Fans Express Confusion About Ed Sheeran Headlining NFL Kickoff 2021

British love songwriter Ed Sheeran was announced to be headlining the NFL kickoff on August 6.

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The NFL has also dropped an expensive merch line in collaboration with Sheeran featuring baseball hats, t-shirts and a varsity-style jacket. In place of typical logos is the singer’s last name, plastered above the NFL crest. Football fans and Sheeran fans alike expressed confusion about the singer’s collaboration with the NFL. Twitter users noted that there seemed to be a great disparity between Sheeran’s typically slow, love ballads and football’s rugged image.

The singer performed at the kickoff to a lackluster reaction. In response to the NFL’s tweets about the event, Twitter fans responded tepidly to Sheeran’s performance.

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Although Sheeran is wildly successful commercially, with multiple songs hitting record numbers and “Shape of You” being the highest-streamed song on Spotify, he has been the subject of internet ridicule on platforms such as TikTok.