Loving Him was Red

Happy Thursday SportsBallers,

Hope you’ve all been able to protect your peace this week, we sure haven’t. We did do a minor rebrand though including a chic new logo, as you’ll notice throughout the email and website. We’re also cooking up a new way for you all to help grow the newsletter by rewarding you with little treats, so look out next week for more details on that.

Now… WHAT A WEEK

The very essence of SportsBall — the mission, the vision, the concepts, the analogies — was at the forefront of the world on Sunday. 2 months ago if you were to ask us what the best thing that could happen to support our cause was, we might say “Hmm maybe Taylor Swift dating a superstar NFL player?” Well, look at us now. That’s not all though! To accompany the Taylor Swift news, we have:

• The Ryder Cup ⛳️ coming up this weekend along with an intro to golf — somehow comparing it to the Kardashians?

• The Super Bowl 🏈 halftime show performer announcement

• MLB ⚾️ playoff race update as the regular season comes to an end

• And much much more…

Also, check out our new Twitter (X) account to keep more up-to-date on the big stories in real time https://twitter.com/SportsBall_SB. Claire is mostly in charge of that since she’s the funnier one online.

🏆 Athlete of the Week: Swifties

No group has had a more impactful week on professional sports than the Swifties. From Reddit to Twitter to CNN to FOX, the headlines were dominated by the millions who dipped their toe into the NFL for the first time.

Whether it was psychoanalyzing Travis and his fit for Taylor, following her every move in and out of the stadium, or theorizing her true intentions of being at the game, everywhere you turned there was coverage from the Swifty camp. That type of dedication and preparedness is what sport is all about and we feel they are a well-deserving Athlete of the Week. Some examples below of the good work being done that earned this award:

• Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift Birth Chart and Planet Alignment Analysis Link

• A conspiracy about Taylor’s intentions to take down the Chiefs so the Eagles can win the Super Bowl Link

• The scramble of Swifties teaching others how football works as fast as possible Link

⏮ This Past Week

Great white buffalo

The fairytale story for the University of Colorado 🏈 football team has unfortunately come to an end. After the three straight wins to start the season and becoming unequivocally the biggest story in college sports in years, they walked into the University of Oregon’s stadium and got spanked 42-6. Do you think we jinxed it?

Silver lining: with all the trash talk and media Deion Sanders (Coach Prime) has flaunted up until this week, he was honorable in defeat, saying they simply got their butts kicked and even that they were outcoached.

Regardless of the outcome, the game was again the most-watched college football event of the year and we got to experience a once-in-a-decade media/sports run from Colorado.

A “where were you” kinda moment

Kansas City was the center of the entire universe on Sunday as her majesty Taylor Swift ⭐️ descended on Arrowhead Stadium to watch rumored arm candy Travis Kelce 🏈 play his game against the Bears. At this point you’ve seen this broken down a million ways so we’re just going to run through the timeline of events as it happened.

The lead-up
Speculation was mounting as the budding relationship between Travis and Taylor circulated the airwaves. No one knew if there was truth to the rumors but everyone had their eyes on the game to see if Taylor would arrive. Hope was beginning to fade as the kickoff neared but then…

Sunday: 1:25 PM
Adam Schefter, the premier NFL reporter tweeted “It’s on” accompanied by a picture of Taylor in the Kelce family skybox, rubbing elbows with Travis’ mom. At this point, word had spread like wildfire on Twitter and the game viewership became a crazy amalgamation of midwestern football diehards and the global Swifty community. Not two groups that commonly interact.

Sunday: 3:55 PM
As the Chiefs are just pounding the Bears, Travis catches a touchdown pass and the telecast immediately pans to Taylor screaming a seemingly explicit, joyous phrase in celebration.

Sunday: 5:01 PM
Fast forward to the end of the game; everyone’s happy the Chiefs won, fans are still in a frenzy, and we have MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes answering TSwift questions on midfield during his postgame interview.

Sunday: Around 5:30 PM
A football stadium is still a very public place and the whole crowd’s attention turned to finding Taylor. A crowd began to form around the skybox she and the Kelce family were in, waiting to catch a glimpse as she exited.

Alas, she never came out the door and one sharp fan noticed an oddly human-sized popcorn machine getting wheeled out. While unconfirmed, we are in the camp that believes Swift was getting smuggled out in the canister to avoid the crowd, not so different than her concert arrival strategies in the past.

Sunday: 5:45 PM
In the final installment of the saga, the two are seen leaving the stadium together, decidedly not holding hands. It was the last video that capped an unforgettable night in the NFL and likely one of the most watched regular season NFL games in recent history. Travis also went on his podcast to do a full breakdown here if you’re interested.

What this means for Taylor
Based on some research, Travis would be Taylor’s very first professional athlete boyfriend (if they were to take the leap of romance). Travis is an extremely accomplished sportsman, he’s hosted a dating show as well as SNL, runs a podcast, and commonly finds himself in the public eye. Needless to say, it would be a good fit and maybe she’ll snag some free tickets to upcoming games — fingers crossed!

What this means for Travis
It’s safe to say there was a lopsided clout adjustment from the situation, skewing heavily toward Travis. Sure, it’s hard to imagine the intensity of being associated with Taylor and the accompanying mega-squad, but there are plenty of green lights! To name a few:

1. He gained 300,000+ social media followers immediately after the game

2. There was a 400% increase in his merchandise sales

3. His jersey shot into the top 5 in sales in the whole league

SportsBall Homework
Tell a football enjoyer in your life “I think it’s cool that Taylor put this guy Travis Kelce on the map!”. We think they’ll like that.

