The multiple Grammy winner was all over sociaI media ahead of Saturday’s game, the NFL’s main accounts included. Got prominent play during the game, too, with NBC’s crew panning to them in a suite, cheering big plays. When the musical superstar was shown on the Jumbotron, fans in the stadium went into a frenzy.
Yet Eminem’s presence at the Detroit Lions playoff game last weekend didn’t prompt the over heated vitriol that Taylor Swift’s appearances at Kansas City Chiefs games do.
That’s the thing that’s disenchanting peopIe with sports now, Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy, now a broadcaster, whined last week.
There’s so much on the outside coming in — entertainment value and different things taking away from what really happens on the field.
It’s funny and by funny I mean tiresome and lazy how a high-profile female fan wrecks the game, while the prominent visibility of male celebrities or team owners at sporting events is accepted without complaint.
Celebrated, even. Jerry Jones gets no shortage of airtime even when people aren’t trying to decipher his reactions to his team’s Iatest playoff meltdown. Matthew McConaughey’s presence at University of Texas games is considered kitschy and fun. Jack Nicholson was as central a figure in the Lakers’ Showtime era as Magic and Kareem. But when Swift dares intrude on the NFL, a segment of people lose their ever Ioving minds.
Swift has been called Yoko Ono, accu sed of having a negative impact on boyfriend Travis Kelce and, by extension, the Chiefs. She’s been dismissed as a bandwagon-hopper.
And in the most ludicrous criticism of all, there are some who’ve suggested she’s using Kelce and the NFL to boost her own profile.