The Kansas City Chiefs have been having a moment for a while, boasting three Super Bowl titles in the last five years.
But the team’s name recognition has leapt to a whole new level since tight end Travis Kelce began dating Taylor Swift. Sales of Kelce jerseys have spiked and Swift boosted viewership for some games. And as the holidays approach, there are two Christmas movies that tackle the Kansas City Chiefs’ stardom, and it’s all because of the new level of popularity that the pop star has brought to the team.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]Lifetime’s Christmas in the Spotlight, which premiered Nov. 23, most literally fantasizes about what Swift’s and Kelce’s relationship is like by starring a blonde pop star named Bowyn (Jessica Lord) and a football player named Drew (Laith Wallschleger) who have very public personas and are trying to navigate dating with as much privacy as possible.
Hallmark’s Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story, out Nov. 30, exists because of Swift dating a Kansas City Chiefs player, but it’s not about her and Kelce, exactly. Rather, the movie follows Derrick (Tyler Hynes), the team’s director of fan engagement who recently moved to Kansas City, as he falls in love with blonde Kansas City native Alana (Hunter King), who works at a Chiefs memorabilia shop and whose family has a special hat that they say brings good luck to the Chiefs. Kelce’s mom, Donna Kelce, even has a cameo, as a waitress who introduces Derrick to Kansas City BBQ.
Here’s a look at how Swift and Kelce inspired both films and why their relationship, and football games in general, make great material for the Christmas movie genre.
Lifetime’s Christmas in the Spotlight
This film will sound familiar to anyone who followed along as Swift and Kelce began their relationship shortly after Kelce sung her praises on a July 2023 episode of podcast. That month, Kelce went to one of Swift’s Eras Tour shows, hoping to give her a friendship bracelet with his number on it, he explained in an episode of New Heights, the podcast he hosts with his brother Jason Kelce. Similarly, Drew in Christmas in the Spotlight, who plays for a Chiefs-like team called the Bombers, gets to have a brief conversation with the pop star Bowyn when he introduces her to his niece—a fellow Bowyn superfan—backstage. But they are interrupted. Drew, unsure whether he will see Bowyn again, makes a viral video inviting her to a game. Her manager, Mira Vu (Jeannie Mai), a huge fan of Drew’s team, makes sure the conversation continues. Bowyn calls Drew and admits “growing up I was never really the cheerleader, more a bleacher girl,” a play on a line in Swift’s “You Belong to Me” about a girl pining for a guy who has a girlfriend: “She’s cheer Captain, and I’m on the bleachers.”
Later, Drew is surprised and delighted to see Bowyn on the jumbotron at his game, waving pom-poms in the air, just as all cameras are on Swift when she’s cheering Chiefs games. Like Kelce, Drew has a brother who is also a star football player (though Christmas in the Spotlight, the brothers play on the same team, unlike Travis’s brother Jason, who plays for the Philadelphia Eagles).
In order to avoid the paparazzi, they have dates on Bowyn’s private plane parked in a garage, the only place where they can find privacy as they snuggle up against each other watching movies on her laptop. Bowyn even messengers Drew a Santa suit to wear when he enters the garage One night, he cooks dinner and they do “sexy puzzling,” doing a jigsaw puzzle while stroking each other with the pieces. Each has found their missing piece, so to speak. Then Drew spills wine on his shirt, so, naturally, his shirt has to come off.
Bowyn’s jealous ex tries to throw a wrench in the new relationship by ambushing her with a camera person at a gala and asking her whether she’s dating Drew for publicity—a nod to the claims that the Swift-Kelce relationship is a PR stunt. Bowyn replies yes, sarcastically, but that gets edited out of context and published online, alienating Drew. To win him back, she composes a song and dedicates it to him. “Drew, if you’re watching the livestream, you were right. I know I promised not to fall in love with you, but I couldn’t help it…As long as I’m holding onto you, I promise I won’t fumble again.”
Eirene Donohue, the screenwriter and a passionate Swiftie, says she does not think that the Swift-Kelce relationship is a PR stunt and that she wrote the film to celebrate the pop star. “People put celebrities on these pedestals, and I understand that, but the reality is they are just human people who are going through their lives,” she says, arguing that the goal of the movie is to inspire more empathy for “what it must be like to try to have a new relationship, to fall in love, when the whole world is watching.” In perhaps the biggest clapback to the people who think the relationship is a PR stunt, Drew tells a team member in the locker room that Bowyn is “the biggest pop star in the world, she’s got like a billion dollars, she doesn’t need football fans.” He adds that he thinks it’s great that “she’s bringing all of these new fans to the game.”
