Malachy Clerkin: The machine finally got Tiger Woods, and it now has Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift in its sights.

As the paper of record, it’s only fitting that we present you with a little archaeological certitude this Super Bowl weekend. In the next decades, historians will sift through these events to determine the precise moment when the streams of sport and celebrity crossed for good. The point beyond which there would be no turning back.

This column is happy to spare them a lot of trouble and notify them that it was the night of September 24th, 2023, about 10.30pm GMT. For that was the hour when this columnist’s wife popped her head through the living room door and innocently said, “Does the name Travis Kelce mean anything to you?”

She is no longer a sporting agnostic. Far from it, indeed. But, as a sports journalist, she is subjected to an inordinate quantity of it. In terms of for-better-for-worse, it’s pointless to pretend that a DVR filled with past McKenna Cup matches is the better end of the bargain.

There is only so much a reasonable person can tolerate. The NFL exists, perfectly appropriately, but it is just a little beyond her interest level. So when she enquired about the Kansas City Chiefs tight end in September, you knew things had changed. And, quite frankly, when you started to worry about poor Travis K.

That was the night Taylor Swift attended her first Chiefs game, sparking a worldwide stir online. And as the camera switched to her and his mother up in their suite, you had to wonder if Kelce realized what he was getting himself into.

Could he really understand what it took to reach that degree of stardom, to plunge headfirst into the tsunami of fame? When the Chiefs faced the New York Jets a week later, an additional two million women reportedly tuned in across America. For the stinky, useless, boring-as-dung Jets! That’s some serious pulling power.

Kelce was already well-known as a generational player at his position. But he was also known outside of the sport. He had appeared in an off-season reality show. He’d started a modestly successful podcast with his brother Jason, who was also an NFL player. In a sport when everyone wears a helmet, he was one of the most identifiable figures.

But famous? No. Taylor Swift is renowned. Travis Kelce is not very well-known. At least he wasn’t.

If you spend any time in the United States, you will be confident of one thing. There is no monetary value to becoming famous in America. Gary Smith realized this when he wrote one of the most famous works of sportswriting ever, a Tiger Woods feature for Sports Illustrated in 1996.

It was a lengthy, in-depth reflection on what it would be like for Woods, who was only 20 years old at the time, “to wander, lost, through the sad and silly wilderness of modern fame”. Smith wrote, “Can you hear the grinding just below or within the applause?” That’s the constant chewing machinery of fame, preparing to ground the purity and promise of dust.”

Tiger Woods rose to become the world’s most famous and dominant sportsperson. Photo: Fred Vuich/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images.)
For a long time later, Woods mocked the Sports Illustrated essay. He rose to become the world’s most famous and dominant sportsperson. Over the next decade and a half, his progress was so peaceful that it became all too easy to reject the work as overdone and disconnected from reality. Right until it wasn’t.

at April 2010, I was at Augusta for Tiger Woods’ Masters comeback. He hadn’t played in public since November, when accusations about extramarital affairs made him the number one story in America. The New York Post featured him on the front page for 20 days in a row, breaking their previous record of 19 consecutive days for 9/11.

The Masters was his re-entry, and being there during that week was extraordinary. Everything was Tiger-themed. There was a pawnbroker across from the front gate who sold jewelry at bargain prices, and all week a guy waited outside wearing a sandwich board that read: “Pulled a Tiger?” Let us smooth things out for you!”

On one of the days, a plane soared over the course, screaming: “Sex addict?” Yes, right. “Me, too!” On another occasion, a security guard approached a woman in the crowd and said, “Excuse me, Ma’am, are you the stripper?” because he was concerned that one of Tiger’s ex-girlfriends would confront him on the course.

For a variety of reasons, Woods has never been the same since. The sad and stupid wilderness of fame eventually caught up with him. All of this altered him, arguably for the better. Nonetheless, the machine triumphed.

The images on the prayer candles are of Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs and Taylor Swift. Photo: Chase Castor/New York Times
The machine now has Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift in its gears. Their burgeoning romance has been one of the NFL season’s standout stories, undeniably entertaining. For starters, it has irritated the correct people – Fox News and all the MAGA weirdos have been frothing over it for months. For another, it has coincided with a significant improvement in Kelce’s performance on the field. One in the eye for the ungrateful pundit class, who quickly jumped on Swift’s attendance and declared her a distraction.

But overall, it’s been entertaining to watch Kelce handle the situation with such ease and humor. During the Super Bowl media day this week, he never complained about how many questions he received regarding his personal life. “I think it’s fair,” he remarked. “I mean, everyone’s having fun with it. It isn’t like you [the media] are always teeing off on me. “Everyone is having a good time with it, so how could I be upset?”

When he was asked the expected pundit-drone question about how the whole thing was a distraction, he turned it around. “It’s only given me energy,” he explained. “I consider myself really fortunate to be in my current situation and to have such wonderful opportunities. It would be foolish of me to see anything negative in what is happening.”

Good on him. And excellent for them. The machine is grinding away, as we all know. But, for the time being, she is the world’s biggest popstar, and he is about to attempt to become only the ninth tight end in history to win three Super Bowl championships.

With a little luck, the machine should be able to fight this time around.