Colin Cowherd went off on the “dads, Brads and Chads” during his latest sports broadcast, asserting that Taylor Swift is not a game day distraction.
“There’s a lot of really weird, lonely, insecure men out there,” Cowherd, 60, quipped on the Tuesday, January 30, broadcast of his The Herd show. “The fact that a pop star — the world’s biggest pop star — [is] dating a star tight end, who had one of his greatest games ever, and the network puts them on the air briefly, that bothers you. What does that say about your life?”
Swift, 34, has been linked to Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce since summer 2023, nearly two months before she went to her first football game. During the games, the NFL has frequently shown Swift on the Jumbotron or during the broadcast, which some diehard sports fans have criticized. (Swift infamously called the haters “dads, Brads and Chads” in a TIME cover story last month, noting she is there solely to support Kelce, 34.)
Swift has attended 12 of Kelce’s games, including the AFC Championship on Sunday, January 28. After watching the game from a private box with Kelce’s family, Swift went down to the field to celebrate the team’s win and greeted her boyfriend with a kiss. Multiple outlets have since reported that Swift was only shown on camera for a total of 25 seconds on Sunday, including during an ad break for the 2024 Grammy Awards.
“Why wouldn’t CBS, which [hosts] the Grammys, cross-promote the world’s biggest pop star?” Cowherd added, noting such trolls are “lying” about shots of Swift taking over the NFL game day coverage. “A football telecast is not just football, in fact, the commercials for four hours before the Super Bowl will be widely watched.”
He continued, “Did you know, statistically, in a three-hour NFL broadcast … just 18 minutes are actual football, and we have the data, you don’t turn away. There’s coach cutaways, they show fans in Buffalo on fire, commercials, reviews. [It’s] 18 minutes of real football, [which] for the record [is] about the length of five Taylor Swift songs.”
Cowherd further pointed out that these so-called “lonely men” are quick to cheer on various game day coverage of stars like Matthew McConaughey, Drake, Eminem, Spike Lee and Jack Nicholson.
“We celebrate [them], but a talented and beautiful woman is on the air? One who would never pay attention to lonely men and it bothers them,” Cowherd said. “There’s a stat out there, it’s kind of uncomfortable for you sad guys that 50 percent of men never have real intimacy with a woman … and the ones who don’t are angry and sad and lonely and they are often misogynistic and resent women who didn’t give them the time they think they deserve.”
He concluded, “Judge people by the silly things that bother them. This says nothing, this anger, about Taylor Swift [and] it says everything about the men bothered by it.”
Retired football star J.J. Watt also called out the double standard of NFL coverage while speaking with Us Weekly earlier this month.
“I can’t understand why people are so upset about it,” Watt, 34, exclusively told Us. “I mean, they show celebrities at games all the time. Don’t act like we don’t show male celebrities at games all the time. I don’t really understand why it’s caused such an uproar. I mean, she’s literally there supporting her significant other, and that’s what you should do as a significant other.”
The Chiefs will face off against the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday, February 11. It is unknown if Swift will attend as she has an Eras Tour concert in Tokyo the night before.
