Perhaps it was inevitable that Miss Americana herself would end up in an almost-confirmed relationship with a star of that most American sport — and a reigning champion, no less.
The appearance of Taylor Swift in the box suite of Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce on Sunday, wearing unreleased team merch, marked a major cultural crossover. The pop icon — who fills stadiums so easily she reportedly turned down an invitation to headline the next Super Bowl halftime show — created a different sort of media spectacle at a regular-season NFL game, with her legions of ardent stans tuning in to scan for clues about a possible budding romance between the singer and NFL star.
In the process, these Swifties — as dogged and keen-eyed a band of sleuths as the internet has yet produced — started building a dossier on Kelce, folding him into the vast romantic lore they have built around their idol. As the season progresses, here’s a cheat sheet with everything you need to know about her (probably) new beau.
He was very famous already.
It’s perfectly understandable that someone who doesn’t watch might never have heard the name Travis Kelce, but he’s quite a big deal — and certain supporters believe he’s destined to go down as the greatest player at his position ever. In terms of stardom and all-around popularity, you might say he’s the Taylor Swift of the NFL.
If you want confirmation of Kelce’s reputation, go ahead and inform the football-obsessed people in your life that “Taylor Swift put Travis Kelce on the map,” as some Swifties have in a new TikTok trend where users playfully troll their loved ones. You’ll be met with sputtering protests about how Kelce has won two Super Bowls with the Chiefs, including the most recent Super Bowl LVII, this past February. Now, plenty of Swifties already follow football and know as much, but that’s the fun of these worlds colliding: the respective fandoms each get to act like the other is a totally alien society. The NFL’s male audience, in particular, is disposed to assume that Swift’s female followers are out of their depth when it comes to the sport — and can be easily provoked with feigned ignorance:
On the field, Kelce is a “tight end,” serving a specialized role
In case you do want a quick primer on why Kelce is such a superstar, here it is: Kelce plays on the Chiefs’ offense, often scoring touchdowns in style as he did on Sunday, impressing Swift and helping lift Kansas City to a 41-10 win over the Chicago Bears. As a tight end, Kelce has dual responsibilities: At 6’5″ and 250 pounds, he’s big enough to block players on the other team who are trying to push through and tackle Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes before he can throw or hand off the ball.
But Kelce isn’t really known for his blocking — in fact, some would say he doesn’t do it nearly enough. He’s far more famous and revered as a guy who can catch the ball and run it for a touchdown. He holds tight end records for most seasons with more than 1,000 receiving yards, most consecutive seasons with more than 1,000 receiving yards, most yards in a single season (1,416), and seasons with over 100 receptions. Yeah, he’s pretty good at catching and running. Which is why he’s not only in the GOAT conversation but also the first image on the Wikipedia page for “Tight end.”
Our guy appears to have fairly liberal politics
Swifties may be relieved to know — as right-wingers fume about it — that Kelce falls on the liberal side of our partisan politics. This summer, he dared to appear in an ad for Bud Light amid the ongoing attacks on the brand as “woke” for partnering with trans creator Dylan Mulvaney. He and his mom, Donna Kelce, also star in a new Pfizer promotion encouraging people to get their updated Covid-19 and flu shots this season, despite rabid anti-vax sentiment on the American right.
And long before any of that, back in 2017, Kelce became the highest-profile white player in the NFL to take a knee during the national anthem, supporting Colin Kaepernick’s protest against racial inequality. Later, he expressed solidarity with teammate Patrick Mahomes, who became another voice for social justice during the 2020 wave of anti-police brutality protests that followed the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Kelce has since continued to publicly support the Black Lives Matter movement.
He’s had his eye on Taylor for a minute
Kelce has wit and charm to spare when he’s in front of the camera — more on that later — and in more than one interview preceding Sunday’s game, he talked flirtatiously about Swift. There was the time, for example, when he and teammate Marquez Valdes-Scantling were asked about celebrity crushes, and Valdes-Scantling teased Kelce that his was Taylor. Kelce laughed nervously and replied with one of his catchphrases: “All right now.”
In July, after seeing Swift take her Eras Tour to his home turf — Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City — Kelce revealed that he’d hoped to chat with her before or after the “unbelievable” show, but didn’t get the chance, as she has to save her voice for performances. Like many Swifties, he’d made a friendship bracelet for the occasion, only this one had his number on it.
After failing to hand off the jewelry to the singer at the time, he pulled a different smooth move by recounting the story on New Heights, the podcast he makes with brother Jason Kelce, an All-Pro center for the Philadelphia Eagles. The details of his fanboy plan likely got back to Swift one way or another, but in any case, they’ve certainly exchanged contact info by now.
Oh yeah, he’s tight with his brother, another NFL player
Travis and big bro Jason Kelce are known as best buds — whether they’re joking around on their podcast or facing off in direct competition. This past Super Bowl saw their fraternal rivalry at its most intense, with Travis’ Chiefs narrowly edging out Jason’s Eagles for a 38-35 victory. (Travis scored a touchdown on the occasion.)
Viewers caught emotional moments after the game as the boys embraced on the field, pouring out words of mutual admiration and congratulations, with Jason telling Travis to “go celebrate.” Their mother, Donna, was also seen hugging both players on the field — Jason first, then Travis. The footage made the tight-knit family into a symbol of sportsmanship at its finest.
His dating history includes a whole reality show
Kelce’s most recent ex is the on-air sports journalist Kayla Nicole, with whom he had an on-again, off-again relationship from 2017 until they split in 2022. (Swift, of course, dated actor and songwriter Joe Alwyn for roughly the same period, 2017-2023.) Earlier this year, on the Pivot Podcast, Kelce said he was “on the free market” and discussed rejoining Tinder.
Before Nicole, however, Kelce briefly dated Maya Benberry, the woman who (spoiler alert) came out on top in his 2016 reality dating competition Catching Kelce. The surprisingly fun E! show saw 50 women — one representing each state — angle for the eligible bachelor in a series of dates and challenges far more peculiar and endearing than the boilerplate reality romance series one might expect. Through it all, we got a great sense of Kelce as an affectionate himbo who knows how to communicate, perhaps our finest example of the “quirked-up white boy with a little bit of swag,” to quote a TikTok meme.
Although Kelce has no doubt matured a bit since that playboy experiment, Catching Kelce is still the best resource for Swifties looking to learn what Taylor is in for as the two explore a dating situation. It also happens to nicely showcase Travis’ bond with Jason, who shows up here and there to offer brotherly advice. But those hoping to dig up dirt will be disappointed: While he inevitably breaks some hearts, Kelce comes across as a decent, wholesome, goofy guy.