NFL hoping Taylor Swift can help build league's audience

The NFL is the only one happier than Travis Kelce over his blossoming friendship with Taylor Swift.

The music superstar made waves last week when she attended the Kansas City Chiefs' 41-10 win over the Chicago Bears after Kelce invited her to the game. Their connection could be part of the NFL's end game. 

"She's invited to any game that she wants to come to. It's an open invitation," said Ian Trombetta, the senior vice president of social and influencer marketing for the NFL, per USA Today's Kayla Jimenez.

Social media lit up last weekend due to Swift's appearance at the Chiefs home game. It was also a major boost for Fox, which broadcast the game. The 4:25 p.m. ET time window it aired in scored the highest rating for the league in Week 3.

If the league had its way, Swift would attend games every week.

Unfortunately for the NFL, Swift returns on her "The Eras Tour" beginning on Nov. 9 in Buenos Aires. The South American leg of her tour ends on Nov. 26, so she could be back to give the league another viewership boost in December when postseason races heat up.

As Jimenez notes, "Swift's appearance and Kelce's invitation may have aided in solving a long-running challenge for the National Football League: attracting Americans from Generation Z, including young American women and girls."

According to Jimenez, Trombetta acknowledged the league's difficulty in reaching young audiences, noting, "Gen Z is especially very elusive since they're using media in ways that are not as traditional." 

Trombetta added, "We've been really leaning in and reaching out to more casual audiences, or people who are not watching football every single moment or watching every week... We're finding adjacencies in music, gaming and fashion."

The NFL is already a massive organization that made nearly $12 billion in revenue in 2022. Still, if it can build its audience through Swift, whose latest tour has an estimated economic impact of $5 billion in the U.S., it will only make the sport more popular.