Christmas in the Spotlight is available to stream on mylifetime.com and the Lifetime app and will air on TV on 11/29 at 8p, 12/14 at 6p, and 12/25 at 8p.
Hallmark’s Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story
In Holiday Touchdown, Derrick is a new guy in town, who recently joined the Kansas City Chiefs as its director of fan engagement. The department is looking to name a “fan of the year,” and as part of his research, he goes to a local Chief memorabilia shop. There, he meets Alana, whose family runs the store and boasts a Chiefs knit beanie hat that they say brings good luck to the Chiefs. He hits it off with them and tags along with them as they do all of their Christmas traditions, like putting decorations up all around the city
Alana’s family members are desperate for Alana and Derrick to start dating, so much so they even talk about smearing flour on Alana’s face while she’s making gingerbread art so that Derrick will have to lightly brush it off her cheek. That’s when Donna Kelce comes out with a platter of cookies and says, “Don’t force it ladies. Just let it happen, trust me on this one.” That line can be read as a nod to her son’s relationship, but it’s the only allusion to Kelce and Swift in the film.
“Other than that, there’s really no hidden message in there about Travis and Taylor,” says Julie Sherman Wolfe, the screenwriter of Holiday Touchdown.
As Alana and Derrick fall for one another, he takes her to the Chiefs arena and they share a tender moment alone in the stands. When Alana’s family’s lucky hat goes missing at a holiday toy drive, he joins in the search efforts. But the family is not heartbroken. As her Chiefs megafan grandfather played by Ed Begley Jr., decked out in a team jersey, reassures Alana, “Even if the Chiefs lose, I still win—’cause I have everything: family, friends, love.” Alana then tells her grandfather that the lucky hat brought her and Derrick together—what if the lost hat means they aren’t meant to be together? “The magic is not in the hat, it’s in what the hat represents,” says the grandfather, “the belief that we’re part of something bigger than ourselves, knowing that we have each other’s back no matter what.”
Wolfe is actually a San Francisco 49ers fan, who ironically got the assignment to write a Hallmark Christmas movie about the Kansas City Chiefs right after the team defeated her beloved 49ers in the Super Bowl. (Hallmark is also headquartered in Kansas City.) Yet she channeled the grief into a heartwarming script, realizing that no matter the team, football brings friends and families together. Just as Alana’s family’s hat is thought to bring the Chiefs to victory in Holiday Touchdown, Wolfe shared a look at a 49ers jacket that’s thought to bring good luck to that team. A lifelong football fan who knows the rules of the game, Wolfe’s goal was to write a Hallmark Christmas movie that football fans could enjoy, so they will appreciate the references to specific plays.
Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story airs Nov. 30 at 8p on Hallmark’s TV channel and will re-air throughout December. An extended cut of Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story premieres on Hallmark+ on December 12.
Why football movies make the perfect Christmas movies
While Holiday Touchdown may not be literally about a pop star dating a football player, Wolfe says the Swift-Kelce relationship inevitably led to the Chiefs Hallmark movie. “Obviously their love story was sort of the thing that got people thinking about romance and football together.” Given the news coverage of their romance—and the on-field Swift-Kelce smooches—she argues that the Chief’s 2023-2024 season “felt like a Hallmark Christmas movie.”
So what about the Swift-Kelce relationship makes it prime Christmas movie material?
Christmas time is a season of hope, especially of hope that the impossible could be possible. So the fairy tale of the Chiefs’ rise to dominance after 50 years without winning a Super Bowl, combined with a pop star and football star finding love in their mid-30s is ripe for the Christmas movie genre. Wolfe adds that Christmas is also the season for making family memories, and watching football is such a family affair for many Americans. Having faith in your team even when times are tough is an evergreen lesson that even people who aren’t football fans can appreciate.
Donohue says the Christmas season is a perfect time to put out a movie like Christmas in the Spotlight because of the “faith in magic” that characterizes the season. “I think that’s why people love Christmas movies. They’re a comfort food. You know there’s going to be a happy ending. You want to feel joyful. I am a big believer in the power of joy to uplift, to inspire, to give purpose, and so I just tried to make a movie that has a lot of joyful moments.”
Holiday Touchdown’s Wolfe explains, “I love movies that have actual Christmas magic in them—have a little wink, a bit of the supernatural… Christmas is the best time to show all of that because that’s where there’s extra magic, extra faith, extra fate, extra everything.”
