The Taylor Swift effect? NFL says women make up almost half of audience
NEW ORLEANS — Forty-seven percent of the NFL audience is women, and although part of the credit belongs to Taylor Swift bringing Swifties into the football fold, the NFL says the superstar only added gasoline to an ongoing fire.
“Football is the No. 1 sport among women in the U.S., and we keep growing,” says Marissa Solis, the senior vice president of global brand and consumer marketing at the NFL. “I mean 68% of all women and girls in the U.S. are fans of the league.”
Solis joined the NFL in 2021 with decades of brand experience from Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo. Under the management of Chief Marketing Officer Tim Ellis, two of Solis’ goals were to expand the fandom globally and bring more perspectives and voices to the gridiron community.
“Our currency is relevance,” she says. “And we have to be relevant to all sorts of audiences, to young people, to women and to multicultural audiences.”
She’s paving the way through broadcast partners and social media grassroots efforts. Solis has been able to reach new corners of the internet by pushing for more collaborations with the wives and girlfriends (WAGs) of the players and launching partnerships with platforms like Betches, a female-founded and led media and entertainment brand.
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“I think the Taylor effect, as many people call it, obviously boosted our audience,” Solis says. “We love Taylor. She’s a huge icon among that audience. But we were already growing with that audience before that. I think she just helped us and came at the right time.”
Swift, more than other celebrity wives and girlfriends, inspires her fans to spend money. On a small business level, the singer’s love story with Travis Kelce has boosted sales at fashion boutiques in the Kansas City area.
Solis says her team is working hard to cater to the ever-growing audience and offers a preview of where her division is heading in the new year.
Step 1 is fanning the global sparks of flag football. Solis says a 2-minute ad like a “ John Hughes type of genre movie” will air during the Super Bowl and highlight the sport.
Step 2 is brightening the spotlight on fashion. Sports commentator and TV personality Erin Andrews has her own WEAR by EA line. Swift wore one of her jackets to last year’s Super Bowl. The NFL signed a deal with Kristin Juszczyk after the singer wore one of her custom-made jackets to a game.
”There was a time when you might make a jersey pink or ‘pinkify’ something,” Solis says. “For women around sports, fashion has really become a thing.”
The third step is fantasy football.
”Women are playing fantasy football more and more, and they’re the ones that follow the players, know the stats, know who to get, because they’re just as competitive, if not more competitive, than men,” Solis says.
Do you ‘SeeHer’?
Swift may be a reason behind higher Super Bowl ad sales as well. After the Chiefs won the AFC championship, CNBC reported that Fox sold commercial spots for a record $8 million. What remains to be seen is the messaging in commercials and whether there will be more storylines catering toward women and Swifties.
“ Women decide 85% of all purchase decisions,” says Christine Guilfoyle, the president of SeeHer, the gender equality initiative within the Association of National Advertisers.
“If you build it right, she will give you money,” Guilfoyle says. “ The power of Taylor and her fandom demonstrates the power of the sheconomy.” (Sheconomy is a term that describes the growing economic influence of women.)
Some brands like Cetaphil catered to Swifties in 2024 with an ad about dads and daughters bonding over football.
SeeHer puts brands through a gender equality measurement test. Guilfoyle warns marketers should be cautious with their use of humor and making women the butt of jokes.
“Last year, only a third of advertisers scored above the benchmark of 100,” she says. “That was because of using humor against characters — specifically women characters — or putting women in supporting, stereotypical roles.”
Guilfoyle did want to give a shout out to Ellis’ team at the NFL, including Solis, for putting an emphasis on being more inclusive and drawing a larger audience to football.
“They have practiced modern marketing, and they ultimately have expanded their consumer connectivity to communities that may not have felt welcome within the broader NFL ecosystem,” she says.
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Follow Bryan West, the USA TODAY Network’s Taylor Swift reporter, on Instagram, TikTok and X as @BryanWestTV.
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