Taylor Swift: a global superstar, billionaire, and WNBA fan?
Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark revealed in her “Athlete of the Year” interview with Time that while attending the singer’s Eras Tour in Indianapolis in early November, the singer gave her four bags of merchandise and left a note. Clark said Swift called her inspiring to watch, invited the player to join her at a Chiefs game, and said “Trav and I” were excited to attend a Fever game now that her tour would be wrapping. Clark also said she met Swift’s mother and Travis Kelce at the show she attended on back-to-back nights.
“People are just going crazy that I’m there,” Clark said about her experience at the shows, taking pictures and sharing friendship bracelets. “I thought people would be so in their own world, ready to see Taylor. And it was just completely the opposite.”
Clark is an unabashed Swiftie and recently said she wore so many friendship bracelets at the show that her “circulation was getting cut off.” Ahead of the presidential election, Clark’s Instagram “like” on Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris garnered nearly as much attention as the post itself.
Sports aren’t anything new for Swift, but she’s picked up her attendance at games since dating the Kansas City tight end. In just a few months from September to January of last season, Swift generated more than $330 million in equivalent brand value for the NFL and Chiefs, according to one estimate. In addition to Chiefs games, Swift and Kelce attended the US Open with the Mahomeses and a playoff game at Yankee Stadium to see Kelce’s hometown Cleveland Guardians.
The WNBA’s most recent rookie class, led by Clark and Angel Reese, have drawn big celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Pat McAfee, and Latto to their games. But nobody would be bigger than Swift and Kelce.
Swift’s stamp of approval from America’s royal couple could be big for the WNBA, which is trying to maintain momentum after its best season in decades. Swift, like Clark, has proved a ratings bump—her second Chiefs game last season saw a 53% spike in teenage girl viewership, and the NFL recorded its highest female viewership (since beginning to track that metric in 2000) at the end of the regular season. Perhaps there’s a world where Swifties, whose love for the singer has propelled many into full-blown Chiefs and NFL fandom, might also latch on to Clark, the Fever, and the WNBA.
The Fever might not be the only women’s sports team to have Swift “on the bleachers” now that The Eras Tour is over. Patrick and Brittany Mahomes are part of the ownership group for the NWSL’s Kansas City Current, and have said before that they’d love to have the singer at a game. “I will work on it,” Brittany said on SportsCenter in March.
