Yahoo Lifestyle Super Bowl parties are out. ‘Taylor Bowl’ parties are in.
The table will be spread with nachos and beer. Football-shaped platters will hold pretzels and chips. On the TV, burly men in shoulder-padded jerseys will duke it out for a chance to carry the Lombardi Trophy.
But it won’t be a Super Bowl party. It’ll be a “Taylor Bowl” party - a venue to celebrate pop megastar Taylor Swift, whose NFL-player beau just happens to be gunning for his third straight championship ring.
And this year, some Swifties are hoping their favorite celebrity will be the Kansas City Chiefs’ secret weapon. After all, Swift performed in the Super Bowl’s host city, New Orleans, just three months ago.
“I feel like when she was there she probably blessed the stadium,” said Stephanie Pearson, a Georgia teacher who’s hosting a Swift-themed party on Sunday. “And maybe there’s some Taylor voodoo going on for a three-peat.”
Swift’s love life has inspired an untold number of new football fans since she started dating Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce in 2023, cheering from a box seat at many of his games and earning frequent zoom-ins from the camera crew. Kelce, in turn, has been in the stands for more than a dozen of Swift’s concerts.
Many fans are embracing the connection, with Super Bowl parties featuring Swift-themed outfits, cardboard cutouts of Kelce’s face and snacks named after song lyrics. It’s a slightly tongue-in-cheek chance for fun - and for some, a comfortable way for female Swifties to engage with a sport that doesn’t always feel hospitable to women fans.
That feeling of safety is part of the appeal for Gina Crosley-Corcoran, who had never watched football until Swift started appearing at Chiefs games. A self-proclaimed “hardcore Swiftie,” Crosley-Corcoran became a fan after the singer released her 2017 “Reputation” album and now leads a six-member Swift tribute band called Burning Red.
Crosley-Corcoran threw herself wholesale into football in 2023 but said watching games at bars felt unwelcoming to female fans like her who relished spotting Swift at games. She didn’t appreciate that some men booed when TV cameras showed the pop star or implied that anyone who was new to watching football didn’t belong. So when the Chiefs were set to face the San Francisco 49ers in the 2024 Super Bowl, she knew what she wanted to do.
“I don’t want to go to a bar where anyone’s going to complain when they show Taylor on TV, so we’re going to throw a party here,” Crosley-Corcoran said she decided.
The result was Crosley-Corcoran’s first “Taylor Bowl” - an event she plans to re-create this Sunday. Just inside the entrance to her Illinois home, she hung a football-field backdrop with an NFL logo that read “Taylor’s Version,” a reference to the singer-songwriter’s rerecorded albums. Crosley-Corcoran used a cutting machine to make plastic cups with the same logo. Printed menus listed snacks named after Swift lyrics, like “Now That We Don’t Taco Dip” and “Diamonds in My Fries.” The 15 or so partygoers listened to Swift’s music during breaks in the action and played Swift-themed trivia. (The prize was a book bag featuring an image of - you guessed it - Swift and Kelce.)
The game itself wasn’t an afterthought. The group was “glued to the edge of our seat” and thrilled when the Chiefs triumphed in overtime, said Crosley-Corcoran, 46.
“It was just joyous, right?” she said. “I think we would have been happy at any outcome just getting to be with each other and share in that joy.”
Lexi Olinger, a Chicago first-grade teacher, was a casual football fan before she started watching the Chiefs to catch shots of Swift in the stands or celebrating with Kelce after a big game. When it became clear that the Chiefs were going to last year’s Super Bowl, Olinger saw an opportunity to host a party with a dual theme: football and Swift.
She hung a giant friendship bracelet on the wall - a nod to fans exchanging the bracelets during Swift’s last tour - spelling out “In My Super Bowl Era” using the Chiefs’ colors, red and gold. At a local bakery, she bought cookies with a photo of Swift and Kelce kissing after a playoff game. “Midnight mozzarella sticks” - named after Swift’s 2022 album “Midnights” - were presented in platters shaped like Kelce’s number, 87. There were Swift-themed cocktails, including a tequila-based Lavender Haze.
Olinger’s guests were invested in the game’s outcome, too - partly because of Swift.
“It was like, we need [the] Chiefs to win because we want to see the end game of this,” said Olinger, who went to four shows on Swift’s recent Eras Tour. “We want to see Taylor come down and kiss or whatever.”
Olinger, 32, said she plans to spell out “In My Football Era” with red and gold balloons this year. She might wear a new piece of Chiefs gear or the red hoodie that she sported in 2024, with “Go Taylor’s Boyfriend” on the back.
At Deanne Curley’s “Taylor Bowl” party last year, guests who weren’t Swift fans became more interested in her as the event went on, Curley said. For about $150, the event included cardboard cutouts of Kelce and Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, light-up sticks from seeing “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” in theaters, a Swift balloon and a custom-made cake with Chiefs logos next to a photo of Swift performing.
“Even my best friend who lives in New York, he doesn’t watch football, he doesn’t care about Taylor Swift at all, and at the end of the night he would ask me questions about both,” said Curley, a 40-year-old advertising agency employee.
For Pearson, the Georgia teacher, gently irritating her husband and 17-year-old son is actually part of the fun of hosting a Swift-themed party. Last year, she pulled out their popcorn buckets from the “Eras Tour” movie, set up a spot to make friendship bracelets and bought a Publix cookie cake with a Swift lyric (“Baby, let the games begin”) spelled out in yellow icing. She and her now 11-year-old daughter wore matching gray T-shirts that said “Swiftie.”
As the Chiefs prepare to face off against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, Pearson is finalizing her plans for this year’s party. She knows her daughter will wear a sequined Kelce shirt and she’ll hang a friendship-bracelet garland that says “Go Chiefs” on the mantle.
Pearson, 45, is also thinking back to a relevant decoration that she set up in her front yard last Halloween.
“I think I might even bring out the 12-foot-skeleton with the ‘Go Taylor’s boyfriend’ shirt,” she said.
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