It’s not every day that a brand welcomes millions of new fans into its orbit literally in a matter of minutes, many of whom know little about the product—yet are eager to learn, driven by a passion and a community that’s famously second to none.

That’s where the NFL found itself on Sunday, when Taylor Swift made a surprise appearance at a Kansas City Chiefs game—cheering on her rumored new boyfriend Travis Kelce, the team’s star tight end, from his luxury suite at Arrowhead Stadium and drawing immediate interest from “Swifties,” as the pop star’s fans are known.

The meeting of these megabrands, the NFL and Swift, was a pop-culture spectacle—or more accurately, a clash of rather separate pop cultures. Swifties, after all, aren’t generally known for their sports fandom. (Swift has long preferred dating singers and actors to athletes, according to the countless fan posts and gossip stories about her love life.) Yet their eagerness to tune in and learn about the game led to a flood of entertaining memes on Sunday—and was a clear and immediate marketing opportunity for the NFL, too.

Also read: Brands are playing into the Swift-Kelce relationship

The organic social content alone was gold. Many Swifties seemed to genuinely want to know how, exactly, football is played. Others comically “triggered” their boyfriends in videos where they questioned Kelce’s level of fame versus Swift’s. Still others focused on Swift’s dietary choices at the stadium—chicken tenders with ketchup and what one Swift fan account dubbed “seemingly ranch.” (Arby’s and Heinz, among others, would weigh in on this one.)

When they weren’t sharing memes, the Swifties were waiting for more shots of the Kelce suite, where the pop star was the perfect unofficial NFL ambassador—amped for the game, at times screaming with excitement, as she watched with Kelce’s mother, Donna.

This avalanche of social activity was just one example of the Swiftie effect. It soon showed up in other key NFL data as well—from broadcast viewership (the game would draw 24.3 million viewers, the most of any telecast on any network last week, with a particular spike in female viewership, according to Fox Sports) to merchandise (sales of Kelce jerseys have spiked 400%, per ESPN).

For the NFL’s marketing team, it was a rare chance to welcome new fans into the fold at scale. So, on Sunday afternoon, and in the days since, they embraced a few different content strategies to connect with these fans, many of whom are young women—part of the Gen Z demographic the NFL has courted for a while. 

Also read: A guide to Gen Z marketing

First of all, they set out simply to have fun—to celebrate and amplify the specialness of the moment in real time. They leaned into the strengths of each social platform, looking to grow the footprint of each. They did some light education for those unfamiliar with the sport. And they aimed to do it all with a light touch—taking care not to overcommercialize a moment that was organic, not any kind of marketing campaign.

The ultimate goal—to win over the Swifties by showing them the excitement of the product, and move at least some of them, over time, from awareness to conversion within the marketing funnel.

Taylor is in the building

Sunday had already been a hectic day for the NFL, long before anyone laced up their cleats. At 9:45 a.m. ET, the league announced, with Apple Music and Roc Nation, that Usher would be headlining the Super Bowl halftime show in February—an announcement that required all hands on deck from the social and content teams.

But their day was about to get a whole lot busier.

“There had been rumors and discussion, from Travis and in the media, about the potential of Taylor showing up at a game, so we were keeping an eye on the situation,” Ian Trombetta, the NFL’s senior VP of social, influencer and content marketing, told Ad Age. “Then we got word, literally the day of, that she was going to be in the [Kelce] suite.” 

For a social team accustomed to reacting in minutes to developments on and off the field, Swift’s arrival at Arrowhead didn’t change the protocol much. But her celebrity would take things to a new level, especially once they learned where she would be sitting.

“We weren’t really sure exactly how visible she would be,” Trombetta said. “We were pleasantly surprised when she was in the suite with Donna, and it kind of unleashed the internet at that point. It was not manufactured by us at all, but we certainly wanted to capture the moment.” 

They would do so across all social platforms, but particularly TikTok, where Swifties tend to hang out (and where the league has almost 12 million followers). The NFL was active on the platform throughout the day, pulling clips from the Fox broadcast, adding commentary in text and captions, and repurposing content from other creators.

“Taylor Swift is in the building with Momma Kelce!!!!!!” said the first TikTok post, minutes after Fox aired its first shot of the singer in the suite. The caption added that Swift was now “IN HER FOOTBALL ERA,” a reference to the singer’s world-conquering “Eras Tour.”

The league would post a dozen more Swift clips on TikTok, three of which would pass 10 million views—when she reacted with an F-bomb after Kelce scored a touchdown; when Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes gave Swifties a shout-out in a postgame interview; and when Kelce and Swift walked out of the stadium together after the game, their first public moment as a couple (in a video shot, as it happens, by Jarrett Payton, the son of NFL Hall of Famer Walter Payton).

The video of the couple leaving the stadium had 18.3 million views as of this writing. By comparison, NFL TikTok posts (including most non-Swift videos on Sunday) tend to get less than 1 million views each—it’s rare for one to top 5 million.

Also read: The NFL tries to grow its international audience

Engaging other creators throughout the game was key, and is something the NFL always tries to do in social, Trombetta said. “Where we can, we’re elevating creators who are posting interesting things, whether they be famous influencers or up-and-coming creators,” he said. “Especially with more casual fans like these, we’re seeing tremendous engagement [on TikTok].”

