Ive never been a sports person. I didnt marry a sports person. I most likely dont even know when a game is on, even when that game takes place on Super Bowl Sunday.

My (and my husbands) total lack of interest in sports has been an established fact and long-running joke in my family. On Christmas in 2022, my brother, a huge sports fan, gave my kids an official Memphis Grizzlies jersey. They had no reaction. None. They didnt know who the player or team was or even what sport the team played. Their lackluster response and my brothers incredulous irritation led him (at my urging) to take the gift back because such a nice piece of paraphernalia would go to waste in our sports-less household.

The caveat to this disinterest is a love for sports-related entertainment. Television and movies about sports, documentaries on athletes and global competitions such as the Olympics I want the grit of King Richard, the inspiration of Ted Lasso and the insider politics of Full Swing, even though I dont watch tennis, soccer or golf.

I love underdogs, superhuman feats of achievement, once-in-a-lifetime moments and the personal, behind-the-scenes interviews and backstories that engender a downhill slalom or synchronized high dive with meaning. Even I, the person who attended only a single quarter of a football game the entire time I was in college, watched Netflixs Quarterback and Prime Videos Kelce.

But I dont watch sports at least, that was the case until September last year.

Specifically, Sept. 24, the day Taylor Swift showed up at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, to sit in a luxury suite next to Travis Kelce s mother, Donna Kelce, and watch the Kansas City Chiefs play the Chicago Bears. That string of proper nouns would have been meaningless to me if Swift hadnt left the stadium in Kelces getaway car and further added speculation about their rumored relationship at the time. Just like that, a new football fan was born and I wasnt the only one.

Swifties texted their dads and brothers, googled football terms and rules, bought jerseys (Travis Kelces jersey sales increased almost 400% following that game), showed up at games with Swift-inspired signs and even tuned into New Heights, a football podcast with Travis Kelce and his brother, Jason Kelce. We also listened to sports people try to explain that, actually, Swift didnt put Kelce on the map, the athlete having amassed his own huge fanbase by being one of the best tight ends of all time .

As a self-proclaimed Swiftie , I was infatuated with watching the football season unfold like a real-life rom-com between Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince. I was tuning in for the 25 seconds of Swifts reactions that Id see during the three-hour games, infatuated with her outfits, expressions, cheers and friendships with other WAGs (which I now know means wives and girlfriends of players).

I cant pinpoint when it changed when I began tuning in as much for Swift as for the game itself. But I know this transformation didnt occur in a vacuum.

During the fall, my world was off balance. I was in the middle of moving and parenting two young children. Despite having had surgery 15 months ago for endometriosis , I was frequently debilitated because of my worsening symptoms. I was also feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of large-scale problems, especially climate change, abortion rights, gun reform and a huge increase in local crime that weighed down daily life. Because of extreme weather patterns that limited my kids ability to play outside, the fear I carried every morning when I dropped them off at preschool and the local anxiety of pumping gas or walking through the grocery store parking lot alone, life felt fragile.