Latest NFL Sunday Night Football results show the reality of 'The Taylor Swift Effect'

Taylor Swift dominated sports headlines for two weeks when she attended two games in a row to support her rumored romantic partner, Travis Kelce. 

Ratings seemed to show that Swift had a positive effect — the Oct. 1 'Sunday Night Football' game on NBC between the Chiefs and the New York Jets was the league's highest-rated game since Super Bowl LVII. 

This past week, the NFL's Week 5, Swift did not attend the Chiefs' 4:25 p.m. Eastern Time road game against the Minnesota Vikings that aired on CBS. But the 'Sunday Night Football' game was still highly-anticipated as it pit two historic NFC teams with Super Bowl aspirations: The San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys.

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The Oct. 8 game drew in 26.1 million viewers, down very slightly from the 26.7 million average from the previous week that showcased Swift. But that Week 5 game still set a record as the most-watched Week 5 game in history. The game also peaked at 29.6 million viewers, according to NBC, which is just ahead of the 29.2 million peak viewers during the Chiefs-Jets game.

It's important to point out that despite the high profile teams, the Cowboys-49ers game was also a blowout with the 49ers breezing past the Cowboys, 42-10. Meanwhile, the Chiefs-Jets game was actually a very intriguing 23-20 win for Kelce's Chiefs, though it did start off looking like it would be a blowout as the Chiefs were up 17-0 in the first quarter. 

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Still, the average ratings of the two weeks were very similar with and without Swift.

That's not to say that this data is definitively against Swift's impact because it's only been a week. Swift's effect was still clear during her attendance in terms of bringing in a new demographic, as NBC PR also tweeted that there was an increase of more than two million female viewers over the average of the first three weeks.

There's also the variable of the franchises involved as the Cowboys will always bring in ratings, especially against the 49ers who are regarded as one of the best teams in the NFL this year. The Chiefs are the defending Super Bowl champions, but the Jets have been in the doldrums for decades and lost star quarterback Aaron Rodgers to an Achilles tear just four snaps into the season. 

It will be very interesting to see how NFL Week 6 fairs when the Buffalo Bills face the struggling New York Giants.

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