American Eagle shares rise on retailer’s Travis Kelce partnership

Shares of American Eagle rose Wednesday morning after the apparel company announced a collaboration with football star Travis Kelce, just a day after he proposed to singer Taylor Swift.

The stock was up roughly 5% in early trading.

Kelce’s sportswear brand, Tru Kolors, is launching a limited-edition collaboration with American Eagle, pairing the jeans brand with Kelce’s picks, including vintage-inspired T-shirts and “reimagined” varsity jackets. The collaboration was more than a year in the making, Kelce said, but the announcement came just a day after his proposal caused a global internet stir among fans.

“It was an awesome opportunity to team up with an established brand where both sides were excited to truly collaborate on every decision in the design and creative process that brought the ‘AE x TK’ collection to life,” Kelce, the creative director of the collection, said in a statement.

The new pieces are launching in two drops on Wednesday and on Sept. 24.

American Eagle wasn’t the only stock to get a bump from the NFL star’s engagement announcement this week. Shares of Signet Jewelers popped briefly following the proposal as fans focused on Swift’s “cushion cut” engagement ring.

Other companies wasted no time in using the proposal to promote their products, such as Domino’s, Grubhub and Solidcore, among others.

Kelce’s American Eagle collaboration comes after the jeans brand announced a collaboration with actress Sydney Sweeney in July. That team-up captivated the internet over what some critics deemed a tone-deaf campaign for its wordplay of good “jeans” and “genes.”

Shares of the company soared in a meme-stock fashion after the Sweeney promos were unveiled, aided by President Donald Trump calling the campaign the “hottest ad out there.”

The stock is up about 20% since mid-July.