Caleb Harris
Taylor Swift’s global dominance is such that the NFLwhich will happily surpass other sports on days previously sacred to them – the NBA on Christmas Day and college football on Black Friday – you have to take Swift into consideration when it comes to her return to the United States to end her “Eras Tour”.
NFL vice president of broadcast planning Mike North said last week that the league needed to take its U.S. tour dates into consideration when scheduling the 2024 season in a conference call, by Fox Sports. There’s no way a star of his stature would reschedule his tour for anything less than a natural disaster.
However, North played down his previous comments about Swift’s overall influence on the 2024 league calendar.
“She [Swift] it had a bigger influence on my niece Gabby’s bat mitzvah last weekend – it was Gabby’s version, so there was a lot of Taylor being played at the bat mitzvah. …She had a bigger influence on the bat mitzvah than on our programming,” North said on the “Adam Schefter Podcast.”
Swift will perform at Hard Rock Stadium, home of the Miami Dolphins, three consecutive days, from Friday, October 18th to Sunday, October 20th. She will then travel to New Orleans for three consecutive days of shows at Caesars. Superdome, New Orleans Saints home field, from Friday, October 25th to Sunday, October 27th. The final leg of their return to the United States concludes at Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts, from Friday, November 1st through Sunday in November. 3.
The NFL made sure to send Miami north to Indianapolis to play the Colts in Week 7 (Sunday, October 20), New Orleans west to Los Angeles to play the Chargers in Week 8 (Sunday, October 27) and Indianapolis to northwest Minnesota will face the Vikings in Week 9 (Sunday, November 3).
“Look, we know she’s still on tour, right? So there’s a tour date in Miami, Indianapolis, and one more maybe, New Orleans or something like that,” North said. “When these teams sent out their scheduling forms at the beginning, they said, ‘Hey, here’s everything we want: home open, home closed, midseason bye, don’t give us a three-game road trip.’ All the things they normally say, and also ‘We hope our stadium won’t be available for you NFL in Week 8 because we have an event going on.’
“Obviously we knew it was a Taylor Swift concert. As best as we could, we tried to accommodate whether it’s Taylor Swift or Green Day or Billy Joel or Ed Sheeran or Pink or Lady Gaga or whoever else is on tour,” North continued. “We know these buildings are used for things other than NFL football. To the extent that the Dolphins, Saints and Colts each had a weekend this year where they expected to be on the road or [on] bye, Taylor Swift impacted NFL programming.”
Swift is in Toronto performing at the Rogers Centre, home of MLB Toronto Blue Jays, November 14-16 and November 21-23. Coincidentally, the NFL twice scheduled Super Bowl the champion Kansas City Chiefs will play in Buffalo against the Bills in Week 11 on Sunday at 4:25 pm ET on CBS when they don’t have a show. This would make it very easy for Swift to make the just over two-hour drive between Rogers Center and Highmark Stadium, the home of the Bills, if she wanted to see her boyfriend and Chiefs All-Pro tight end Travis Kelce play. in person. She attended Kansas City’s AFC divisional round playoff game in Buffalo last season.
North denied that the NFL scheduled the Chiefs vs. Bills in Buffalo for Week 11 to accommodate Swift and her tour.
“Did the NFL strategically try to schedule Chiefs games close to tour dates so she could attend? I promise not,” North said.
