Charles Barkley can’t shake off the haters.
The basketball player had a strong message to say to all the haters out there who are tearing down Taylor Swift because of her relationship with Travis Kelce. He hit out at the nay-sayers who claimed she was ‘ruining’ the NFL.
During an episode of his show, King Charles, with Gayle King, the 60-year-old slammed people who didn’t like the extra coverage of the NFL because of the music star.
He said: “If you’re screaming at T-Swift saying she ruined [football], you’re just a loser. You’re just a loser or a jack**s.
“You can be A or B. One of the two.”
The former NBA star wasn’t having it, and neither was their guest, sports commentator Bob Costas.
He added the Lover hitmaker has brought a new audience to football, people who usually wouldn’t have been interested in the sport.
69-year-old King chimed in: “Look at all the new people she’s brought to the NFL. You see young teen girls who are now watching football for the first time”.
Whereas Costas believes if Taylor Swift does make it to the Super Bowl to support Travis this month, it could raise the viewership to new heights. The Kansas City Chiefs are set to face the San Francisco 49ers on February 11th.
“The NFL reigns supreme – not only over sports – but over all of American entertainment. … It’s the only thing that consistently aggregates huge audiences,” the commentator said.
“Like 90 of the top 100 rated television shows in a given year are football games – almost all of them NFL games. And so you would think they couldn’t improve on that, but now they’ve tapped into another demographic.”
However, there are fears the Cruel Summer singer won’t be able to attend as she has four back-to-back shows in Tokyo, Japan, that finish the day before. But, one eagled-eyed fan took to TikTok to give a demonstration to show it was physically possible. He declared if she left the country, and jumped on a plane, straight after her final gig on February 10th, even with the long-haul flight, because of the time difference she would land in Las Vegas on that same evening. Meaning, the celebrity would have time to rest, catch up on some sleep and attend the big game the following day.
The rise in popularity can be said for new listeners on Jason and Travis Kelce‘s football podcast, New Heights. Since the relationship was made public in September, they’ve seen hits skyrocket with new listeners.
The comments on the YouTube channels even appear to confirm the news too, with users saying they only started listening because of Swift but are now more interested in football.
It comes after one ‘troll’ hurled abuse at Taylor Swift after the game against the Ravens last week as she was heading to meet Kelce on the field.
