Jaw-Dropping Taylor Swift Stat Explains NFL's Obsession With Her

Taylor Swift's presence at Kansas City Chiefs games over the past two weekends as she cheered on rumored boyfriend Travis Kelce has been welcomed by the NFL and TV networks covering the sport—likely for very good reason.

Singer-songwriter Swift, 33, was joined by a host of celebrity friends—including Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Hugh Jackman and Shawn Levy—as she watched Chiefs tight end Kelce, also 33, and his teammates take on the New York Jets on Sunday.

Swift's appearance at the game came one week after footage was shared of her supporting Kelce as his team emerged victorious over the Chicago Bears on September 24. In each case, her presence has become a huge talking point over the past several days—much to the chagrin of a faction of football fans.

The power of Swift's presence has been felt. Footage of the star cheering on Kelce as his team emerged victorious over the Chicago Bears on September 24 led to a 400 percent spike in sales of the athlete's jersey. He gained millions of social media followers in just a matter of days.

Such was the anticipation of Swift attending Sunday's game in New Jersey, broadcaster NBC played up her visit by using her track "Welcome to New York" in a promotional clip for the Chiefs vs. Jets showdown.

While some fans have expressed concern that coverage of Swift at games is overshadowing the football itself, social media stats show that the NFL very much know they're in the presence of a titan, even as a body overseeing America's most popular sport.

"It's crazy how big Taylor Swift is because the NFL is damn near the biggest thing in America and even they [are] running [their] whole marketing around Taylor Swift," wrote one user of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

"If Taylor Swift started a country with her followers, she would have the 5th most populated country in the world," another X user stated.

To illustrate this, one fan pointed out the disparity in Instagram followers between Swift and the NFL. The football league's official account on the platform has 28 million followers, while Swift eclipses that number with a tally of 273 million.

Swift's 273 million would place her ahead of Pakistan's population of 240 million and just behind Indonesia's 277 million. For perspective, the U.S. currently has the world's third largest population with just under 340 million.

Broken down by teams, Swift's reach towers all the more. The most followed NFL team on Instagram is the New England Patriots. The tally that has helped them achieve this status? A comparably humble 5 million. Rounding out the top three are the Dallas Cowboys (4.6 million) and the Pittsburgh Steelers (3.5 million).

At that rate, Swift comfortably has more followers than all of the NFL teams combined. Even if all teams had the top rate of 5 million Instagram followers apiece, the total 160 million total would still be eclipsed by her tally.

Perhaps, then, it is little surprise that the NFL's Instagram bio has been updated to acknowledge Swift's new presence. "chiefs are 2-0 as swifties," reads an update to the NFL's profiles, noting the Chiefs' consecutive victories.

And then there's the boost in viewer ratings that has arrived with Swift's presence at NFL games. After she attended the Chiefs' September 24 game, Variety reported that Fox's America's Game of the Week attracted a total audience of 24.32 million viewers, making it the most-watched NFL broadcast of the week on any network. It also scored highest among female demographics in the 12-17 and 18-49 age brackets that week.

With this boost in viewers opening up the NFL to a new audience, one X user predicted that there could be broadcast adjustments on the horizon.

"I won't be surprised if they start adjusting NFL game broadcasts to appease the new audience being brought in due to Taylor Swift," they wrote. "Like segments where they explain the rules for starters or something."

Swift fans are celebrating the effect of their pop idol on the game, with one stating on X that the star is "singlehandedly reviving" the NFL.

"Hot take: I like the Taylor Swift mentions," said one football fan on the platform. "She's bringing historic ratings + a new audience to [football]."

Swift's influence has also proved itself in the political area recently, after her September 19 Instagram post urging fans to register to vote was followed by a surge of more than 35,000 registrations—an almost 25 percent increase over last year's National Voter Registration Day.

The news was followed by criticism of Swift from a number of Republican voters—likely stemming from the musician's own outspoken stance against politicians in their party, most notably former president and 2024 candidate Donald Trump.

Jeffrey R. Dudas, Ph.D., professor of political science at the University of Connecticut, told Newsweek that the "breadth of Swift's reach is so impressive," that it's a "well established" fact her army of fans will faithfully follow her into new spaces.

As such, there's little chance of football fans' complaints being heeded as their beloved sport gets a glossy pop makeover.

"There's a reason why Paul McCartney himself right is such a huge fan of Taylor Swift, or why Billy Joel is such a huge fan of Taylor Swift," said Dudas. "The masters of the craft all see a fellow a peer in her."