They Loved Taylor Swift. They Loved Football. Then Their Worlds Collided.
“You might send a message with the Taylor Swift audience in mind, and now you’re getting that message viewed with a bunch of Chiefs fans,” said William Brady, a professor of psychology who studies social networks and group behavior at Northwestern University.
Darker, more existential possibilities may arise if the couple calls it quits, though. Plenty of celebrity romances have come and gone in the N.F.L., but few have had the animating power of Ms. Swift, whose disciples have historically turned on her former paramours. That’s tougher to do if Mr. Kelce and his Chiefs define your Sundays.
Jennifer Barbour, a longtime Chiefs fan, has no intention of picking sides should that occur. “They’re not my friends. I don’t have to,” she said. But, she added, if they do split, “I’ll be interested to hear her love story and breakup albums about him.”
Perhaps the best that crossover fans can hope for if the Taylor-Travis romance is to end, Professor Clavio said, is that the pair will have the decency to do it like most consequential football decouplings: secretly, suddenly, and during the offseason.
Largely, though, the Swiftie football lovers are enjoying the influx of new fans. Ms. Calhoun saw the transformation in real time in her women-only fantasy league. The group had been going for 12 years, she said, and included a token friend who knew nothing about football and just played for fun, drafting players based on their looks.
Until this season, when the woman in question surprised them all by casually dropping player stats and trade news into the conversation.
“Oh my God,” Ms. Calhoun remembered saying, thrilled. “You’re a football fan now!”
