I understand what the NFL is trying to do. The league wants to keep growing its audience, particularly with younger fans who may not have the same relationship with football that previous generations did. And when Taylor Swift entered the Travis Kelce story, the NFL suddenly had one of the biggest celebrities in the world sitting in its stadiums, bringing an entirely different audience along with her. From a marketing standpoint, I get it. But at what cost to the football fan?
For the past few years, the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce romance has become part of the NFL production. Kelce makes a great play, Kansas City scores, and we know what’s coming next: the camera pans to Taylor. I’m sure Swifties enjoy it, and perhaps that’s exactly what the NFL wants. But for those of us who have been watching football for years, it has gone from amusing to annoying to downright nauseating.
Now they’ve gotten married, and the storyline has another chapter. Swift returned to Arrowhead for Kansas City’s opener against Denver, and this time Tom Cruise was sitting alongside her. Those facts aren’t speculation: Swift and Kelce married July 3, and she attended the Chiefs-Broncos game with Cruise. Hollywood has a long history of publicity, carefully managed celebrity images, and relationships used to generate attention. Whether you believe every celebrity romance you see is completely organic is up to you. But when Hollywood storytelling and the NFL become this intertwined, I think it’s fair for football fans to start asking where the game ends and the entertainment production begins.
And that brings me to the part that bothers me more. Thursday night’s Buffalo-Detroit game was painful to watch. I am not suggesting that the Lions purposely decided not to play defense. But there were so many times when Buffalo receivers appeared ridiculously open that I found myself thinking, There is no way the Bills are losing this game tonight. And what a night it was to win.
This wasn’t just Buffalo’s home opener. It was the first regular-season game ever played at the new Highmark Stadium, complete with inaugural-season patches and OneRepublic performing the stadium’s first halftime show. Buffalo scored touchdowns on five of its first six possessions and ultimately beat Detroit 41-31, with Josh Allen accounting for five touchdowns. Again, I’m not saying Detroit purposely lost. I’m saying that while I watched it, I couldn’t help but pause and consider just how perfectly the result fit the story.
Then there was Kansas City and Denver, and this is where I’m less willing to simply shrug my shoulders. Over the years, NFL fans have complained repeatedly about calls that seem to go Kansas City’s way. Monday night’s game gave them more ammunition: there was renewed criticism over an apparent missed penalty involving Kelce, while Kansas City went on to beat Denver 31-10. When you combine controversial officiating with a broadcast already wrapped in celebrity and spectacle, every questionable flag—or missing flag—adds another layer to the question: How much of what we’re watching is football, and how much is the show?
Maybe that’s the real issue. The NFL doesn’t have to hand us an actual script for fans to start wondering whether we’re being played. The line between sport and spectacle has become increasingly blurry. The celebrity shots, carefully packaged storylines, prime-time productions, and seemingly perfect endings can make the NFL feel less like a football league and increasingly like an entertainment company that happens to play football.
And maybe that wouldn’t bother me quite as much if there weren’t something else involved: money. Fantasy football has changed the way millions of people experience the NFL, and legalized sports betting has taken that financial investment to another level. A catch, touchdown, penalty, missed call, or seemingly meaningless play can now have real financial consequences for the person sitting on the couch. When people have money riding on individual performances and outcomes, confidence in the integrity of the competition matters even more.
So, if the NFL is a stage and we are all players in it, what exactly is the reward for the fans? We buy the tickets. We buy the jerseys. We pay for the streaming services. We build our fantasy teams. Some people place their bets. And most importantly, we give the NFL something money can’t manufacture: our emotional investment in the game.
Is the NFL actually scripting outcomes? I’m not making that claim. But has the NFL become so consumed with creating a spectacle that it’s fair to question what we’re watching? Maybe. I just want the drama to come from what happens on the field, not from the storyline surrounding it.
And if we’re going to get played, somebody better buy the next round.
That’s our two cents. See you Between Sips. 🍺
