Hallmark movies generally fall outside the purview of Awful Announcing. But not on this day.
Remember that Hallmark movie that plays off the real-life love affair between Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and generational musician Taylor Swift? Well, it debuted on Saturday night to a huge audience.
Per Programming Insider, Hallmark’s original movie Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story opened to a whopping 2.88 million viewers on Saturday. That was good for the most-watched show on cable that night and the second-most-watched show on television behind only the Texas-Texas A&M game on ABC (9.46 million viewers).
The movie debut ranked ahead of five other college football games in the primetime window, including Wasington-Oregon on NBC (2.57 million viewers), Oklahoma-LSU on ESPN (2.09 million viewers), Kansas State-Iowa State on Fox (2.01 million viewers), Florida-Florida State on ESPN2 (1.38 million viewers), and Purdue-Indiana on FS1 (717,000 viewers).
Now, it should be noted that the film isn’t a direct ripoff of the Kelce-Swift relationship. In fact, the movie’s protagonists are neither a football player nor a musician but are instead Chiefs superfan Alana and the franchise’s Director of Fan Engagement, Derrick.
If you missed the film’s debut on Saturday, fret not. An encore presentation will air tonight at 8:00 p.m. ET on Hallmark and presumably at other points throughout the rest of December.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.