Why There Will Never Be a Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce Phenomenon in Baseball

For weeks, now, the world has been fascinated by Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. It has become one of the most potent cultural phenomena of the 21st century, equal parts joyous crossover craze and utterly insane political firestorm. It's captured attention in a way baseball hasn't done in at least 20 years, and many people who care deeply about baseball have paused to reflect on why our better, more beautiful game can't emulate this alchemy.

I know why, and I promise to tell you the reason a paragraph or two from now. First, though, it's vital that I tell you what it isn't. Many theories have been advanced, and we need to swat them all away. So: No, the reason why baseball can't have a Moment like this is not that it lacks a showcase event as popular as the Super Bowl, and no, it's not because the league is just plain less popular than the NFL. No, it's not because Rob Manfred and the league's central office do an insufficient job of marketing the game's stars, or because individuals can have a bigger impact on team success in the NFL (and therefore become bigger stars on sheer merit) than in MLB.

No, it's not because the baseball season is long, which makes it an unpleasant grind for wives and girlfriends of players to show up to every game, and no, it's not because football games are all televised almost nationally, on free, over-the-air TV, whereas baseball is sparingly broadcast on such a wide platform. It's not because it's incrementally harder for fans to find the game or because Swifties would be less willing to sit through something like six times as many contests to catch glimpses of their idol and share vicariously in her beau's victories and defeats. No, finally, it is not because Kelce moonlights as a podcaster on YouTube, or because of the charisma he and his brother Jason bring to the equation.

In fact, that's the perfect place to pivot to what really explains baseball's inability to capture lightning in a bottle this way, because it's important to note that the Kelce brothers seem like genuinely good, reasonably compelling people, so I don't want this to sound rude. I want to make clear that they both seem to be as worthy of praise and fandom as your average star in either the NFL or MLB, and probably even a bit more so.

Here's the thing: that doesn't matter. Nothing about either Kelce, or about the NFL, or about Patrick Mahomes or about Manfred or about ESPN or NBC or FOX News, matters in this equation at all. In the kindest possible way, let me say this plainly: Travis Kelce brings nothing to the table here. 

Taylor Swift is as famous, right now, as any human being has been since the year 2000. The only people in human history who have rivaled her level of global fame at this very moment are Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, and Michael Jordan, and all of those entities existed in the sweet spot for this particular thing: the period after the invention of TV and the proliferation of air travel, in the middle of the 20th century, but before the internet permanently sent our interests and loyalties splintering into increasingly disparate channels at the turn of the 21st. What Swift is achieving right now is a miracle, in defiance of the turning gears of the world. She's turned back time.

If this doesn't seem self-evident, now that I've laid it out this way, consider the widely noted ratings spike for the Grammys in Kansas City earlier this month. Kelce was not at the Grammys. Everyone knew he wasn't going to be there. It was announced in advance. He was not important to that night at all; Chiefs fans still tuned in at a hugely increased rate. Taylor Swift is making new football fans by showing up to football games. She's also drawing in new gawkers for her own pursuits, but whereas lots of the new people tuning in to watch football are doing so to see Swift, the new people listening to Swift's music and attuning to her solo public appearances aren't doing so to see Kelce, at all.

Their relationship might be extremely healthy, or not. We have no way of knowing that. What I do know is that, when it comes to the flow of cultural influence and power, the NFL is irrelevant here. So is Kelce. Why can't MLB have a Taylor Swift-type phenomenon? Because Taylor Swift is the only important variable in the equation, and she's taken, for the moment.

I'm not taking a position on that, by the way. I'm always a bit skeptical of massive fame and a bit disinterested in feeding it, but Swift is a brilliant artist, and much of her success is well-earned. There are layers of privilege involved here, and they ought to be explored and thought through carefully, but they don't bear upon the question of why baseball hasn't caught lightning in a bottle this way. It absolutely could have. In an alternate universe, noted Swiftie Anthony Rizzo could have ended up traveling this same path, and if he had, Yankees games would have become worldwide foci of attention this past season.

This cultural crossover is really just a cultural takeover. For many, it's impossible to conceive of an interaction in which the NFL and one of its brightest stars is unimportant, so I've heard almost no one put it this way, but it's the truth. Neither baseball nor anyone within it could do anything for the cultural impact of Taylor Swift, but neither did Travis Kelce. The secret to achieving this kind of surge in popularity is to latch onto the most famous person alive right when they reach that apotheosis and hold on tightly.