Eagles RB Barkley Defends Taylor Swift After Super Bowl Boos

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Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley.

The Philadelphia Eagles absolutely throttled the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX. It was a merciless beatdown that saw the Eagles go up 34-0 on the way to a 40-22 victory and their second Super Bowl win in the last decade.

That doesn’t mean there’s necessarily bad blood from the Eagles toward the Chiefs off the field — or their famous girlfriends.

Superstar Eagles running back Saquon Barkley came to the defense of pop superstar Taylor Swift on The Howard Stern Show after boos rained down on her at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans on Super Bowl Sunday when she appeared on the Jumbotron.

Swift was there to cheer on her longtime boyfriend and Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.

“I don’t get it,” Barkley told Stern on February 12. “I don’t get why she was getting hate there. She’s just there supporting her significant other. We’re all about how can we expand the game and make it more international. And we’re traveling to Brazil, we’re traveling to Mexico, and her being a part of it is only helping that. So, I don’t get the dislike that she’s given.”Swift and her family — all Pennsylvania natives — were Eagles fans until she began dating the 10-time Pro Bowler and 3-time Super Bowl champion before the 2023 season. Swift has been a constant presence at Chiefs home games the last 2 seasons and also attended Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas, when the Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers in overtime.

NFL Benefits Wildly From ‘Taylor Swift Effect’

The “Taylor Swift Effect” is a phenomenon that boils down to one simple fact: Wherever Swift goes, she makes money for everyone around her.

The biggest example of this has been her globe-spanning concert tour — The Eras Tour — which ran from March 2023 to December 2024 and became the first tour to surpass $1 billion in revenue … then also became the first tour to surpass $2 billion in revenue. Tour stops were marked by an economic upturn wherever Swift played, and Swift’s presence at NFL games has done the same thing.

According to Apex Marketing, Swift has generated almost $1 billion in revenue for the NFL since she began regularly attending games at the beginning of the 2023 season.

From MarketWatch: “… From Sep. 24, 2023, to Jan. 28, 2024 — the date of that year’s AFC Championship game — Swift created $366,753,290 in total equivalent brand value for the NFL, according to data provided to MarketWatch from Apex Marketing, a company that specializes in advertising and branding services. This equivalent brand value metric measures value across all social media, TV, radio, digital news and print news. That effect hasn’t faded. In the year since, Swift has helped the NFL even more, according to Apex, creating an estimated $634,304,163 in equivalent brand value from the day after the 2024 AFC Championship through Jan. 27, the day after the 2025 AFC Championship.”

Eagles Hit the Lotto by Signing Barkley in 2024

The Saquon Barkley Effect on the Eagles has been a changed offense that ended with a Super Bowl win.

After signing a 3-year, $37.75 million free agent contract with the Eagles in March 2024, Barkley set the NFL record for most rushing yards in a single season — regular season and playoffs combined — by rushing for 2,504 yards in 20 games.