On Sunday, the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs can be making the crew’s fourth Tremendous Bowl look within the final 5 seasons. Whereas some N.F.L. gamers go their total profession with out taking part in for a championship, one in every of Kansas Metropolis’s newcomers had their ticket punched after solely 12 video games.
As Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic mentioned on X, shortly after the Chiefs’ championship win: “Taylor Swift makes the Tremendous Bowl in her first 12 months within the league. Elite.”
Ms. Swift, who has been relationship Travis Kelce, Kansas Metropolis’s star tight finish, has modified the N.F.L. dialog all season, attracting a brand new viewers for the league and galvanizing robust feelings (each optimistic and adverse) amongst followers. Her critics in addition to her detractors might have some burning questions forward of the sport. At first: Will she be there?
Has Taylor hinted at her Tremendous Bowl plans?
Ms. Swift, as you’ll have heard, is nice at protecting secrets and techniques. Her plans, past live performance dates, are not often introduced upfront. That has led some to plan their very own strategies for determining what she’s as much as. Forward of a Kansas Metropolis sport in October, for instance, an NBC producer mentioned he had a spotter aircraft looking the realm round MetLife Stadium for police escorts in hopes of alerting the tv crew if she confirmed up (she did).
Mr. Kelce was inundated with questions on Ms. Swift final week, and whereas he mentioned he had heard a few of her upcoming album — spoiler: he likes it — he didn’t provide any particulars about whether or not she can be on the sport.
That being mentioned, Ms. Swift has adjusted her busy schedule to permit her to attend 12 video games already this season, so lacking out on a possible Tremendous Bowl win appears unlikely. The Related Press reported on Saturday afternoon that her aircraft had been seen in Los Angeles.
However wasn’t she in Tokyo … final night time?
She certain was. Her Eras Tour resumed lately, and on Saturday night time in Tokyo she carried out one more marathon set of her intensive catalog of songs. With flights from Tokyo to Las Vegas usually taking 13 hours or extra, and human beings requiring sleep, some frightened she may not make the sport.
The Japanese Embassy in Washington identified that timing shouldn’t be an actual hurdle for Ms. Swift. Initially, a personal jet shortens the journey (and gives a spot to sleep peacefully if wanted). Second of all, the worldwide date line is her buddy.
In 1873, earlier than the worldwide date line formally existed, the writer Jules Verne mapped out Ms. Swift’s time benefit in “Across the World in 80 Days.” Within the e-book, the protagonist Phileas Fogg believes he has misplaced his wager solely to comprehend the gap and course of his travels had saved him:
In journeying eastward he had gone in direction of the solar, and the times due to this fact diminished for him as many occasions 4 minutes as he crossed levels on this course. There are 300 and sixty levels on the circumference of the earth; and these 300 and sixty levels, multiplied by 4 minutes, provides exactly twenty-four hours — that’s, the day unconsciously gained. In different phrases, whereas Phileas Fogg, going eastward, noticed the solar cross the meridian eighty occasions, his mates in London solely noticed it cross the meridian seventy-nine occasions. This is the reason they awaited him on the Reform Membership on Saturday, and never Sunday, as Mr. Fogg thought.
Or, as “The West Wing” summarized extra succinctly in a scene that mentioned President Bartlett’s journey from Tokyo to Washington, D.C. (and that lately went viral on-line):
Josh: He’s gonna land in Washington an hour earlier than he took off?Sam: Yeah.
For older generations, these scenes helped clarify the logistics of the worldwide date line. For Gen Z and youthful, their body of reference will seemingly be … when Taylor Swift flew to Las Vegas for the Tremendous Bowl.
Why is that this getting a lot consideration?
Nobody ever appeared to thoughts Jack Nicholson being a fixture at Los Angeles Lakers video games, or Spike Lee being extra related to the New York Knicks than a lot of the crew’s gamers. Drake acquired solely a slap on the wrist when he started strolling onto the courtroom throughout timeouts at Toronto Raptors playoff video games. However though Ms. Swift receives comparatively little airtime in the course of the broadcasts of Kansas Metropolis’s video games, she has develop into a goal for individuals who nonetheless assume she’s getting outsize consideration.
“The eye is there as a result of the viewers needs to see it,” Jason Kelce, brother of Travis, mentioned in an interview throughout final week’s Professional Bowl festivities. “If individuals didn’t need to see it they wouldn’t be displaying it.”
As Ms. Swift put it, “a couple of dads, Brads, and Chads” could also be indignant, however the TV networks are thrilled. A rankings evaluation by The Upshot indicated that she very properly could also be a driving issue for the league’s elevated viewers. Coach Andy Reid of the Chiefs has repeatedly mentioned that he’s pleased to have her round, and the N.F.L., which is having fun with an sudden growth of its built-in viewers, has totally embraced her affiliation with the league.
“N.F.L. followers are available in every kind — even international sensations,” mentioned Alex Riethmiller, an N.F.L. spokesman. “We’re glad to have Taylor on board.”
If she makes it to the sport, who would possibly she sit with?
In the course of the common season, Ms. Swift attended quite a few video games in Kansas Metropolis whereas seated in a luxurious suite managed by Mr. Kelce’s shut buddy and longtime teammate, Patrick Mahomes. She appeared to develop into quick mates with Mr. Mahomes’s spouse, Brittany, and was frequently seen with different members of the Mahomes household.
She has additionally frolicked at video games with Mr. Kelce’s dad and mom, Donna and Ed, and her personal father, mom and brother got here together with her to a sport on Christmas. Throughout Ms. Swift’s journey to New Jersey for a Chiefs-Jets sport she was seated with mates just like the actors Ryan Reynolds and Blake Vigorous.
At a playoff sport in Buffalo final month, she and Kylie Kelce have been amongst these proven reacting to Jason Kelce’s shirtless bellowing and fraternizing with the group.
And on the A.F.C. championship sport in Baltimore, she was surrounded by Mr. Kelce’s household and associates, together with Donna and Ed Kelce, Jason and Kylie Kelce and Mr. Kelce’s managers, Aaron and André Eanes. There have been additionally a couple of of Ms. Swift’s mates, just like the actress Keleigh Teller and the mannequin Cara Delevingne.
That is Taylor, absolutely there’s some numerology concerned?
Ms. Swift has mentioned she loves the quantity 13, and her followers can seemingly discover it all over the place. Within the case of this 12 months’s Tremendous Bowl, the examples are plentiful:
Tremendous Bowl 58 (5+8=13)
Feb. 11, 2/11 (2+11=13)
Kansas Metropolis is taking part in the 49ers (4+9=13)
The 49ers have been the No. 1 seed within the N.F.C., whereas the Chiefs have been the No. 3 seed within the A.F.C. (1 and three — 13)
That is the thirteenth N.F.L. sport Ms. Swift has attended this season
It’s unclear if it’s a good or unhealthy signal that San Francisco’s beginning quarterback, Brock Purdy, wears No. 13. Time will inform.
