Travis Kelce and the Kansas City Chiefs Played Better When Taylor Swift Was in Attendance This Season, Data Shows
During the 2023-24 NFL season the world of sports and entertainment collided when the biggest pop star in the world began going to Kansas City Chiefs games. In September, cameras caught Taylor Swift in a suite cheering on tight end Travis Kelce alongside family and friends. And at that moment Swifties, many who never even watched a football game before, were all in.
The league benefited tremendously as sales for Kelce jerseys rose by a whopping 400% and ratings for Chiefs games shot up whenever the singer was in attendance including a playoff contest with the Buffalo Bills which averaged 50.4 million viewers and became the most-watched Divisional or Wild Card game on record.
Now data has found that every game Swift attended also meant a better performance from just about every Chiefs player including her beau.
Stats shows that the Chiefs performed better during games Taylor Swift attended
Casino Alpha crunched the numbers and found that the team performed better in 13 of the 19 games Swift was at.
In fact, throughout the season and incorporating statistics from Super Bowl LVIII on Feb. 11, 2024, which the “Anti-Hero” artist did attend, the Chiefs performed better with Swift in the building in every metric except field goals.
Average points scored were up 23.92 compared to 19.38 when she couldn’t make it. The defensive side of the ball fared better as well allowing just 16.85 points per game compared to 17.25 when Kelce’s girlfriend wasn’t in her suite.
As for Kelce’s individual numbers, he had eight touchdowns this season and out of those eight, more than half (five) were scored in front of Swift. And his receiving yards jumped from 50.00 to 79.92 when she was at the games. In addition, his average yards per reception increased to 11.41 from 8.18 when the superstar watched him play in person.
Kelce’s former teammate offered a reason why everyone may have played better
Of course there was more focus on the team this season than ever before. Kelce’s former teammate wide receiver Jason Avant spoke to Showbiz Cheat Sheet about how some of the other players may have felt about all the attention at first.
“I don’t think the players are ever bothered by the media attention. The players are used to it,” Avant opined, adding, “There are so many cameras that are following the guys … I don’t think the players mind it at all.”
Avant also had a theory about why the team stats may have been better when the “Love Story” songbird was there saying perhaps her presence “boosts the players and their game because now they’re thinking ‘Damn, I can go get somebody like Taylor Swift.’ That can instill a bunch of confidence in a lot of the guys.”
