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Just when you thought ESPN cameras couldn’t find a fresh excuse to keep showing Taylor Swift, they got an assist from the most-talked-about athlete of 2024.
WNBA Rookie of the Year Caitlin Clark joined Taylor Swift in the suite as the Chiefs hosted the Texans for the AFC divisional playoff showdown Saturday.
The pair became friends after Time’s Athlete of the Year attended Swift’s Era Tour on back-to-back nights in Indianapolis last year. During that same concert, Clark met Swift’s mom as well as Swift’s boyfriend, Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce. And Swift herself invited Clark to come to a Chiefs game with her.
The invite would have been hard for Clark to turn down—and not just because the Indiana Fever star is a Swiftie. The Iowa native grew up a Chiefs fan; Des Moines is just under a three-hour drive from Kansas City.
Clark recently talked about her Chiefs fandom and her budding relationship with Swift during a January appearance on New Heights, the podcast Kelce hosts with his brother, retired Eagles star Jason Kelce.
The NFL hardly has a ratings problem; viewership for the regular season was down 2.2% from last year, but NFL games still comprised 70 of the year’s top 100 broadcasts. But the appearance of two of the biggest cultural figures of 2024 together is nonetheless very good for business, especially as the NFL aims to draw in more female fans.
ESPN, which mostly avoided Taylor Swift references during the first half, cut away repeatedly to the pop star chatting with and embracing Clark as a fourth-quarter Chiefs drive culminated in a Kelce touchdown.
Clark’s boyfriend, fellow former Iowa basketball player Connor McCaffery, who is now an assistant coach of the Butler men’s basketball team, was also spotted in the suite. Clark and McCaffery also attended the Indy Ignite volleyball game Thursday night, just the second game ever for the Ignite, an expansion team in the Pro Volleyball Federation.
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