Commemorating the day, the league even changed the bio line on its TikTok to read: “9/24/23. Taylor was here.”

The league was active on other platforms, too, including YouTube, YouTube Shorts, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter), posting photos and videos throughout the day and into the evening. The programming strategy wasn’t fundamentally different than what the NFL does at every game—except supercharged, with an unusual number of first-time fans following the conversation.

“We do things with celebrities and musicians and influencers and creators at games every single week,” Trombetta said. “The difference was just the level of fame and this incredible popularity that Taylor has right now. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen in the last 20 years, to be honest. We’re just riding the wave and having as much fun as we can.”

Of the overall social strategy, he added: “We really are aiming to reach younger audiences and reach them on their terms. And we can feed [the content] to them on the platforms they enjoy the most.” 

Courting the young female fan

For the NFL, Swift’s sudden interest in football couldn’t have come at a better time. The league has spent considerable effort in the past few years trying to get more young people—particularly young women—not just to watch the game but to play it as well.

This was evident in the NFL’s Super Bowl ad this past February (see below), which starred Diana Flores, quarterback of the Mexico women’s national flag football team—a clear signal of the commitment to recruit more female fans. Having the sudden attention of many more young women—the Chiefs game drew more females 12-17, 18-34 and 18-49 than any other telecast last week, per Fox Sports—is giving the league a whole new window to speak to more of that demographic.

“We do want to expose the game to as many people as possible, especially young fans and young female fans,” said Trombetta. “It’s a big strategy for us, whether it’s consuming the game content, or the lifestyle content around the game, or actually playing the game—all the efforts we’re putting in globally behind flag football, both for men and women, it’s been a big effort and you’ll be seeing even more from us going forward.”

Sunday alone was a big win just in terms of growing the NFL’s social footprint with this audience. The league told Ad Age it was a record week for NFL content consumption on social, including videos from NFL platforms, broadcast partner platforms (Fox, CBS) and user-generated content. Also, the Kansas City Chiefs boosted their social follower count by more than 200,000—and Kelce grew his by more than 400,000.

For the NFL, the goal moving forward is to continue the conversation with the Swifties in a way that feels authentic—without it coming off as heavy-handed or calculated.

The league posted more Swift content on Monday and Tuesday. During “Monday Night Football,” for example, a strong performance by Eagles running back D’Andre Swift—no relation—led to more jokes and memes. Also on Monday, the NFL posted its own “Football 101” video, with a woman explaining the game on a whiteboard. (The league has actually been posting #Football101 videos on TikTok for some time, knowing the audience there may not know the game very well.)

There will surely be more Swift content on the way, too, as the league hopes to move at least some Swifties from being exposed to the league for the first time to being everyday fans.

“For the most part, we see it as a good way to bring fans in and engage with them and have some fun,” said Trombetta. “Then hopefully they get more interested in some of the other content, and some other things we can offer from different players. They may find a Patrick Mahomes interesting, or a Jalen Hurts, whoever it may be. And then we ultimately move them down the funnel.” 

The league is being careful to tread lightly, however—wary of commercializing an authentic moment, or being seen as monetizing Kelce and Swift’s personal relationship.

“It’s about, how do we make sure we’re not getting into a situation where we’re overmanufacturing something that we really didn’t have anything to do with,” Trombetta said. “We’ve been very fortunate in terms of how things have unfolded. We want to be respectful to Travis, and to Taylor as well, and not get in a situation where we’re overcommoditizing or overmonetizing. It’s a relationship, and we’ll see where that goes.” 

‘You literally can’t make this stuff up’

For the NFL, the whole Swift episode has been the result of fortune and circumstance—yet it’s also, in some ways, a natural development for a brand that leans into pop culture.

The league’s own kickoff campaign this year imagined fun story lines for the season—outlandish scenarios that would get people talking. Three weeks later, they have a pop-culture phenomenon on their hands that’s exactly in line with the brand promise offered at the beginning of the season—something they couldn’t have scripted.

The best way to treat it, as with any authentic moment in culture, is to amplify it while also letting the fans really own it themselves, Trombetta said.

“There have been moments in this whole thing, whether it’s text messages, or Slack, or emails back and forth, where we’ve said to each other, ‘You literally can’t make this stuff up,’” he said. “We’re three weeks into the season and we’ve already had some really big culture moments. ‘Monday Night Football’ with the Jets and the Bills on 9/11—that was a really galvanizing moment. You look at what Deion Sanders has been doing in Colorado—that’s not the NFL, but he’s connected to the NFL. And now a moment like this—it’s just been a great start to the season. Some of the things that have happened, positive and also negative in some cases, it’s what makes the NFL so great.” 

In a world where social media is often vilified, Trombetta added, it’s days like Sunday that remind you of all the positives that online connection can bring.

“I think this is the best part of what’s happening with culture and the internet,” he said. “It’s very positive, it’s celebratory. It’s very creative and fun. It’s a great place for us to play, and you really can’t script it.”