The Mad Dog has a bone to pick with CBS.
Speaking on his SiriusXM show on Monday, Chris Russo was unhappy with how many times CBS’ Super Bowl 2024 telecast showed Taylor Swift cheering on her boyfriend, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
“They overdid it yesterday,” Russo said, as covered by Awful Announcing.
“I mean, I don’t care if it’s only a split-second. They must’ve gone to that suite for Taylor Swift 9,000 times—way over the top. And I’m not one of those…Listen, I think it’s too much. I’m not that into it. I do think that’s a caring relationship, which I don’t think it’s fake; that I like.
“I’ve seen it again on the field; I think there’s a future there, but they went to her way, way too many times. I didn’t count the amount of shots to that suite — it had to be 10 or 12 in the course of the game.”
Russo’s guesstimate was correct — one report indicated that Swift was shown 12 times for a total of 54 seconds.
This was too much for Russo.
“It’s way over the top…It’s not so much the length; it’s just going to [her suite],” Russo continued.
“All they have to do is go there for a second. And if you only go there for 38 seconds, that means you can still go there 25 times — each time is a second and a half. ‘Hey, there she is! Oh, there she is! Kelce caught a ball; there she is. Chiefs are driving; there she is. Got her fingers crossed; there she is! I mean, it was just way too much.”
Russo acknowledged Swift’s crossover appeal but lamented the game’s presentation straying away from the “football audience”.
“Listen, I know she’s a huge superstar. The New York Post put her on…the front page, ‘Welcome to Sin City,’ with Taylor Swift on the cover, all amongst the over participants in Super Bowl 58. So, you can make an argument they’re guilty, too,” he said.
“But this is CBS, and I understand you gotta show a little Taylor Swift, but they want way over the top. That’s my take. Now, you guys might feel differently, and if you’re a 13-year-old girl out there, or my daughter, for that matter, who cares; you can’t get enough of this. 13-year-old girls, 14-year-old and 17-year-old girls, and 23-year-old girls like Kiera Russo, they’re not football fans — they’re Taylor Swift fans. This is supposed to be a football audience, and it was way, way over the top.”
