Getty Image / David Eulitt
By far the biggest story on this week 3 Sunday is international pop superstar Taylor Swift sitting in rumored-lover Travis Kelce’s box with Travis’s mom, Donna, during the Chiefs’ home game against the lowly Chicago Bears. But, not even one of the most viral sports social media stories could keep the game on the television sets of most Americans, as Fox switched away from the game after the Bears’ terrible first half that had them trailing 34-0.
With the Dallas Cowboys-Arizona Cardinals game being surprisingly competitive, FOX made the choice to switch their national broadcast to that game.
Certainly didnt have Fox ditching its audience out of a broadcast with Mahomes, Kelce and Taylor Swift for an intensely competitive Cowboys-Cardinals game on my NFL regular season bingo card.
— Rich Eisen (@richeisen) September 24, 2023
Markets local to the Chiefs and Bears were kept on that game.
That was a shocking choice, as surely an incredible amount of eyeballs were on the Kansas City Chiefs-Chicago Bears game due to the presence of Taylor Swift. The first images of her at Arrowhead feel went viral on Twitter like few things do anymore, and she’s by far the biggest story of the NFL this week.
There were definitely a ton of people tuning into that game just to catch of glimpse of Taylor Swift. And, while the broadcast was showing her in the box sparingly, they had already cut away from the game by the time the most viral moment of the game happened.
When Travis Kelce scored a touchdown in the third quarter, Swift exclaimed “let’s F****** go!” in celebration. Sadly, most of the nation couldn’t watch it live, unless they have NFL Sunday Ticket.
I have to give some credit to FOX executives. Since Chiefs-Bears was the America’s Game of the Week, it wasn’t available on NFL Sunday Ticket unless you were in the Dallas or Arizona markets. But, they actually did make it available in the second half on NFL Sunday Tickey, which is exclusively available on YouTube for the first time this year.