Century Park Blog

By now, most people have seen or heard about Taylor Swift cheering for her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, during Kansas City Chiefs football games. Television broadcasters are understandably capitalizing on the singer's popularity by showing her periodically during each game, especially after the Chiefs score a touchdown – and particularly when her boyfriend scores a touchdown.

However, the repeated sight of an overzealous pop star exuberantly jumping up and down while cheering her boyfriend on is simply too much for some NFL fans to handle. Countless social media posts reflect fans (nearly all of them from men) who are grousing, grumbling, and losing their collective minds. Some say it's wrong for the cameras to repeatedly show Taylor Swift during the games; others say she shouldn't be attending the games at all.

For the past two decades, the NFL has tried to appeal to more women in hopes of getting them to watch professional football games. Taylor Swift's presence at Chiefs games, whether you like it or not, has resulted in many more women and young ladies (including our daughter) watching Chiefs games in hopes of seeing Taylor Swift seated aloft in the luxury box seats.

You would think that all those rabid NFL fans would be happy about this year's increased TV viewership. After all, more fans in the seats and larger TV audiences means more revenue for the NFL and the team owners. The TV money is divided among all 32 NFL teams, so no matter which team you root for, with more revenue coming in, your team should be able to afford better players, better coaches, better everything. In other words, the "Taylor Swift Effect" has had a significant business impact on the NFL, its teams, and its fans.

With the Kansas City Chiefs going to the Super Bowl in two weeks, you can expect a continued media frenzy surrounding Taylor Swift's romance with Travis Kelce. As a result, more viewers than ever will probably tune in to watch the big game next month.

Here's one takeaway from all of this: Until we see how change (or something new) positively impacts us directly, we may be tempted to resist it. We might be misunderstanding what's happening, and thus we might be acting against our own self-interest by opposing something which could end up benefiting us.

Change is inevitable in life, and we are either agents of it or agents who experience it. The choice is ours. Will you simply sit back and gripe about change, or will you choose to embrace it by learning, keeping an open mind and an open heart, and leaning into what may be?