If Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker set out to offend as many people as possible with his recent commencement speech, he succeeded wildly. During the 20-minute speech at Benedictine College on May 11, he railed against reproductive rights, DEI, women in the workplace, the LGBTQ community, COVID protocols, the current president, and as if all that weren’t enough—he referred to Taylor Swift as “my teammate’s girlfriend,” before quoting her.
The speech, which was condemned widely and vehemently on social media and beyond, would have been a nuisance for the NFL at any time; however, it arrived at an especially precarious moment. Swift’s romantic relationship with Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce significantly boosted the league’s popularity among her young, progressive, overwhelmingly female fan base last season. Now, like a late-game turnover, Butker’s speech threatens to take it all away.
Speaking directly to the women in attendance, the Chiefs kicker claimed that his wife’s life had only “truly started” when “she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.” He went on to describe her joy at having embraced “one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.” (Never mind that Butker’s own mother happens to be a physicist.)
His words suggest a desperate wish to turn back the clock, from a boomer trapped in the body of a 28-year old kicker with 94% field goal accuracy. The fact that they came so soon after this past season, when the entire league was held in thrall to a galactically successful, unmarried, childless woman in her mid-thirties, does not seem like a coincidence.
The NFL admitted in a statement to the New York Post last October that it was “leaning into” the relationship between Swift and Butker’s teammate. Not that an admission was even needed. The league had just changed its bio on X to read “NFL (Taylor’s version),” and started a season-long practice of regularly cutting to reaction shots from Swift, who attended most games.
Leaning in ended up paying off. This year’s Super Bowl, which the Chiefs won, ended up being the most-watched telecast of all time, reaching 123.7 million viewers. Shortly afterward, the NFL announced an unprecedented $30 million increase to the league’s salary cap, partially citing “an extraordinary increase in media revenue for the 2024 season.” Reading between the lines, it seems like a tacit acknowledgement of Swift’s direct impact—which likely also played a role in the deal Netflix struck this week to broadcast Christmas Day NFL games. (The Chiefs happen to be set for another Yuletide game this year.)
Between print, digital, radio, TV, highlights, and social media mentions, Taylor Swift generated an equivalent brand value of $331.5 million for the Kansas City Chiefs and the NFL, according to a marketing report commissioned by Front Office Sports. After the pop superstar began appearing at games early last season, NFL viewership rose 7% overall—to its highest level in nearly a decade—with female viewership rising by 9%—to its highest level since the league began tracking that data in the year 2000.
The steep increase in female interest in the NFL translated to a corresponding uptick in merch demand. Sales of Kelce’s jersey soared, increasing by 400% after Swift’s first game appearance, with Chiefs gear ultimately rising 20% in sales throughout the season, according to apparel outlet Fanatics, which factors in its own sales, along with the NFL Shop and other stores. Meanwhile, unofficial “Traylor” merch festooned with slogans like “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs,” appeared to do brisk business on Etsy.
All of the ecstatic reaction shots and wardrobe interest added up to 64% of Gen Z and millennial women holding a favorable view of the NFL, an all-time high in Morning Consult tracking among that demographic. This unprecedented goodwill is now important to the league, not just in terms of newfound positive feelings, but in the absence of negative ones. As Fast Company’s Rob Walker noted last fall, while so many onlookers were talking about Taylor Swift, what they weren’t talking about is CTE, concussions, and its players committing violence against women.
Now, the conversation around Butker’s speech is poised to fill that void with fresh negativity.
The league has endured its fair share of outspoken players before, most recently conspiracy monger Aaron Rodgers, but Butker is a different case. His speech was an expansive shotgun-blast of anachronistic invective, and at its center was a load of patriarchal prescriptive advice aimed directly at half of the world’s population. The fact that a marginally high-profile public figure thought it an appropriate message for the occasion is a terrifying thought to many.
Perhaps more terrifying for the NFL, though, is the idea that it could now squander its recent high favorability.
On Wednesday, May 15, the league officially distanced itself from Butker’s speech, telling People that the Chiefs kicker spoke in his own “personal capacity,” and that “his views are not those of the NFL as an organization. The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger.”
The message seems designed, first and foremost, to snuff out any questioning of the NFL’s fairly recent embrace of the LGBTQ community—something Butker’s speech may have been partly in reaction to. (As the Athletic points out, the Chiefs are among the NFL teams that have a Pride-themed selection of apparel in rainbow colors.) But while the statement could serve as an effective cover-your-ass measure for the league on intolerance, what is the NFL to do about a legion of young women who resent being told by one of its players to stay in the kitchen?
A Change.org petition for the NFL to fire Butker has already gained over 175,000 signatures in the past few days. So far, the Chiefs organization has been silent. (Including Travis Kelce, and Taylor Swift for that matter.) Still, getting rid of the Chiefs kicker would not necessarily solve the league’s problems, though. It would make Butker a martyr to cancel culture, paint an enormous target over the NFL logo for the anti-woke contingent, and animate Butker’s defenders. Not everyone hated the speech, after all. One female student in attendance described on TikTok how well it went over with the Catholic, conservative men all around her, who gave Butker a standing ovation that drowned out her own booing.
The speech was also beloved by the Barstool Sports crowd and some Republican politicians. (Sales of the Chiefs kicker’s jersey have increased throughout the week.) The Chiefs’ own tackle, Chris Jones, and the team owner’s wife, Tavia Hunt, have expressed public support for Butker. Any NFL calculus around the idea of booting Butker would likely weigh whether this old-school crowd would be more likely to boycott the league as a result, than the recent influx of young women would if the Chiefs kicker stays.
Fortunately for the NFL, the 2024-2025 season is still months away. It’s unclear as of yet whether the negative, brand-tainting attention around Butker’s speech will have more hangtime than one of his kicks. What seems most likely is that the NFL will just continue to let the backlash play out. In a video the LA Chargers released on Thursday, announcing the team’s fall schedule, Butker is briefly depicted as a Sim—sharpening his homemaking skills in the kitchen. The fact that he is already being mocked within the NFL suggests Butker is destined to become a figure of ridicule and contempt among those who don’t agree with him.
In fact, by keeping him around, the NFL will ensure the fall season is packed with the intra-team drama of Butker and Kelce being in close proximity. (Not to mention superstar teammate Patrick Mahomes, who delivered a laudable speech about women’s sports the same day as Butker’s commencement address, but understandably got overshadowed by fallout from the latter.) While fed-up fans may choose to tune out, perhaps some recent Kelce-converts will have a new villain to jeer during Chiefs games. That this villain is on the same team they’re rooting for is a dynamic as complex and tense as anything out of a Taylor Swift song.
And if Butker thinks any of his league rivals are intimidating, wait until he faces the wrath of Swifties—who may apply their legendary exuberance toward making his life hell.