By Libby Holden

This year’s March Madness shows just how popular women in sports are getting, with the women’s basketball Final Four selling six times more tickets than the men’s Final Four, according to Forbes.

In the past decade, women’s involvement in sports has been on the rise, spanning from women-exclusive sports to more male-dominated sports such as football. In the past year, there have been significant milestones within women’s sports, like college football stadiums being filled for women’s volleyball games and a woman being the leading scorer in NCAA Division I history, for both men and women.

“Women’s college basketball had the best viewership ever last year, because of Caitlin Clark,” Ben Preston, senior sports management major, said. “What happens when Caitlin Clark leaves next year?”

As women’s sports are on the rise, along with women viewership in sports in general, there is also much attention being drawn to the hatred of women involvement in sports. This newfound hatred stems from the blossoming relationship of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.

Since Taylor Swift has a majority women fanbase, it is hard for them to be welcomed into the world of male-dominated football.

“The biggest thing everyone wants to talk about, whether they love it or hate it, was the coverage of the football games when Taylor Swift was in attendance,” sports journalism professor Rowena Pedrena said.

Pedrena said this controversial topic has sparked tension in her sports classes, considering Swift’s media coverage is battling against the apparent masculine structure of the sport football fans try to uphold.

“If I wasn’t a Chiefs fan, I would’ve hated the Chiefs this year, especially with this Taylor Swift stuff,” Preston said.

 Preston has been a Chiefs fan for over a decade, dedicating an entire summer to work for them through an internship related to his future career. He revealed that, overall, he is generally supportive of the incoming Chiefs fans that are there primarily because of Taylor Swift.

 “People hate it, but she’s more popular than any NFL player in my opinion,” Preston said.

Pedrena said the role of the athlete, specifically in the NFL, has also changed majorly in the past 20 years, with athletes having more control of the money side of their public image.

“I think that the generation of players that we have are a lot more entrepreneurial and more open to stratifying their business relations,” Pedrena said.

With Swifties flocking to watch NFL games for Swift last season and therefore boosting women viewership of games, it is simultaneously benefiting the players and the league as a whole. Because of this influx of women coming into a male-dominated community, there is going to be some hatred, and it isn’t limited to just Swift.

 Other Swifties routinely get pestered about their knowledge of football and aren’t thrilled about having their sport plastered with Swift’s face.

 “They think she’s just this blonde bimbo dating this big NFL dude,” freshman advertising and public relations major Aggie Zabek said, “but she’s more successful than he is.”

 Zabek shared a time when she got asked several questions about football by saying she was a fan of Swift because of Kelce.

 “There’s a patriarchal undertone that is embedded in the sport of football fandom, and I think that is what we’re quarreling against,” Pedrena said.

Pedrena said that Sunday Night Football was like a Xanax for the people who are bothered by Swift, and now their dosage has changed. Now, they are disturbed and angry, but there is still a part of them that is conditioned to tune in to this narrative of the “popular girl gets the football player” trope.

“Whether or not we like it or want it, we see a part of us in that,” Pedrena said. “Either we were the nerd who was rejected or the hot girl or the hot guy or the hater on the sideline. Everyone can chip into that story.”

 However, this trend is not just a battleground of division. Young audiences of children are becoming acclimated to seeing women represent sports, specifically football, on various media platforms. Young Swifties are finding common ground between their fathers because of this football-pop correlation, and Nickelodeon is also putting forth effort to involve their female characters to explain the game.

“Dora is explaining offsides,” Pedrena said. “Or you’re seeing Sandy come up when there’s a flag on the play to describe the flag.”

The culture of football is changing rapidly, and the NFL is welcoming these changes with open arms because it benefits the industry.

“There are hundreds of thousands of jobs on the line.” Pedrena said. “Everybody from the concierge, the person who sweeps after the confetti is blown, to the owners of the franchise, everybody’s getting fed.”

Pedrena said football closely reflects the current state of American politics. She said the one aspect of this trend to keep following closely is how long these new-found fans stay. Will they leave because the topic is becoming boring, or will they leave because the haters drive them away from the love of the sport?

Even though football season is over, the story is nowhere near over. The future of football including more women is currently being molded.

“I think Taylor Swift emboldens people to go out and be brave about it,” Pedrena said. “And I think that’s the catalyst.”