The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Miami Dolphins 26-7 on a bitterly cold evening in the Midwest. It got down to minus-10 degrees by the time the first-round AFC playoff game ended.
It got even colder for former NFL coach and NBC color analyst Tony Dungy, who aroused the ire of Taylor Swift fans by calling the superstar singer a “distraction” on televised NFL games.
As the world knows, Swift is the girlfriend of Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. Ever since they’ve been an item, the cameras never fail to find Swift cheering him on in a high-priced suite at Chiefs games. That annoyed Dungy, who, in turn, annoyed Swift’s fans, known as Swifties.
Dungy missed the steely-eyed reaction Jo Koy got when he made a joke about Swift and went afoul of the Swifties at the Golden Globes. The Hall of Fame coach launched into shark-infested waters with what many Swifties saw as a thinly veiled swipe: “That’s the thing that’s disenchanting people with sports now. There’s so much on the outside coming in—entertainment value and different things taking away from what really happens on the field.”
The Swifties then blasted the coach on social media, including the following posts on X (formerly Twitter).
One Swiftie said, “Tony Dungy went full buffoon, blaming Taylor Swift for discouraging viewers from watching the NFL. Second highest overall tv ratings since 2000. Second highest MNF ratings since 2000. 97 of the top 100 tv programs of 2023. Swift has been a massive positive for the NFL.”
Another chimed in, “If there is a reason for ‘disenchantment’ as Tony Dungy said it’s NFL putting Thursday night games and playoff games behind a paywall, awful broadcast crews who don’t research the teams they’re calling along with terrible officiating not Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.”
Ouch.
Even non-Swifties were, well, swift to distance themselves from Dungy’s comments.
Even journalist Roland Martin weighed in with this post on X: “I’m sick of folks whining about @taylorswift13 at @NFL games. @TonyDungy is DEAD WRONG. She and other celebrities attend games. The @NBA doesn’t whine about celebs sitting courtside. This complaining is DUMB.”
Martin got an amen from Rich Eisen, former ESPN anchor, current NFL Network on-air talent, and host of “The Rich Eisen Show.”
Eisen posted this on X: “Blaming Taylor Swift for anything to do with Travis Kelce or the Chiefs or the state of the NFL or viewing enjoyment of it is the silliest/dumbest take I’ve heard in a long time.”
Spotlighting celebrities at sports events has become a time-honored tradition. How many shots of actor Jack Nicholson have we seen at Los Angeles Lakers games? How many pictures of director Spike Lee cheering on the New York Knicks? Drake at Toronto Raptors games?
And if you want to look at this statistically, consider this: NFL ratings for this season were up 7% over last season, and they were the highest since 2015. Monday Night Football ratings were up 29%.
And those ratings will keep going up. The Chiefs’ win means they’ll play again in the second round, but as of Monday afternoon, it was still too early to know where. They would play the Houston Texans in Kansas City if the Pittsburgh Steelers were to upset the Buffalo Bills on Monday night. Or the Chiefs would travel to Buffalo to play the Bills in an exciting rematch of their overtime showdown two years ago if they beat the Steelers as expected. That would leave Houston to visit the automatically advancing Baltimore Ravens in the other AFC semifinal.
