Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce bring their adorableness to 'New Heights' podcast
Travis Kelce, right, and Taylor Swift after the AFC Championship game in Kansas City, Mo., on Jan. 26, 2025. Credit: AP/Charlie Riedel
Is it too soon to assess the historical implications of this week’s “New Heights” podcast featuring special guest Taylor Swift?
After all, the Earth is going to need time to adjust to its new rotational axis in the wake of the two hours of adorableness that Swift and her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, gifted to humanity.
The answer is no, it is not too soon.
We already can say that in the century and a half of frenzies around romantic couplings between athletes and entertainers, nothing can match this level of bananas.
Most of that is thanks to Swift, who in her world is far bigger than Kelce is in his. But it also is a sign of the times.
Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe were as big as it got for their era, but 1950s America did not offer the kind of platform Swift and her special tight end friend have now.
The show featuring the very famous singer premiered Wednesday night, and by noon Thursday, the video version had surpassed 10 million views.
Even if there were podcasts in the 1950s, it is difficult to imagine DiMaggio having as much fun as Kelce did while simultaneously cuddling with Swift as if they were lovestruck teenagers and kibitzing with his big brother, Jason.
The whole thing was surreal, given how rarely fans have seen Swift in a forum so casual, and that none of us had witnessed her interacting with Kelce the way we see her do on the pod.
The entertainment news out of the show was Swift announcing her new album, due out on Oct. 3. But for sports fans, the takeaway was how seriously Swift has taken to football.
On their first date, Swift thought the Kelce brothers faced one another on the field in Super Bowl LVII, not realizing that a tight end and a center would never do that.
Now?
“I fell in love with it; I became obsessed with it,” she said. “I became like a person who was running through the halls of my house [in 2024] screaming, ‘We drafted Xavier Worthy!’ My friends are like, ‘Who body-snatched you? What do you mean, ‘We drafted Xavier Worthy?’
“I was screeching. I couldn’t believe it. Freaking out.”
She said she has gone from knowing next to nothing about the game to “we’re talking about cover-2, cover-4, cover-zero, man coverage. We’re learning. I continue to learn. I’m not ready to be an analyst right now. but give me 16 months.”
This crossover cultural appeal is good for Swift’s brand — not that she needs the help — and even better for the NFL and its television partners, who for the past two seasons have milked Swift’s attendance at Kansas City games for all they are worth.
None of this is new, of course. Consider the Giants’ current starting quarterback, Russell Wilson, whose wife, Ciara, is a prominent entertainer who has visited Giants camp this summer.
You know many of the others, past and present. Victoria and David Beckham. Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade. Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez. Angie Harmon and Jason Sehorn. It is a long list.
What you might not know about is arguably the original celebrity-athlete sensation, the Swift-Kelce romance of its day.
That would be the 1887 marriage of actress Helen Dauvray to New York Giants shortstop and future Baseball Hall of Famer John Montgomery Ward.
Like Kelce, Ward was less famous than his partner, but he had quite a career, too.
He pitched a perfect game for the Providence Grays in 1880 before switching full-time to being a position player, graduated from Columbia Law School and became a leader of an early players’ labor movement.
On Oct. 12, 1887, The New York Times reported that Dauvray and Ward were to be wed and cheekily referred to the romance like this:
“All through the earlier part of the Summer she was a regular attendant at the Polo Grounds, and always aggressively and enthusiastically championed the home team. Her tiny hands beat each other rapturously at every victory of the Giants and her dark eyes were bedewed at every defeat. But the thousands of spectators who observed Miss Dauvray’s emotions little suspected that one of the Giants had any precedence over the others so far as her affections were concerned.”
It was the 19th-century equivalent of a cutaway to Swift celebrating in a suite at Arrowhead Stadium, but everyone knew which Kansas City player took precedence for her.
Alas, Dauvray and Ward did not live happily ever after. They were divorced in 1893 after several years of discord.
Let’s hope things work out better for Swift and Kelce, who do seem enchanted with one another. The world might not be able to handle the alternative.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
