2025-08-18
Taylor Swift said she's obsessed with sourdough. Why fans think that means she's performing at the Super Bowl
Hours before Taylor Swift’s episode of “New Heights” dropped, the songstress teased a special surprise for fans through her website.Accompanying a countdown the night of Aug. 13, a series of colored locks popped up at the bottom of the site. Dedicated Swift fans knew: Something was coming.The colored locks — orange, red, blue and silver — turned out to be deluxe editions of her previously announced 12th studio, “The Life of a Showgirl.” Many online users predicted this, and when 7 p.m. ET rolled around, they were proven right.Now, after listening closely, zooming in on Swift’s background and crunching some numbers, fans think the “New Heights” episode has even more Easter eggs, which are subtle hints at her next big musical or career move.Swifties have since formulated a big theory: The international pop sensation will perform at the Super Bowl halftime show.The halftime performer for the 2026 Super Bowl has not yet been announced, so all fan theories are pure speculation at this point. (For context, Kendrick Lamar was announced as the Apple Music Super Bowl 59 Halftime Show performer Sept. 8, 2024.)What we do know is that the 2026 Super Bowl marks the 60th NFL championship, and the game will be played at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, on Feb. 8, 2026. Levi’s Stadium is home to the San Francisco 49ers.Below, we break down three “clues” that some Swift fans are latching onto as they try to predict what’s ahead for the singer.All that sourdough talkSwift’s “New Heights” episode featured a rare look inside the singer’s life. Speaking with the co-hosts — her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, and his brother, Jason Kelce — she spilled on the beginning of her high-profile romance with the footballer, discussed the recent purchase of her master recordings and finally, previewed her upcoming 12th album.She also dished on her daily life outside of performing for millions, admitting that she has “granny” hobbies, which, in her words, “could be categorized as hobbies you could have had in the 1700s.”Specifically, she was eager to talk about baking sourdough bread, and revealed some of the flavors she’s made, including cinnamon swirl, blueberry lemon and Funfetti.“I’m really talking about bread 60% of the time now,” Swift said.Swift is know for being very intentional with her words and actions. For example: She teased that her 11th album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” would actually be a double album by pointedly holding up two fingers during her Grammys acceptance speech in February 2024. She subtly confirmed the Easter egg when she announced the double album on Instagram and included a peace sign emoji.Kansas City Chiefs10 hours agoPatrick Mahomes reveals his skeptical reaction to Travis Kelce's relationship with Taylor SwiftTaylor SwiftAug 15It's a new era for Taylor Swift, and big corporations are quick to join in on the funCelebrity NewsAug 12Travis Kelce reveals what Taylor Swift and Donna Kelce have in commonIn a similar vein, intrepid Swifties quickly connected a few dots from this sourdough conversation.They theorized that 60% might not have been a random number, and instead could have been a reference to Super Bowl 60. Plus, the mascot for the San Francisco 49ers, the home team of Super Bowl 60’s Levi’s Stadium, is none other than a gold miner named ... Sourdough Sam.The official TikTok account for the 49ers has joined in on the fun. The team posted a TikTok amid the flurry of speculation, a video of Levi’s Stadium’s exterior set to the memorable line of dialogue from “Jersey Shore,” “What’s going on here? Why is everyone acting weird towards me?”“weird that 4+9 is...13,” one user commented on the post, referring to a number long associated with Swift.Crunching the numbersIn addition to a passing mention of 60%, Swifties also clocked a few other seemingly random numbers the singer mentioned during her two-hour “New Heights” interview. At the start, she thanked Jason Kelce for his enthusiastic introduction, saying, “Thank you for screaming for, like, 47 seconds for me.”Later in the episode, when asked how many countries she performed the “Eras Tour” in, she answered: 47,000. (The actual answer is 21 countries.)Some fans dug into that number and realized that the 47th show of Swift’s record-breaking “Eras Tour” was at Levi’s Stadium.They also pointed out that adding Swift’s lucky number, 13 — the “New Heights” episode fittingly dropped on Aug. 13 — to 47, they equal 60. Plus, the 2025-2026 NFL season will mark Swift’s beau Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce’s 13th season.To fans’ credit, Swift said on the podcast that when it comes to planting an Easter egg, “I love numerology. I love math stuff. I love dates.”“I’m never going to plant an Easter egg that ties back to my personal life,” Swift added. “It’s always going to be toward music or something I’m coming up with, something I have coming up, a plan I have coming together — something that you don’t know that I’m saying for a specific reason that you’ll hear later and you’ll go back and be like, ‘Oh my god.’”A glimpse of a Super Bowl trophyThen, there’s the background of the “New Heights” podcast. Swift and Travis Kelce recorded the podcast together and sat in front of a bookshelf that we already know was filled with Easter eggs.In the background, fans spotted four boxes in orange, red, blue and silver, labeled with “T.S.” on the front. Like the locks on the website, we now know those boxes represented the four deluxe editions of “The Life of the Showgirl.”Also on the shelf? A statue resembling the iconic Vince Lombardi trophy, awarded to each year’s Super Bowl champs. (An important note: Both Travis Kelce and Jason Kelce have won the Super Bowl with their respective NFL teams, so spying that trophy isn’t necessarily out of the ordinary.)The trophy is positioned on the shelf on its side, which some fans argue could be a play on it being “halfway,” ergo, a wink at the halftime show.“I want Easter eggs to be a certain thing, where if you are a part of the fandom and you want to experience music in a normal way, then you don’t even see these,” Swift said during the podcast. “You don’t even care what that thing is above that doorway, under that dimly lit flickering light over there that’s upside down in Braille. You don’t need to know what that is.”During that moment, some TikTok users slowed down the footage of Swift and think she may have pointing to the trophy and purposefully leaning to the side to put it in view.This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:Patrick Mahomes admits he was skeptical at 1st about Travis Kelce dating Taylor SwiftTaylor Swift calls these 2 women her ‘pillars of support’ during football seasonTaylor Swift spills her sourdough secrets and Travis Kelce shares his favorite flavor
