Welcome to the Super Bowl (Taylor Swift’s Version)

Welcome to the Super Bowl (Taylor’s Version).

The above sentence might have bothered you to extreme anger and shouting and pouting because:

A: You are tired of Taylor Swift infiltrating NFL content. I Knew You Were Trouble

B: You are tired of the people tired of Taylor Swift infiltrating NFL content because, first off, she’s Taylor Swift and second, all she’s doing is watching her boyfriend (Travis Kelce, who was famous before her, no matter what TikTok claims) and third, what about when they showed Eminem during the Detroit games? Look What You Made Me Do

C: You are tired of the people who are tired of the people who are tired of Taylor Swift because those people won't admit that this isn’t at least a little bit annoying and over the top. Besides, they are crying sexism over something that just isn’t that serious. The Man

D: You are tired of the people who are tired of the people who are tired of the people who are tired of Taylor Swift because they extend credibility to the people who are just “Dads, Brads and Chads” who won’t acknowledge that two weeks of “Is Brock Purdy elite?” or “Can Patrick Mahomes seize GOAT status from Tom Brady” talk isn’t also annoying and over the top. Bad Blood

[Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Baseball league for the 2024 MLB season]

Besides, at least some of those people are, indeed, sexist and spend half the game complaining that they preferred the NFL when it involved more CTE. Karma

Or, you could be in Group E — like me — and you're just exhausted of the entire hate, hate, hate thing and can’t Shake It Off, and you don’t have an opinion one way or the other on Kansas City or San Francisco, let alone more Taylor or no Taylor? Blank Space

That apparently includes Taylor Swift herself, who during Sunday’s AFC championship game seemingly saw herself on the broadcast via a luxury box television and mouthed, “Go away, please.”

Spoiler: They aren’t going away.

This is one of America’s truly great “controversies” because the stakes are so low — innocent people are not dying one way or the other. Champagne Problems

And sure, you could argue that a two-second cut away to cheering fans should go to the cheering fans who, if you asked what they were doing on April 29, would've answered, “being a Chiefs fan,” rather than one half of the New Romantics.

That said, if this is the worst indignity to happen to you today, then you are living in a Wonderland. This feels like a proxy war between America’s perpetually offended on every side of every issue who will stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together

Back to December, when Kansas City fell to 9-6, it looked like this season wouldn’t pan out All Too Well for Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince. Then the Chiefs got hot, and now Kelce is headed to another Super Bowl, only this time with his new(ish) girlfriend as cheer captain up in the bleachers.

Even bigger! Taylor has a concert next Saturday in Tokyo, so the question of whether her jet will make it to Las Vegas by Sunday afternoon will become its own massive story — who is ready for the “Taylor Tracker?” You Need To Calm Down

Look, if anyone is to blame here, it's television producers who record every Taylor reaction. Sometimes it’s magical — Taylor looking through that frosted window in Kansas City. Snow on the Beach

Sometimes it’s something out of the Look-At-Me Hall of Fame — Taylor wildly hugging a fuzzy-bucket-hat-clad Brittany Mahomes with a shirtless Jason Kelce in the background. Is It Over Now?

We know, we know — even Taylor seems to know — that she’s incredibly famous and popular. Mine

That said, it’s not like she is the first famous and popular wife or girlfriend to show up at an NFL game.

Gisele Bündchen was Tom Brady’s girlfriend and then wife for much of his career, and her presence at games was only occasionally acknowledged, other than the time someone quoted her from the privacy of an elevator — “My husband cannot [expletive] throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time.” You’re On Your Own, Kid

(FWIW, Lamar Jackson proved that inaccurate on Sunday.)

Then again, have you seen the ratings? The AFC championship game featuring the Chiefs delivered more than 55 million viewers, up 16% from the comparable championship weekend time slot one year ago. Some of that is the Swiftie effect. And considering the state of the media and broadcast business — Castles Crumbling — you can’t blame the networks for trying to get Out of the Woods.

Swift isn’t doing anything wrong here. Innocent

Due to her fame — which her talent, hard work and business acumen created — she doesn’t have a “normal” life, so why shouldn’t she at least try it here? Have some fun.

About the only risk is Taylor suffering from some limited, short-term backlash for being overexposed and aligned with the attention-seeking crew of Brittany Mahomes, Jackson Mahomes and the Kelce clan. I Bet You Think About Me

Limited and short-term being the operative words. She’s the immensely talented cultural icon and billionaire-to-be businesswoman with back-to-back-to-back-to-back sold-out shows in Tokyo, after all. Not even the NFL could pull that off. Someone somewhere screaming at their television isn’t much of a concern.

If nothing else, all of this might be the impetus for a good song inspired by the 2023 Chiefs season. The Last Great American Dynasty

Maybe Swift will play it at halftime of next year’s Super Bowl. Or maybe they’ll stage the Super Bowl in the middle of one of her concerts.

Epiphany