by Kevin Burton
America, do we hate the Chiefs yet?
On second thought, let me extend the question to the rest of the world, since the NFL plays games in London, Mexico City and Frankfurt, Germany. World, have we had enough?
It seems as usual I am behind the times, late to this question, because I just found a Sports Illustrated piece from three years ago calling the Chiefs the NFL’s new villain.
But what SI writer Jacob Harris didn’t have as fodder for his May 5, 2020 story, was, Taylor Swift.
There are certain people places and things that are so omnipresent culturally that they ooze into the consciousness of even people like me who are well outside the mainstream.
Taylor Swift is one of them. Something called Songkick ranks Swift as the tenth most popular singer in the world.
I can’t overstate how much I do NOT, not, not care whether Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce is dating Swift. I have no interest.
(My other immediate thought for Kelce is that these pop/film-star and athlete things never seem to end well for the athlete.)
I once heard “nothing” defined as “that which rocks dream about.” That is my level of interest in the Kelce-Swift thing.
Now the Chiefs are my local team and my second favorite team, behind Cincinnati. So I’m not keen to turn on them. But Kelce-Swift is the kind of thing that could make me consider it.
Neutrals – your odd Arizona or Carolina fans say – must be gagging.
In July, Swift played two concerts at Arrowhead Stadium, the Kansas City home of the Chiefs. The concerts caused such an uproar, demand for tickets, price inflation, that I said I was going to listen to a dozen or so Swift songs to see what the fuss was about.
I haven’t done it yet, but still intend to.
My recollection of what snippets of Swift I have heard lead to b to believe I will like her. I remember it as middle-of-the-road pop that would not have been out of place in my 70s music heyday.
But now she has barged unbidden into my football season. I don’t really need to hear from or about Swift until and unless I hit “play.”
Fans who are sick of the Chiefs because they win most of the time are likely being pushed over the edge by the whole celebrity zoo thing.
Add to it the glut of commercials Kelce and KC quarterback Patrick Mahomes are in, and it surely is seen as too much is some quarters.
Football isn’t golf. It isn’t lawn tennis. Football on a lot of levels isn’t nice. Football is a high-speed punch in the mouth. Glitz and football don’t mix too well.
And this all leads me to thoughts of The Fonz.
We now have the term to “jump the shark” to mean the point at which a good idea wears itself out; that moment when the good milk goes sour.
The term comes from an episode of the very popular, long-running 70s TV show Happy Days in which the main character/biker hero Fonzie, jumps over a shark on water skis.
Jumping the shark is that moment when America/World says, OK, I have loved this show, this is my point of departure. It’s the time when that Fonzie lunchbox gets pushed to the back of the closet.
The NFL is the unquestioned king of sports in the United States by any measure. Under that umbrella the Chiefs are a long-running show, very popular like Happy Days, here near Kansas City and elsewhere. But what happens if Taylor Swift turns the team into a cartoon?
I can now imagine the Chiefs losing in the playoffs and being taunted on Facebook by use of some Taylor Swift song title or lyric that is appropriate and that I am not yet familiar with.
In his SI piece, Harris said “Everything is pro wrestling,” meaning everything is reduced to storylines of good guys and bad guys and public spectacle.
“The blend of soap-opera storytelling, tribalistic fandom and cartoonish violence that can suddenly turn brutally realistic just about fully encompasses the breadth of human existence,” Harris wrote. “Pro wrestling, as an art form, has managed to boil down life on Earth to its essence and splatter it across a ring.”
Maybe I am making too much of the NFL and/or too little of Taylor Swift, but this whole thing comes off as a commercial for her music.
Let me know when Taylor Swift is dating some anonymous long snapper, or some guy from a practice squad.
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