I thought we’d reached peak Taylor Swift — I was wrong

Not just wrong, but very, very wrong. But how much more Taylor Swift can the world absorb?

In this space back in August, I wondered how much Taylor Swift mania the world could take.

People were talking about selling kidneys in exchange for tickets to the Eras tour. The New York Times was projecting that this one road trip would end up contributing nearly US$5 billion to the American economy. She’s become so big that accepting an invitation to play the NFL halftime show would be a step down for her. Billy Joel marvelled, “The only thing I can compare it to is the phenomenon of Beatlemania (in the 60s).”

The consensus seemed to be that Tay-Tay had reached the pinnacle of stardom and would soon level off at a nice cruising altitude for the rest of her career. There was no way that Taylormania could get any bigger, could it? I thought so. But I was wrong. Very, very wrong. Swift is a marketing and self-promotion miracle.

Let’s begin with her alleged relationship with Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs. For the moment, Tayvis (Tayce?) are among the world’s great power couples, up there with Barack and Michelle, George and Amal, and Jay-Z and Beyonce. Gossip pages are breathlessly reporting on the tiniest things (“Fans spot clue that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce had secret makeout session on date night!”).

Not only are the paps following their every move, and not only is Swift the topic of an infinite number of daytime and late-night TV talk shows, but even NFL pre-game and halftime segments have taken to offering Swift reports.

If the Chiefs are playing, someone in the booth is assigned to the Tay Cam to capture her reactions in the luxury box. And naturally, she’s right down front with her famous friends (like Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman) so the camera can capture everything. And she never, ever disappoints by cheering, dancing, and high-fiving for everyone to see.

Swift has the league wrapped around her finger and the NFL loves it. Sales of Kelce jerseys are up 400 per cent. If she’s at a Chiefs game, viewership among teen girls spikes. A Sunday night game between Kansas City and the New York Jets attracted around 27 million viewers, the second-highest highest number since the Super Bowl. Of that number, at least two million were teen girls, which is 53 per cent higher than normal. Perfect, especially when you consider that her Eras concert film opened just a few days later, helping it to an opening weekend global gross of US$123.5 million. (She might actually have left money on the table because of the way she bypassed Hollywood and worked directly with AMC Theatres. But that’s another topic entirely.)

Talk about leveraging the NFL for your own purposes, huh? Remember when fans booed an ad for her concert film? No? It happened not even a month ago. Now the league can’t get enough of her.