The Kansas City Chiefs’ 23-20 win over the New York Jets on Sunday was the most watched Sunday show since the Super Bowl with an average of 27 million TV viewers, including millions of teenage girls who tuned into the game attended by pop star Taylor Swift, NBC Sports said on Monday.
A rumored relationship between Swift and Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce has sent interest skyrocketing in Super Bowl champion Kansas City. In another sign of “the Swift effect,” sales of Kelce’s jersey surged after Swift’s appearance at his Week 3 home game.
Swift brought several celebrity friends to her luxury box digs at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, to watch the Chiefs eke out the nail-biting victory, as fans once again reveled in her appearance on social media.
Photo: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY
Viewership among teen girls aged 12 to 17 spiked 53 percent from the season-to-date average for Sunday Night Football, part of an approximate increase of more than 2 million female viewers, NBC Sports said in a news release.
The audience among women aged 18-24 was up 24 percent.
The broadcast featured ads for the forthcoming concert film Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour and on several occasions cut to Swift, who cheered on the Kansas City team enthusiastically, while commentators made references to her song lyrics.
The Chiefs game against the Chicago Bears the previous week was the most-watched show of that week with 24.3 million viewers, also scoring first among female audiences.
On Sunday, Swift’s presence doubled ticket sales on StubHub for, while Kelce’s jersey sales shot up by nearly 400 percent.
The amount of money bet on Kelce through DraftKings more than doubled over the weekend after rumors he is dating Swift.
The dollar value bet on Kelce’s performance on Sunday was twice his two prior games combined, an e-mailed statement from DraftKings said.
The NFL is capitalizing on Swift’s attendance. It changed the banner of its page on X, formerly known as Twitter, to show her cheering at a game, and its Instagram page biography said “chiefs are 2-0 as swifties” on Monday.
Not everyone appreciated the update, as it spun conspiracy theorists into a tizzy, especially after a controversial holding call on Sunday against Jets cornerback Saucer Gardner.
“Lmaoo maybe if I was a swiftie, the ref wouldn’t of threw the flag,” Gardner wrote on X.
Last season’s Defensive Rookie of the Year then edited the post to say: “Lmaoo maybe if I was a swiftie then ...nvm.”
The post was later deleted.
The NFL also removed the reference to Swift from its social media profiles.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg and AP
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