Claim of Travis Kelce fine for anthem kneel started as satire | Fact check

An Aug. 19 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) includes two images of Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce, with one showing him on one knee.
“Travis Kelce Kneels During National Anthem, Fined $10 Million and Thrown Out Of The Game,” text in the image reads.
The post was shared more than 4,000 times in three days. Similar versions also circulated widely on Facebook.
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The claim originated months earlier as satire, though the Facebook post gives no indication of that. There are no credible reports from 2024 that Kelce knelt during the anthem or was ejected or fined for any reason.
Already one of the most productive tight ends in NFL history and a three-time Super Bowl champion, Kelce raised his profile far beyond the football field with his romantic relationship with music superstar Taylor Swift.
But he was not ejected from a game or fined $10 million for kneeling for the national anthem, as the post asserts. The claim – which does not specify when the supposed action took place – is rooted in an article published in 2023 by a satirical website and labeled that way.
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The first comment on the Facebook post links to an article posted to a disreputable website that is nearly a word-for-word copy of one published by SpaceXMania on Oct. 19, 2023, and clearly labeled as satire. Tim Lawson, who publishes SpaceXMania, confirmed to USA TODAY that the story is a fabrication.
The image of Kelce kneeling in the Facebook post was captured in 2018 during a training camp practice – not before a game. While there is no credible evidence Kelce knelt during the anthem before either of the Chiefs’ first two preseason games in 2024, he did join his teammates in the protest in 2017. A year later, the NFL instituted a policy prohibiting players from kneeling during the anthem but allowing them to remain in the locker room during it. The league then reversed that decision in 2020.
Kelce has been kicked out of a game only once in his career, according to a website that tracks penalties assessed to NFL players. He was ejected from a 2016 victory over Jacksonville for throwing a towel at a game official while arguing a call. The $24,000 fine he received remains the largest of his career, according to Spotrac’s database of player fines.
Not on that list: the purported $10 million fine referenced in the post – a sum that would double the size of the largest player fine in NFL history. Cleveland Browns quarterback DeShaun Watson was fined $5 million as part of a settlement that stemmed from sexual misconduct allegations from two dozen female massage therapists. No other player has been fined more than $1 million, according to the Spotrac database.
The Facebook post is an example of what could be called “stolen satire,” where content written as satire and presented that way originally is reposted in a way that makes it appear to be legitimate news. As a result, readers of the second-generation post are misled, as was the case here.
The national debate about players kneeling during the anthem began in 2016 when former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee to protest racial inequality. Since then, athletes across sports who protested in similar ways have, at times,faced public criticism.
USA TODAY previously debunked an array of false claims centered on anthem protests, including false assertions that NFL coaches voted to ban kneeling, that Kelce refused coach Andy Reid’s order to kneel and that the University of Texas revoked three players’ scholarships for kneeling.
USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the claim but did not immediately receive a response.
PolitiFact also debunked the claim.
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