I want Taylor Swift and the Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce to get the most out of their relationship. I hope Simone Biles and Green Bay Packers safety Jonathan Owens have a long and productive marriage. I wish we lived in a world in which the level of media coverage around these two power couples wasn’t dictated by their race.
Swift is a household name and a megastar. But there’s no way the greatest gymnast of all time — who won countless medals in this country — will be overshadowed every time the two women show up to cheer on their men in person. Look around, there is enough “media” out there to give both women the attention they and their relationships deserve.
“In my neighborhood, there are four black people. Hundreds of houses, four black people,” said Chris Rock in his 2008 HBO stand-up special Kill the messenger.
“I am a good actor. I’m doing well. Mary J. Blige, one of the greatest R&B singers of all time. Jay-Z, one of the greatest rappers of all time. Eddie Murphy, one of the funniest actors of all time, ever did it. Do you know what the white man who lives next to me does for a living? He’s a fucking dentist.
This feeling is what I feel for Biles every time she shows up to games. She’s the best to ever do it in her profession, but the fanfare every time she shows up at NFL stadiums is nowhere near what happens when Swift – who is far from the greatest female or male pop star in music history – is coming.
Like most men, the NFL doesn’t care about Taylor Swift — or women. The NFL only cares about what Taylor Swift – and women – can do for them. And at this moment, Swift is great for business. According to BNCbecause of Swift, the Chiefs’ week 4 Sunday Night Football The win over the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium was the most-watched Sunday broadcast since last season’s Super Bowl. The game attracted an average audience of 27 million viewers and peaked at 29.4 million. The figures also show that the game attracted two million additional female viewers.
“(Taylor Swift’s) stature is such that when she does something, people follow her,” said Marcus Collins, a marketing professor at the Michigan Ross School of Business. Yahoo Finance last month. “She influences a group of people and those people influence each other and other people. There is a network effect at play.
“There was a consortium of people watching these games that the NFL doesn’t typically reach,” he explained. “These people aren’t coming because they’re fans of the NFL, which means the league now has this new meaning associated with it.”
The Swift effect cannot be ignored, as she has long proven her worth. But let’s not act like Biles is just here doing cartwheels.
“Simone Biles is not most gymnasts” wrote Launderer’s Reportby Tyler Conway last month. “The American superstar achieved arguably her greatest feat to date at Sunday’s World Championships, becoming the first woman to land the Yurchenko double pike in an international competition. The movement will now be called Biles II. Earlier this year, Biles became the oldest woman to win the U.S. Gymnastics Championships. She is the oldest woman on the U.S. roster for the World Championships in more than 50 years.
In 2021, Time magazine named Biles Athlete of the Year. But we know why Al Michaels doesn’t stumble over his words and talk about Biles on shows like he does it with Swift.
This is not a knock on Swift or the popularity she has earned. I also understand that Kelce is a bigger star than Owens. But Russell Wilson was also once the face of the NFL. And his marriage to R&B/pop singer Ciara didn’t garner the same attention.
Please be clear, I’m not trying to turn this into a popularity contest or a fairy tale between the cheerleader and the captain of the football team. I’m trying to make you understand how black love is so often overlooked and ignored in our society. I’m not asking you to encourage one couple more than the other. I ask you to consider why one couple receives so much more attention than the other — and to consider how similar the media coverage and attention might be if everyone involved was white. The Packers host the Chiefs on Sunday Night Football during week 13. Pay attention to who spends the most time on camera.