Whatever the on-field outcome of Super Bowl LVIII next Sunday, one thing is guaranteed: Few non-athletes have ever made, or will ever have, a bigger impact on the National Football League’s greatest game than Taylor Swift is having upon this year’s version.
You can hate the above statement, love it, or (unlikely) be totally ambivalent toward it, but it won’t make much of a difference. If you plan to be emotionally invested in the Super Bowl on any level, from merely watching the game to absorbing every bit of minutiae in the buildup, constant reminders of the pop icon’s popularity are simply unavoidable.
There are examples of it everywhere, from gestures big and small, whether it be airlines changing their flight numbers to honor Swift and her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, or, with true Las Vegas-style promotional opportunism, the countless hotels, bars and restaurants offering Swift-themed food and drink specials.
Then there are grander productions that have been longer in the making, set into motion well before the Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers booked their respective places in the showpiece at Allegiant Stadium.
K.C.-based Nu-metal band Dirty Machine set in place a plan to release a Chiefs-centric Super Bowl anthem near the start of the season. Lead singer David Leach, a longtime Chiefs fan, envisioned a scenario where the team and quarterback Patrick Mahomes, coming under criticism at the time for some shaky performances, would rebound and go on another title run.
“I could see it then, the team was going to come back, prove everyone wrong, and you were going to have Taylor Swift doing her thing and rocking up at the Super Bowl,” Leach told me, via telephone.
“The Chiefs are the villains now; everyone is against us. We are in our Darth Vader stage, they hate us. Having Taylor Swift involved and be part of this great story just makes the haters even angrier. Our song, ‘Ego Killer,’ that’s us talking to the football world and all the doubters.”
(Editor’s note: If you’re at work and want to watch the video, we’d advocate for headphones due to profanity.)
To spice up the music video, Leach hired Allie Moss, a renowned Swift impersonator based in Los Angeles, and outfitted her in an imitation of the red bomber jacket Swift has been spotted wearing at some of Kelce’s games.
Moss’ life has changed dramatically. The former actress used to be a Marilyn Monroe impersonator and switched to Swift about five years ago. Ever since the NFL and music worlds collided to form the ultimate entertainment power couple, her phone has been blowing up with job offers.
For one of Moss’ recent gigs, she was asked to dress up for a photoshoot as a pregnant Swift, in a wedding dress, alongside a Kelce lookalike. The client used the shot as their Christmas card for 2023.
“It kind of doubles the fun, bringing together sports fans and music fans,” Moss said. “The Super Bowl is going to feel different this year and this makes it more interesting for a lot of people.”
According to a survey conducted by the Lending Tree financial website, 16 percent of those questioned said Swift’s involvement made them more likely to spend money on football, so it is no wonder the NFL has embraced Swift-mania so comprehensively, regardless of the curmudgeons who don’t see the fun side of it.
Like FOX Sports’ Henry McKenna wrote this week, if you have a problem with Swift, the problem is yours, not hers.
The Swiftie Super Bowl means a more inclusive one. The fact that several women’s brands have booked advertising slots during the game is because of an obvious reason — they expect more women to be watching than normal.
The thing to remember here is that this shouldn’t ruin anything — for anyone. It is still the Super Bowl, still the most important game in football, still the most collective social Sunday of the entire year.
If you’re in Las Vegas and don’t want to go to the Cheri Rooftop for a $20 Red Lip Classic cocktail, don’t. If you don’t like that your trip to Sin City is on American Airlines flight 1989 (the birth year of both Kelce and Swift), I don’t know — get a Greyhound bus. Or deal with it.
Of course, what would truly cause the internet to explode and make this the Taylor Swift Super Bowl forever more, is the Hollywood fairytale of Kelce scoring the winning touchdown and getting down on one knee to propose.
You can get odds on such an outcome, though not from American-based oddsmakers, which are mostly prevented by regulators from offering such wagers. However, the Borgata’s Thomas Gable said there is a wide and creative list of props and bets that hinge on Kelce’s performance in the game.
Furthermore, he said the involvement of Swift, who is expected to jet in from a Saturday performance in Japan, has changed the demographic of those betting on the Super Bowl.
“The Super Bowl is always this incredibly special one-day event where you might get people placing a bet that will be their only sports bet of the year,” Gable said. “This year, we are going to see a lot more of that.
“And when you have such a popular entertainer it is going to attract even more interest to what was already huge. This year, it is going to feel like everyone is into the Super Bowl.”
That, with the game now nine days away, seems to be the safest bet of all.
