Sportscaster Al Michaels Is All About Taylor Swift’s ‘Thursday Night Football’ Cameo: ‘We Love It, Man’
Written by djfrosty on October 17, 2023
NFL fans seem to have mixed feelings about all the coverage Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce‘s relationship is getting across various sports broadcasts, but Thursday Night Football announcer Al Michaels is all for it.
“We love it, man,” Michaels told Jimmy Kimmel on Monday night, during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Swift attended last week’s Thursday night game between Kelce’s Kansas City Chiefs and the Denver Broncos, once again making headlines for sharing a suite with Travis’ mother, Donna Kelce, and hugging Brittany Mahomes, wife of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
“We had to be judicious,” Michaels told Kimmel about figuring out how best to address Swift’s presence on the Prime Video broadcast. “We had the game last Thursday night in Kansas City. We knew she’d be there. So how much do you show her? She’d been on twice, and football fans were going, ‘Enough.’ But we were praying she’d come into the booth and sing for us,” he said with a laugh.
Kimmel played a clip of Michaels fumbling his words while trying to describe Swift on the broadcast, as he settled on calling her Kelce’s “good buddy and girlfriend.”
“So is she his good buddy or his girlfriend, Al?” Kimmel said, ribbing the announcer. “You can’t be both!”
“You know, you’re doing a game like that, I know the Internet’s gonna blow up,” Michaels said. “Page Six is waiting for whatever I say. You know what I really wanted to say? ‘Fiancee.’ I didn’t because I figured Travis would beat me up at the end of the game. … Or [Swift] would have beat me up.”
In the end, Michaels and company wanted to make sure football came first in the broadcast. “It’s hard because people tune in to watch a football game,” he said. “I’m not doing Access Hollywood.”
Following Thursday’s game, Swift and Kelce confirmed their long-rumored relationship by attending the Saturday Night Live afterparty over the weekend hand-in-hand. (Find a full timeline of their relationship so far here.)
Watch Michaels’ Kimmel appearance below: