entertainment entities that exist,” said Nora Princiotti, a football writer for The Ringer who also co-hosts a popular music podcast that often focuses on Swift.

The game offers a spectacular collision of the nation’s most-watched prime-time show and the ardent fans of a pop star at the height of her powers.

The host of NBC’s pregame show Sunday night, Maria Taylor, opened her monologue with an unsubtle nod to a Swift song, Enchanted. Over the next hour, anchors called attention to a Swift look-alike, and cameras showed fans wearing Swift T-shirts.

The network also featured a collage of photos of Swift at last week’s Chiefs game against the Chicago Bears, and about 7:42 pm, cameras showed Swift at MetLife Stadium.

About 10 minutes later, NBC aired a mashup of TikTok videos, photos and scenes from Kelce’s podcast, unspooling football storylines as well as the week’s celebrity buzz. Then the “Sunday Night Football” broadcast officially began with mentions of Jets and Chiefs players preparing to take the field.

“Oh, and yeah, she’s here: Taylor is in the house,” play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico said while NBC showed Swift hugging someone in a luxury suite. Tirico then added, “Hi, Swifties, we’ll be with you all night.”

Given Swift’s megafame and penchant for writing songs about her romantic relationships, her dating life has long been a subject of scrutiny. But the frenzied curiosity of the past week is rare even for Swift.

Fox Sports said the Chiefs-Bears game, which Swift attended, was the week’s most-watched telecast on any network, with 24.3 million viewers powered in part by a strong female audience. Fox Sports cameras frequently panned to her reaction after Kelce, the game’s leading receiver, touched the ball.

“We’re aware we could be reaching new eyeballs,” Rob Hyland, coordinating producer of NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” said Friday.

Just before Sunday night’s game began, NBC ran yet another teaser for the contest — this one narrated by television host Carson Daly — explaining the stakes of the football matchup with at least a half-dozen call-outs to titles of Swift songs.

When the Chiefs quickly scored a touchdown, the cameras turned to Swift’s celebration even though Kelce was not involved with the play. During the commercial break that followed, NBC aired, for a second time, a high-gloss commercial for Swift’s Eras Tour concert movie that hits theaters this month.

The Chiefs and a publicist for Swift did not respond to a request for comment.

But with Swift’s Eras Tour briefly on pause, her forthcoming concert movie and Kelce’s commitment to a popular football podcast as his Hall of Fame-caliber career wanes, a supercharged dose of crossover publicity on national television is probably a welcome boost, even for the already famous.

“If 30 million people tune in to watch Zach Wilson and the Jets,” Princiotti said, “that’s a fairly good illustration of her impact.”