Taylor Swift is an economic powerhouse. Just ask the Federal Reserve. Now, Swift has even eclipsed the NFL’s own efforts to become even more popular. Swift’s blockbuster Eras Tour injected billions into the US economy, and so will her movie. Insider Today
When Congress and the NFL are name-checking you for cultural cache, it’s fair to say you might be one of the most influential people to the American economy.
That’s the case for Taylor Swift, the inescapable singer-songwriter-director-writer — and now NFL influencer — who’s showing up everywhere from Federal Reserve research to football ticket sales. For those who haven’t been paying attention, Swift has become more than a megastar this summer. She’s an economic powerhouse.
A quick recap: The demand for Swift’s Eras Tour was so momentous that it literally broke Ticketmaster’s website, prompting a Congressional hearing into its dominance of the ticketing industry. It turns out that trying to get Swift tickets is a bipartisan issue.
“You have brought together Republicans and Democrats in an absolutely unified cause,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, told Live Nation president and CFO Joe Berchtold.
Even as consumers feel dreary about the economy, wage growth cools, and prices stay high, there are a few things that Americans are willing to spend big on. One of them is Swift. Her resale tickets were going for an average of $3,801 a pop. Another is Beyonce, whose Renaissance tour has yielded its own micro-economy everywhere she goes.
Swift has had a remarkable domestic impact; her blockbuster Eras Tour might yield up to $4.6 billion in consumer spending in the US alone, according to data from research company QuestionPro provided to Fortune. And CNN reports that the tour itself will gross $2.2 billion.
Swifties previously told Insider that they were spending upwards of $20,000 to attend the Eras Tour this past summer. Some were making “Swiftcations” out of the experience, extending their stays in areas she was playing — and infusing local economies with much-needed tourism dollars. Glendale, Arizona — the first stop on the Eras Tour — went as far as renaming itself “Swift City” when the artist came to town.
Swift’s impact on local economies even led to a shoutout from the Federal Reserve, who said the Eras Tour helped boost hotel revenue in Philadelphia when she came through town.
“May was the strongest month for hotel revenue in Philadelphia since the onset of the pandemic, in large part due to an influx of guests for the Taylor Swift concerts in the city,” the Philadelphia Federal Reserve said in their July Beige Book.
Swift is also boosting another struggling industry — Hollywood — with the upcoming release of her Eras Tour movie poised to make a $100 million box-office splash.
The NFL (Taylor’s Version)
Now Swift is eclipsing an American economic powerhouse: The NFL.
Football has long been the top sport in the US, with the NFL dominating an entire day of the week for many Americans. But Swift managed to do the impossible: Make the NFL even more popular in the US.
Her appearance Sunday at the Kansas City Chiefs-Chicago Bears game took the internet by storm. Everything from her game meal — chicken fingers with assorted condiments — to her celebrations to her post-game date night spot with Chiefs’ tight end Travis Kelce was analyzed.
More importantly, people were watching. Despite Kansas City winning in a 41-10 rout, the game had the largest viewership of the NFL’s Week 3 slate, drawing 24.3 million average viewers, according to Front Office Sports. And while that lagged behind the top-performing late-afternoon game from Week 3 last year, Fox, which aired the game, reportedly saw an 8.1% increase in female viewers in the 12-17 year-old demo.
The Swift bump didn’t stop there. The Chiefs windbreaker Swift wore to cheer on Kelce was sold out at the Kansas City Chiefs Pro Shop by the morning after the game, according to a worker at the store. (Apologies, Swifties, but the store won’t be able to get anymore in, the worker told Insider.) The windbreaker was also sold out online.
Even Kelce, considered one of the best tight ends in the history of the NFL and a one-time host of Saturday Night Live, has seen his popularity rise. His merchandise sales reportedly skyrocketed nearly 400% just days after the game. And the financial windfall for him doesn’t seem likely to end anytime soon.
Swift’s encore is arguably even bigger — and in primetime. The New York Post reported the singer is planning to attend the Chiefs game against the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Sunday night, which will be broadcast nationally on NBC.
The game, which was largely written off after New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers suffered a season-ending injury, has been given new life. Lower-priced tickets for the game, whose price tags had been trending downwards, recently spiked roughly 20%, one New York-based ticket broker told Insider.
And while Swift is letting the players play, she seems to be shaking off the mega-publicity she’s generating.
Instead, you might find her cleaning up the box from which she raucously celebrated the Chiefs — or driving off in her getaway car with Kelce.
Source: I N S I D E R
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