Mike North says the NFL doesn’t strategically schedule games around Taylor Swift tour dates

Taylor Swift’s global dominance is such that the NFL, which will happily overpower other sports on days previously sacred to them — the NBA on Christmas Day and college football on Black Friday — has to take Swift into consideration when it comes to her return to the United States to wrap up her “Eras Tour.”

NFL vice president of broadcast planning Mike North said last week the league needed to factor in her U.S. tour dates when making the 2024 season schedule on a conference call, per Fox Sports. There’s no way a star of her stature is rescheduling her tour for anything less than a natural disaster.

However, North downplayed his previous comments about Swift’s overall influence on the 2024 league schedule.

“She [Swift] had a bigger influence on my niece Gabby’s bat mitzvah last weekend — it was Gabby’s version so there was a lot of Taylor being played at the bat mitzvah. … She had a bigger influence on the bat mitzvah than she had on our schedule,” North said on “The Adam Schefter Podcast.”

Swift is set to have concerts at Hard Rock Stadium, the home of the Miami Dolphins, three days in a row from Friday Oct. 18 through Sunday Oct. 20. She will then travel to New Orleans for three consecutive days of shows at the Caesars Superdome, the New Orleans Saints’ home field, from Friday Oct. 25 through Sunday Oct. 27. The final leg of her U.S. return wraps up at Lucas Oil Stadium, the home of the Indianapolis Colts, from Friday Nov. 1 through Sunday Nov. 3.

The NFL made sure to send Miami north to Indianapolis to play the Colts in Week 7 (Sunday, Oct. 20), New Orleans out west to Los Angeles to play the Chargers in Week 8 (Sunday, Oct. 27) and Indianapolis northwest to Minnesota to face the Vikings in Week 9 (Sunday, Nov. 3).

“Look, we know she is touring still, right? So there’s a tour date in Miami, Indianapolis, and one more maybe, New Orleans or something like that,” North said. “When those teams submitted their scheduling forms at the start, they said, ‘Hey, here’s everything we want: open at home, close at home, midseason bye, don’t give us a three-game road trip.’ All the things they normally say, and also ‘Our stadium’s hopefully not available to you NFL in Week 8 because we have an event going on.’

“Obviously we knew it was a Taylor Swift concert. As best we could, we try to accommodate whether it’s Taylor Swift or Green Day or Billy Joel or Ed Sheeran or Pink or Lady Gaga or anybody else out on tour,” North continued. “We know these buildings are used for things other than NFL football. To the extent that the Dolphins, the Saints and the Colts each had one weekend this year where they had hoped to be on the road or [on] bye, Taylor Swift impacted the NFL schedule.”

Swift happens to be in Toronto performing at the Rogers Centre, home of the MLB’s Toronto Blue Jays, from Nov. 14 through 16 and Nov. 21 through 23. Coincidentally, the NFL scheduled the two-time Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs to play in Buffalo against the Bills in Week 11 on Sunday at 4:25 p.m. ET on CBS when she doesn’t have a concert. That would make it a breeze for Swift to make the just over two-hour drive that separates the Rogers Centre and Highmark Stadium, the home of the Bills, should she want to see her boyfriend and Chiefs All-Pro tight end Travis Kelce play in person. She did attend Kansas City’s AFC divisional round playoff game in Buffalo last season.

North denied the NFL scheduled the Chiefs vs. Bills showdown in Buffalo for Week 11 to accommodate Swift and her tour.