Prayer candles adorned with the faces of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift gaze out from shop windows. Chiefs flags flutter on car windows zipping down highways. Red clothing appears to be mandatory.
Kansas City, Mo., has lost its mind, and happily so.
Its beloved Chiefs are headed to the Super Bowl on Sunday, the team’s fourth trip in five years. This time, what has propelled a usually down-to-earth city into a heightened state of euphoria is the glittery presence of Ms. Swift, who since last summer has been dating Mr. Kelce, the Chiefs’ star tight end, and occupying a regular place at football games, restaurants in Kansas City and Mr. Kelce’s $6 million mansion in the suburbs.
Most important in the minds of Kansas City residents is a Super Bowl victory over the San Francisco 49ers. But they are tantalized by possibilities beyond the game.
Could Kansas City, a place that is often left out of the national conversation, see its fortunes and economy buoyed because of Ms. Swift? Is the couple considering an engagement, as many residents are hoping?
Might the most famous woman in the world actually move to the Midwest, a region that people on the coasts frequently (and unfairly) portray as a vast, amorphous blob of blandness?
“Kansas City has needed this oomph for a while,” said a beaming Deanna Martin, 75, of Olathe, Kan., as she strolled through Kansas City with her husband, Don, this week. “It will bring young people in.”
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