National Football League

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell praises Taylor Swift: 'She knows great entertainment'

Published Feb. 5, 2024 7:45 p.m. ET

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NFL Commissioner Rodger Goodell said in his annual Super Bowl week press conference Monday that his league's record ratings for the 2023 season had more to do with its on-field product than any supposed "Taylor Swift effect" — but had plenty of praise for the music megastar.

Swift has become heavily associated with the NFL in recent months after she started dating star Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and attending many of his games, including each of the Chiefs' three playoff wins on the path to reaching the Super Bowl for the fourth time in five seasons.

"Having the ‘Taylor Swift effect' is also a positive," Goodell said. "Both Travis and Taylor are wonderful young people, and they seem very happy. She knows great entertainment, and I think that's why she loves NFL football."

Goodell, who has twin 23-year-old daughters, does believe Swift's constant presence at games and the impact it might have on her devoted fanbase of "Swifties" — especially so soon off her massive hit "Eras Tour" concert series across the U.S. last summer — is a positive for the NFL.

"I think it's great to have her a part of it," Goodell said. "Obviously, it creates a buzz. It creates another group of young fans, particularly young women, that are interested in seeing why she is going to this game, why she is interested in this game. Besides [her relationship with] Travis, she is a football fan, and I think that's great for us."

Goodell also laughed when asked if he had a response to detractors who made unfounded claims that the Chiefs' somewhat unlikely return to the Super Bowl — and Swift's involvement — has been "scripted" by the NFL, a conspiratorial twist on a months-old joke embraced by the league itself that the NFL as a whole is scripted. The Chiefs pulled off back-to-back upset wins on the road over the Buffalo Bills and Baltimore Ravens to reach this year's Super Bowl in Las Vegas, a rematch with the San Francisco 49ers.

"I don't think I'm that good a ‘scripter,’ nor is anybody on our staff," Goodell said. "There is no way I could have scripted that one, let's just put it that way. But [Swift] is a remarkable performer. … I had an opportunity to go to two concerts with our girls and my wife, she's the best of the best. Having her coming to NFL games, having her a part of that, is nothing but a positive."

Swift has a series of concerts in Japan next weekend as part of the international portion of her "Eras Tour," but is expected to arrive back in Las Vegas on Saturday night to cheer on Kelce in Sunday's Super Bowl (and no, Swift herself will not have any role in the halftime show headlined by Usher).

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