Taylor Swift has been worth $1 billion of publicity to the NFL, study finds

Dads, Brads and Chads can argue about Taylor Swift‘s presence at Chiefs games all they want — but they shouldn’t expect the NFL to stop showing her on camera. A new study estimates that she has brought just under $1 billion worth of publicity to the league.

As USA Today reports, Apex Marketing, a company that provides brand analytics for brands and venue owners, calculated that Taylor’s involvement with the NFL has been worth $992,361,912.  The company arrived at that number by calculating how much Taylor’s name was mentioned at the same time as the NFL, including in newspapers, on the radio, on TV and on social media.

Apex president Eric Smallwood tells USA Today, “If you were a brand and you wanted to go and buy media for your product or service, you would have to spend this amount to garner this level of media exposure.”

Apex began their calculation starting Sept. 24, 2023, when Taylor made her debut at Arrowhead Stadium, cheering on Travis Kelce from a VIP suite. She later revealed in a Time profile that they’d actually spent “a significant amount of time” together prior to that. 

The tracking continued through to the Chiefs’ Super Bowl loss earlier this month to the Eagles — plus a few extra days of discussion about the fact that Eagles fans booed her after she was shown on camera.  The mentions have decreased since then, of course, but if Travis re-signs with the Chiefs, there may be a whole new cycle.