The Kansas City Chiefs‘ legacy can probably be split into a before-and-after situation, since Taylor Swift came into the picture. Today, the popstar and the team’s three Super Bowl wins together make up most of its brand value. The attention on her and Travis Kelce has reached newer heights entering this season, as the tight end will be Mr. Taylor Swift by the time it begins. However, the Chiefs undertook a noble stance when it came to dealing with this high-profile relationship.

“Taylor’s been amazing to us,” said Donovan on the Up & Adams Show in December 2025. “It’s been nothing but good. She is a phenomenon, but she is just a special kind of person, and my job early on in this… I told Travis, ‘Look, we’re going to treat you and your relationship with the same respect that we treat any other player and coach’s relationship’. It’s a relationship like we’re not going to monetize it.

We’re not going to go out there and go crazy… He scores a touchdown. He makes a catch. It goes to Taylor. Especially the first year. We never showed Taylor on our big boards in our stadium, never. It was respectful. It’s like we’re not going to do that, like we’re not taking advantage of this relationship.”

Taylor Swift is a 14-time Grammy Award winner, with a fanbase that rivals that of most NFL teams. She has over 240 million followers on Instagram, while the Chiefs and Travis Kelce have around 11 million followers on their Instagram accounts combined. This is someone who can jumpstart stagnant economies in towns. But the team made the right decision not to use her relationship with Kelce for their benefit.

Donovan also noted that Kelce himself did not want the franchise to push any marketing efforts related to their relationship.

“Travis, to his credit, is all about team,” Donovan added. “He’s all about the guys, and he’s all about being part of a team and not being separate. And he said, ‘That separates me… When we’re playing a game. When we’re in that stadium, it’s about us. And I want it to be about us.'”

While the team didn’t put Swift on the big board in the Arrowhead Stadium, the broadcasters never shied away from an opportunity to show the popstar during games. However, many felt her presence was overshadowing the sport, with critics claiming that broadcasters focused too heavily on her reactions rather than on-field highlights.

As a result, by the 2024 season, Swift limited her presence by staying a bit far from the cameras capturing the live action at the Chiefs’ home stadium. This was after fans expressed their discontent in the artist becoming such a frequent part of the broadcast. But the 14-time Grammy winner was unfazed.

“I’m just there to support Travis,” she said on the backlash. “I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads, and Chads.”

Amid that, the Chiefs, in particular, did enjoy quite a few benefits from the Kelce-Swift relationship. For starters, in 2024, the male viewership increased by 6%, while the female viewership rose by 9%. The momentum continued. By 2025, female fans made up 57% of the Chiefs’ base.

Not only that, the merchandise sales, especially Kelce’s, skyrocketed. The Chiefs’ tight end’s No. 87 jersey sales on Fanatics reportedly spiked around 400% after her appearance during the game against the Bears in September 2023.

“We’ve had hundreds of orders over the last 48 hours,” a store owner said. “Sometimes our online store lights up after a Chiefs game when we win, but this is 100 times more than that, and we lost the game. It was the Taylor effect.”

While the Chiefs choose not to indulge in this goldmine of opportunities, other teams haven’t shown that restraint.

Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Chargers throw shade at Taylor Swift in schedule release videos

Schedule releases are the one area where teams have the all-clear to land jabs at each other, but respectfully. The Bills chose to rope in Taylor Swift for their drop, particularly leaning into one of Taylor Swift’s obsessions from the past.

The Bills chose to represent their opponents as random objects found on Facebook Marketplace. The Kansas City Chiefs got an organic, local-made sourdough bread, priced at $13. It was a nod to Swift setting off a mini trend, when she revealed on the New Heights podcast that she was a little bit in love with sourdough bread-making.

The Chargers, however, went a little bold on the pop star’s association with the Chiefs. In their ‘Halo’ inspired schedule release video, the characters enter a house, and then into a room highlighted as ‘ScootersVersion.’ It was a dig at Swift’s infamous legal showdown with music executive Scooter Braun, who used to hold rights to all of her master recordings for her first six albums.

There was also an instance of ‘xCxCharlixCx’ being flashed during this segment, which was a reference to fellow popstar Charlie XCX. She is widely considered to be a rival of Taylor Swift.

Travis Kelce was also caught in the line of fire, with a reference to Chargers defensive tackle Teair Tart slapping him in the Week 1 clash against the Chiefs.

The starry couple is clearly a phenomenon in the league, as teams still can’t seem to stop talking about them.