Will Taylor Swift Be at the Super Bowl? Stay Tuned.

On Sunday, the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs might be making the crew’s fourth Tremendous Bowl look within the final 5 seasons. Whereas some N.F.L. gamers go their whole profession with out enjoying for a championship, one in all Kansas Metropolis’s newcomers had their ticket punched after solely 12 video games.

As Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic said on X, shortly after the Chiefs’ championship win: “Taylor Swift makes the Tremendous Bowl in her first yr within the league. Elite.”

Ms. Swift, who has been relationship Travis Kelce, Kansas Metropolis’s star tight finish, has modified the N.F.L. dialog all season, attracting a brand new viewers for the league and provoking robust feelings (each constructive and destructive) amongst followers. Her critics in addition to her detractors could have some burning questions forward of the sport. At the beginning: Will she be there?

Has Taylor hinted at her Tremendous Bowl plans?

Ms. Swift, as you might have heard, is good at keeping secrets. Her plans, past live performance dates, are not often introduced upfront. That has led some to plan their very own strategies for determining what she’s as much as. Forward of a Kansas Metropolis recreation in October, for instance, an NBC producer stated he had a spotter plane searching the area around MetLife Stadium for police escorts in hopes of alerting the tv crew if she confirmed up (she did).

Mr. Kelce was inundated with questions on Ms. Swift final week, and whereas he stated he had heard a few of her upcoming album — spoiler: he likes it — he didn’t supply any particulars about whether or not she can be on the recreation.

That being stated, Ms. Swift has adjusted her busy schedule to permit her to attend 12 video games already this season, so lacking out on a possible Tremendous Bowl win appears unlikely. The Related Press reported on Saturday afternoon that her airplane had been seen in Los Angeles.

However wasn’t she in Tokyo … final evening?

She certain was. Her Eras Tour resumed not too long ago, and on Saturday evening in Tokyo she carried out yet one more marathon set of her intensive catalog of songs. With flights from Tokyo to Las Vegas typically taking 13 hours or extra, and human beings requiring sleep, some nervous she won’t make the sport.

The Japanese Embassy in Washington pointed out that timing isn’t an actual hurdle for Ms. Swift. Initially, a personal jet shortens the journey (and offers a spot to sleep peacefully if wanted). Second of all, the worldwide date line is her good friend.

In 1873, earlier than the worldwide date line formally existed, the writer Jules Verne mapped out Ms. Swift’s time benefit in “Across the World in 80 Days.” Within the e-book, the protagonist Phileas Fogg believes he has misplaced his wager solely to understand the space and course of his travels had saved him:

In journeying eastward he had gone in direction of the solar, and the times due to this fact diminished for him as many instances 4 minutes as he crossed levels on this course. There are 300 and sixty levels on the circumference of the earth; and these 300 and sixty levels, multiplied by 4 minutes, offers exactly twenty-four hours — that’s, the day unconsciously gained. In different phrases, whereas Phileas Fogg, going eastward, noticed the solar go the meridian eighty instances, his mates in London solely noticed it go the meridian seventy-nine instances. That is why they awaited him on the Reform Membership on Saturday, and never Sunday, as Mr. Fogg thought.

Or, as “The West Wing” summarized extra succinctly in a scene that mentioned President Bartlett’s journey from Tokyo to Washington, D.C. (and that recently went viral on-line):

Josh: He’s gonna land in Washington an hour earlier than he took off?
Sam: Yeah.

For older generations, these scenes helped clarify the logistics of the worldwide date line. For Gen Z and youthful, their body of reference will possible be … when Taylor Swift flew to Las Vegas for the Tremendous Bowl.

Nobody ever appeared to thoughts Jack Nicholson being a fixture at Los Angeles Lakers video games, or Spike Lee being more associated with the New York Knicks than many of the crew’s gamers. Drake received solely a slap on the wrist when he started strolling onto the courtroom throughout timeouts at Toronto Raptors playoff video games. However regardless that Ms. Swift receives relatively little airtime through the broadcasts of Kansas Metropolis’s video games, she has change into a goal for individuals who nonetheless assume she’s getting outsize consideration.

“The eye is there as a result of the viewers desires to see it,” Jason Kelce, brother of Travis, stated in an interview throughout final week’s Professional Bowl festivities. “If folks didn’t wish to see it they wouldn’t be displaying it.”

As Ms. Swift put it, “a number of dads, Brads, and Chads” could also be offended, however the TV networks are thrilled. A ratings analysis by The Upshot indicated that she very properly could also be a driving issue for the league’s elevated viewers. Coach Andy Reid of the Chiefs has repeatedly stated that he’s completely satisfied to have her round, and the N.F.L., which is having fun with an sudden growth of its built-in viewers, has absolutely embraced her affiliation with the league.

“N.F.L. followers are available all kinds — even world sensations,” stated Alex Riethmiller, an N.F.L. spokesman. “We’re glad to have Taylor on board.”

Through the common season, Ms. Swift attended quite a few video games in Kansas Metropolis whereas seated in a luxurious suite managed by Mr. Kelce’s shut good friend and longtime teammate, Patrick Mahomes. She appeared to change into quick mates with Mr. Mahomes’s spouse, Brittany, and was recurrently seen with different members of the Mahomes household.

She has additionally frolicked at video games with Mr. Kelce’s mother and father, Donna and Ed, and her personal father, mom and brother got here along with her to a recreation on Christmas. Throughout Ms. Swift’s journey to New Jersey for a Chiefs-Jets recreation she was seated with mates just like the actors Ryan Reynolds and Blake Energetic.

At a playoff recreation in Buffalo final month, she and Kylie Kelce have been amongst these proven reacting to Jason Kelce’s shirtless bellowing and fraternizing with the group.

And on the A.F.C. championship recreation in Baltimore, she was surrounded by Mr. Kelce’s household and associates, together with Donna and Ed Kelce, Jason and Kylie Kelce and Mr. Kelce’s managers, Aaron and André Eanes. There have been additionally a number of of Ms. Swift’s mates, just like the actress Keleigh Teller and the mannequin Cara Delevingne.

That is Taylor, certainly there’s some numerology concerned?

Ms. Swift has stated she loves the quantity 13, and her followers can seemingly discover it all over the place. Within the case of this yr’s Tremendous Bowl, the examples are plentiful:

• Tremendous Bowl 58 (5+8=13)

• Feb. 11, 2/11 (2+11=13)

• Kansas Metropolis is enjoying the 49ers (4+9=13)

• The 49ers have been the No. 1 seed within the N.F.C., whereas the Chiefs have been the No. 3 seed within the A.F.C. (1 and three — 13)

• That is the thirteenth N.F.L. recreation Ms. Swift has attended this season

It’s unclear if it’s a good or dangerous signal that San Francisco’s beginning quarterback, Brock Purdy, wears No. 13. Time will inform.