As the Chiefs teeter on the brink of missing the playoffs—and the NFL teeters on the brink of losing its biggest ratings draw—another ancillary factor is that Taylor Swift has been less visible on the telecasts.
Swift, the global megastar singer, is engaged to Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. They have been together since the 2023–24 NFL season, and she quickly became a fixture during the team’s myriad nationally televised games. The Chiefs won the Super Bowl in early 2024, and reached last year’s Super Bowl, losing 40–22 to the Eagles.
Early in the relationship, viewers thought Swift was being shown so often during Chiefs games that the New York Times actually busted out a stopwatch to argue it wasn’t as often as it seemed.
Fast-forward to 2025, and there are a number of reasons why viewers are seeing less of Swift during Chiefs games. First and foremost, she’s not going to as many. According to USA Today, Swift hasn’t attended a Chiefs road game since Week 11 last year in Buffalo.
While she is regularly attending the games at Arrowhead Stadium, she appears to be keeping a lower profile. On Sunday night when the Chiefs hosted the Texans on NBC, Swift was only shown one time on the telecast, briefly, and at a relatively blurry angle. There are areas within suites where people like Swift who are keenly aware of TV cameras can avoid them. For example, Hailee Steinfeld, the singer and actress who is married to star Bills quarterback Josh Allen, is never shown at his games.
Regarding Swift, one source told Us Weekly in October that “she’s kept a noticeably lower profile because the attention on her was ‘getting too excessive.’” Therefore, TV crews looking for Swift may not always locate her unless she is sitting right in front of the glass.
One final element is that, as a matter of etiquette, sports broadcast partners typically do not show significant others in moments of on-field or on-court distress for athletes. For example, on Cowboys games, they’ll show owner Jerry Jones at times of anguish, but viewers won’t catch a glimpse of Dak Prescott’s fiancée.
In Sunday’s loss to Houston, Kelce had just one catch for eight yards despite being targeted five times. He had multiple drops, including one that led to an interception. There was no triumphant moment where it would have been natural to show Swift celebrating in the suite.
