{"id":410241,"date":"2025-11-28T08:44:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T08:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/410241\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T08:44:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T08:44:20","slug":"even-without-taylor-swift-cowboys-chiefs-was-a-crowd-pleaser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/410241\/","title":{"rendered":"Even without Taylor Swift, Cowboys-Chiefs was a crowd-pleaser"},"content":{"rendered":"

ARLINGTON \u2014 The fans<\/a> \u2014 a sea of blue-and-white, red-and-yellow jerseys \u2014 faced forward, eyes locked on the West entrance of AT&T Stadium. A thin rope stood between the horde and their destiny: the Thanksgiving showdown<\/a> between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Dallas Cowboys. <\/p>\n

An AT&T employee, Juan Alvarez, eyeing the brouhaha, took cover in a crevice by his post. Then, like a dam giving way, the rope fell. The ticketholders, the standing-room-only flock, lurched forward into the building \u2014 a sea of flailing limbs \u2014 in pursuit of a view for the game. An iPhone discarded on the floor here, a plush star-shaped item abandoned (briefly) there. Each team\u2019s cheers filled the air, a sonic tug-of-war. <\/p>\n

\u201cA lady broke her ankle right in front of me,\u201d Ariana Franklin, another AT&T employee, said, recalling a previous game. \u201cI had to wheel her away,\u201d she added, returning then to answer questions from fans. <\/p>\n

Before the game\u2019s end, which saw the Cowboys prevail<\/a> 31-28 in a back-and-forth game, optimism was high in the stadium among both the home and visiting team\u2019s fan bases. <\/p>\n

News Roundups<\/p>\n

Catch up on the day’s news you need to know.<\/p>\n

By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n

When asked who he thought would win, Alvarez, a fan, said the Cowboys. Why? \u201cThey have to,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Turkey Day Triumph: See photos from Cowboys’ Thanksgiving Day win over Chiefs<\/p>\n

\"DallasView GallerySwift no-shows<\/p>\n

To get it out of the way: pop phenom Taylor Swift<\/a> appeared to be a no-show. Speculation swirled for weeks over whether she\u2019d make an appearance. Would Swift emerge on the halftime stage for a scintillating, surprise \u201cFortnight\u201d duet with headliner Post Malone? No, she did not. <\/p>\n

The media and gossip blogs have been spellbound by all things Swift since her teenage days as an earnest country crooner, but interest in her personal life and music has reached new heights now that the singer is engaged to Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce \u2014 a dizzying match of stardom. When Swift has watched Kelce\u2019s home games at the Arrowhead Stadium this season, she largely has slipped under the radar. <\/p>\n

The Dallas Morning News\u2019 Tim Cowlishaw posed with a cardboard cutout of the singer before the game. Farewell to the elaborate seat Jerry Jones promised to bestow upon Swift, if she attended. The cutout may have been the closest North Texans got to spotting Swift this Thanksgiving. <\/p>\n

A pricey game \u2013 still worth it<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s Thanksgiving matchup was the most expensive in recent memory. Tickets were priced on average at $546, but the experience of seeing their beloved teams play appeared to outweigh the cost for some fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo see it live versus seeing it on TV it was more than I expected,\u201d said Rhonda Thompson, 54. It was her first time at a football game in person. Was it worth it? \u201cHell yeah!\u201d said her husband, JC Thompson. The pair flew in from Atlanta. Rhonda praised the camaraderie she felt both with other Cowboys\u2019 supporters and the Chiefs\u2019 base. \u201cThis is my favorite Thanksgiving,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Dallas resident Jordyn Swingle was rooting for the Chiefs \u2013 a lone wolf sporting red and yellow in her group of friends who were decked out in Cowboys paraphernalia. Despite her team\u2019s loss, buying the ticket was worth it for her. Once Swingle heard about the matchup \u2014 it didn\u2019t matter what time of day it was, she said, she knew she\u2019d be coming. \u201cWas it worth my mom\u2019s wrath for not being at Thanksgiving?\u201d she added, though, \u201cthat is still to be determined.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lure of sports fandom even extended beyond the country\u2019s borders. Robert Lawrence, 44, and Lee Borthwick, 44, touched down in North Texas on Wednesday after flying in from northeast England \u2014 a journey that was roughly 18 hours long, they said. The reason behind the trek was simple \u2013 they love sports. Borthwick, who developed an interest in football when he lived in Washington D.C., said in the United Kingdom his Saturday afternoons are for soccer and Sunday afternoons for the NFL.<\/p>\n

Entertainment spectacle<\/p>\n

Even without a Swift appearance, the night contained entertainment elsewhere. For one, the Cowboys franchise \u2014 overlords of America\u2019s Team and America\u2019s Sweethearts \u2014 ran a tightly choreographed show per usual. The Rhythm & Blue hip-hop team entertained visitors on one concourse, with dancers moving to the uptempo beats of the team\u2019s drumline. <\/p>\n

Then, there was Malone\u2019s halftime show<\/a>. The Grapevine-raised singer, whose career was forged through a slew of hit rap and pop singles, has waded into country music in the last year with a 2024 album F-1 Trillion cementing the crossover. <\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\"Post<\/p>\n

His set, short of 8 minutes, contained singles \u201cWrong Ones\u201d and \u201cI Had Some Help\u201d off that project and a bluesy rendition of an older hit \u201cWow.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cPost can do no wrong around here, I\u2019m really not exaggerating,\u201d Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said after the game, as he held up a turkey leg. \u201cPost was a good show. He\u2019s great. The main thing is our relationship with Post Malone is fitting. You guys know it but he literally did sleep on a cot for many years over at the old stadium. Now he\u2019s the real deal now,\u201d Jones continued, alluding to a time when a young Malone, then known as Austin Post, tagged along with his dad, a former Cowboys employee.<\/p>\n

Staff Writer Calvin Watkins contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

Find more Cowboys coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/b><\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON \u2014 The fans \u2014 a sea of blue-and-white, red-and-yellow jerseys \u2014 faced forward, eyes locked on the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":410242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,59853,1596,8998,5546,3571,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-410241","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-att-stadium","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-dallas-cowboys","12":"tag-pop-culture","13":"tag-taylor-swift","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-tx","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115626447499001410","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}