The Taylor Swift Effect: Fox Tops 24 Million Viewers with Constant Cutaways to Travis Kelce’s NFL Date

Fox’s “America’s Game of the Week” was the telecast of the week, averaging 24.3 million viewers, according to Nielsen. It ranked first among girls 12-17, women 18-34, women 18-49, and Swifties females of any age.

Thank you, Taylor Swift and (and possibly, young love). The pop sensation sat in Kansas City Chiefs star tight end Travis Kelce’s suite at Arrowhead Stadium, which caused a frenzy on social media as well as among the opportunistic Fox camera-operators. Even the game’s commentators seemed enamored by the situation. To be fair, there wasn’t much worth watching on the field — at least, not from the Chicago Bears’ side of the ball.

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After the Chiefs amassed a 34-0 lead over the Bears, Fox shifted to broadcasting the Dallas Cowboys vs. Arizona Cardinals game. Since these are time-slot averages, the above viewer tally and demographic rankings include whatever pieces of each game were nationally televised. The Cowboys may have lost the game, but they carried the audience. Wherever the so-called “America’s Team” goes, TV ratings follow.

Meanwhile, CBS’ single-header (half the country gets a 1 p.m. game, half gets the 4 o’clock) averaged 17.5 million viewers. Fox had a doubleheader (national 1 p.m. ET and 4:25 p.m. ET games); with doubleheaders, the 4 o’clock NFL games regularly benefit from directly following a 1 p.m. football game.

The previous week, Fox averaged 16.6 million viewers in a single-header of its own. Fox had a doubleheader in Week 1, and its 4 o’clock game averaged 16.3 million viewers. CBS also had a doubleheader that day, splitting the national audience and averaging 21.4 million viewers in the 4 o’clock (ET) hour.

While there is no perfect apples-to-apples comparison available to perfectly quantify the Swift bump, it’s safe to say it exists. Fox’s 4 o’clock game grew about 41 percent from Week 2 to Week 3 and 44 percent from Week 1 to Week 3.

It’s not just Fox enjoying a little extra attention from the Swifties. (Though it again enjoyed the fanfare with a successful “Krapopolis” launch.)

Kelce, who very visibly departed from Arrowhead in a convertible alongside Swift, instantly grew his already popular profile off of just one date. Joe Pompliano, a self-described “entrepreneur and investor” tweeted the following on Monday:

Those are hall-of-fame stats for the future hall-of-famer. Might want to shave that ‘stache, Trav; America is now watching.

And soon, the whole world will be watching. On Tuesday, AMC Theatres announced it will be distributing Swift’s “The Eras Tour” concert film internationally as well as domestically. The movie will debut in most of the 100-plus countries on October 13, which is the same date it premieres in more than 4,000 movie theaters in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

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