During the Kansas City Chiefs’ game against the Denver Broncos on Sunday, NFL aggregation accounts on Twitter/X started sharing a story that essentially said, “NFL referee Sarah Thomas met with Taylor Swift before the game and FaceTimed her family during the meeting.”
If true, that’s not a good look because Swift, of course, is dating Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce, and Thomas was working the Broncos-Chiefs game on Sunday. The story might have been a bit exaggerated, though.
First, note that NFL officials are commonly all lumped into the “referee” category even though there’s technically only one “referee” on the crew, the lead official. Technically, Thomas is a “down judge,” but colloquially, fans dub them all referees.
Second, the accounts all linked back to KSNT 27 News. That’s a legitimate news station in Northeast Kansas, but they did not write a story on Swift’s exchange with Thomas. All the hoopla linked back to one tweet from Landon Reinhardt, who works for the station.
“Sarah Thomas, the down judge (ref) for today’s Chiefs/Broncos game, briefly met with Taylor Swift before the game,” Reinhardt tweeted on Sunday. “She was on FaceTime with family and I heard her say, ‘Did you get that screenshot?'”
