When the Kansas City Chiefs storm onto the field of the Louisiana Superdome in search of a historic third-straight Super Bowl victory, Taylor Swift will be watching — and the cameras will be watching Swift.
Already a superstar in her own right, Swift's relationship with Chiefs' tight end Travis Kelce led to her becoming the NFL's most famous WAG, seemingly overnight.
WAGs (the wives and girlfriends of professional athletes) were once relentlessly targeted by the tabloids and copped just as much flack — if not more — than their partners on the pitch.
But decades later, a new generation of women are connecting with fans and becoming some of sport's most valuable players.
The new WAG
The term "WAG" was coined by the British tabloids in the early 2000s and boomed in popularity during the 2006 World Cup.
Victoria Beckham (then Adams), Coleen Rooney (then McLoughlin) and Cheryl Tweedy (formerly Cole), were regular tabloid fodder while their footballer husbands filled the sports pages.
Despite Victoria Beckham being one-fifth of the biggest girl group at the time, the Spice Girls, she was still denigrated to a three-letter acronym.
"I wasn't one of these girls who would be interested in footballers because they're famous," Victoria says in Netflix's docuseries Beckham.
"I don't mean this in an arrogant way but I had that myself."
Nearly two decades later, the world of WAGs has shifted.
"The old definition of WAG was, 'Oh, I'm a kept b****,'" says Porsha Berto, wife of former boxer Andre Berto, in Netflix's new series W.A.G.s to Riches.
"But now I'm making my money. That's the new WAG."
Whether they are hosting podcasts or publishing books, WAGs are not just sitting on the sidelines.
When Jason Kelce's wife, Kylie Kelce, launched her own podcast in December last year, her debut episode unseated The Joe Rogan Experience as the top-ranked show in the United States.
Ms Kelce, who has 2.4 million Instagram followers, sold her Not Gonna Lie podcast as a place to chat directly to her fans about parenting, entertainment and sport.
Other wives have tapped into the booming romance genre: Alexa Martin, who is married to former footballer Derrick Martin, has published several NFL-themed novels, while Lexi LaFleur Brown, partner of former ice hockey player JT Brown, will publish Shoot Your Shot in 2025.
Along with Netflix's W.A.G.s to Riches, Amazon has also renewed Married to the Game, its British docuseries following the wives and girlfriends of Premier League footballers.
But football is not the only sport where the partners of players have built their own platforms.
'The most famous woman in men's tennis'
When Taylor Fritz, now America's top-ranked tennis player, posed for a portrait for the New York Times, the accompanying article was profiling his girlfriend-turned-influencer, Morgan Riddle.
"The most famous woman in men's tennis" was how the New York Times dubbed the 27-year-old, who accompanies Fritz on tour and documents her life for her hundreds of thousands of followers.
"I feel like what we've built is more like a team," Fritz says in Netflix's tennis docuseries Break Point.
As Ms Riddle's online presence has grown, so too has the media's interest, with British Vogue hailing her as "the Chanel-clad tennis WAG elevating Wimbledon's fashion game".
Tour organisers have been quick to snap her up, with Ms Riddle hosting Wimbledon Threads last year, a web series in which she roves the grounds of the All England Club asking the most-stylish punters what they're wearing.
Grace Barber, one of the Wimbledon Threads producers, told the New York Times she suspected working with Ms Riddle would be a "train wreck" before being surprised.
"She's got a really clear directive, creatively, of where she wants to go. She's got a plan," she said.
For Dr Kasey Symons, a lecturer in communication, sports media at Deakin University and a co-founder of Siren: A Women in Sport Collective, Ms Riddle's success makes sense.
"The growth of the internet, social media and online platforms has not only helped partners of professional athletes connect to and build their own audiences but has also allowed for other diverse media reporting and coverage of partners," she told ABC News.
"From blogs, independent media platforms and influencers, there is a wider dialogue now than when only a few outlets gave a voice to what they thought should be the narrative, which often alienated and excluded women from the male domain of sport."
However, the extent of Ms Riddle's media exposure is still intrinsically linked to how well her partner performs on the court.
When Fritz was knocked out of the 2023 Wimbledon tournament in the second round, the web series producers had to publish all episodes quicker than originally planned.
And if Fritz's season performance doesn't fit Netflix's narrative, the couple won't be featured in future seasons of Break Point.
For all of Fritz's success, it still doesn't make Ms Riddle immune from trolls.
"I get so much hate," she told Tatler.
"But people are allowed to have their opinions."
In her WAG era
Misogyny in sport is nothing new.
When David Beckham was red carded during the 1998 World Cup (England then lost to Argentina in a penalty shoot-out). fans threw vitriolic hate at both Posh and Becks.
An effigy of David was hung outside a London pub, while thousands of fans screamed vile chants at Victoria when she attended future games.
"We did not know what to do," Victoria recalls in the series Beckham.
"It felt like we were drowning."
When Taylor Swift started attending Travis Kelce's NFL games, the superstar was booed by fans on more than one occasion when the cameras cut to her.
"There's a camera, like, a half-mile away, and you don't know where it is, and you have no idea when the camera is putting you in the broadcast, so I don't know if I'm being shown 17 times or once," Swift told Time Magazine when she was deemed their 2023 Person of the Year.
Swift had just 54 seconds of screen time during last year's Super Bowl, for which the entire broadcast lasted 4 hours and 8 minutes, according to the Associated Press.
"I'm just there to support Travis," she said.
"I have no awareness of if I'm being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads, and Chads."
Dr Symons said the power of social media was the key difference between the fans' and media's treatment of WAGs now compared with 20 years ago.
"While there is still negative media coverage of partners today, there is a slightly more democratised approach to media where more voices can add other perspectives and also galvanise communities to rally behind people that they think are being targeted or victimised by popular media," she said.
"There is more of a sense of community and solidarity because it is easier to find and link like-minded people through technology.
"I think the progress we're seeing with the coverage of and success of some partners is because of these communities leveraging their collective voice to challenge mainstream media when that coverage is negative and misogynist."