We’ll of course have continued coverage of the situation as this is literally the exact sports // pop culture crossover this newsletter was created to break down.

Yeah! Yeah!

It was announced that Usher ⭐️ will be performing the Super Bowl 🏈 halftime show this season in February, following a fantastic performance from Rihanna ⭐️ last year. Something you may not know about the halftime show is that none of the artists actually get paid for it… That’s right, the NFL will cover their expenses but there’s no big payday for the event, The Weeknd reportedly even spent $7M of his own money to put on the show in 2021. What’s the allure to even perform then? Let’s take Rihanna as an example:

• Two weeks ago we talked about how many people in the US watch the Super Bowl, a staggering 110 million or around a third of the country.

• With all those eyeballs, Rihanna made business decisions in other areas to capture the attention.

  • Her Savage x Fenty lingerie brand dropped a 17-piece Super Bowl line that earned her $5.6M in the first 12 hours.

  • She partnered with Mitchell and Ness (jersey brand) to sell tons of Rihanna NFL jerseys

  • She reportedly partnered with AppleTV to do an unreleased documentary walking through her return to the stage while keeping her pregnancy a secret.

Artists can get creative with how they approach monetizing the halftime show and regardless of the payday, every singer is chomping at the bit to get 100 million people watching them at one time for exposure if nothing else.

Coming down to the wire

Lots of movement in the MLB ⚾️ playoff race last week. The AL West division has been the most dramatic and all three teams in contention, the Rangers, Astros, and Mariners have shifted positions since last Thursday. The Rangers have taken control of the division with both the Astros and Mariners faltering down the stretch.

The story in the other conference (the National League) is the Miami Marlins entering the chat, trying to take the third wild card spot from the Cubs. Those two teams are now tied and they both control their own fate with their remaining games.

If you are looking for a refresher on how a team makes the playoffs, we broke it down with some infographics last week. Find that here.

By the time we talk next week, the full 162-game season will be over and we will have the playoff picture fully mapped out for you.

⏭ This Next Week

In golf ⛳️, one of the most fun and unique tournaments of the year is the Ryder Cup. Many golf tournaments can be stodgy, stuffy, and some would say a bit boring to watch. Not the case here! The Ryder Cup is a battle between two teams, the Europeans and the Americans. Each team has a captain and is made up of 12 players: 6 that are the top rated, and 6 that are picked by the captain just based on vibes, like middle school P.E. You pick the athletes, and you pick your buddies.

Naturally, you end up with a fun group of guys playing for the title. They have mini-games throughout the weekend, pairing up across the Atlantic to go head-to-head and duking it out from Friday to Sunday. We’re pretty certain the American team doesn’t qualify as federal employees so the tournament should be safe from a government shutdown, thank goodness.

All weekend you’ll hear chants of “USA” through Rome and hopefully gain a renewed sense of sports nationalism that rivals that Olympics feel. If you’re interested here’s a hype video from the American side and if you’re reaaalllly interested here are the rules for the weekend.

We’re getting word that TSwift will be at the next Chiefs game again, which automatically qualifies it as a game of the week. Check these other NFL 🏈 games out as well as they’re poised to be great matchups.

Kansas City Chiefs vs. New York Jets: Sunday 5:20 PM PST
According to Front Office Sports, Taylor Swift is expected to show up for her second straight Chiefs game this weekend. This is also the Sunday Night game (think Carrie Underwood from last week) which traditionally is the most watched game every week. We’ll wait and see how many people tune in this time — prepare for record breaking numbers!

Miami Dolphins vs. Buffalo Bills: Sunday 10 AM PST
These teams are both considered to be top in the league, with the Dolphins even scoring a historic 70 points last game. Should be a great battle.

Baltimore Ravens vs. Cleveland Browns: Sunday 10 AM PST
Both of these teams are 2-1 to start the year and this game is slated to be the most evenly matched game of the week. The winner here will take the lead in the division (we explained divisions last week).

For college football 🏈 here are the big games to note this Saturday. Again, we made sure to include Colorado as they face off against another tough opponent in USC. If they lose big again, we may begin to see the hype cycle wear off a bit.

• No. 8 USC at Colorado | 9 AM PST (wake up call!)

• No. 3 Texas vs. No. 24 Kansas | 12:30 PM PST

• No. 11 Notre Dame at No. 17 Duke | 4:30 PM PST

• No. 13 LSU at No. 20 Ole Miss | 3 PM PST

💡 Learning Module

The Ryder Cup ⛳️ starts tomorrow so what better time to explain the rules of golf and the four major tournaments. To make it more digestible, we’ll be comparing each of the big golf tournaments to one of the Kardashians.

The simple rules of the game are as follows

The golf world revolves around the four major tournaments in the spring and summer - think of them like the playoffs of golf. While there are events happening almost every week, the majors are the big kahunas. Winning one of these is every pro golfer's dream. The four majors are The Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open, and the PGA Championship. And here’s what those tournaments would be if they were part of the Kardashian family.

🧭 Season Tracker

Time marches on as we approach the sports solstice in 4 weeks. Only 1 more week until the NHL season starts (our favorite) and we will be doing an NHL summer recap + season preview to prep you all! Until then, enjoy the MLB regular season coming down to the wire.

Thank you all for reading if you’ve gotten this far, we sincerely appreciate it. Feel free to send this around to anyone you think could use it!

Have a great weekend,

Riley and Claire