At this point no man, woman or business can resist the infectious hype that is billionaire musician Taylor Swift’s relationship with football star Travis Kelce—and American Airlines is no exception.
The internet is alight with photographs of Swift celebrating with Kelce after his team, the Kansas City Chiefs, defeated the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday to secure a spot in the Super Bowl on February 11 against the San Francisco 49ers.
And it seems American Airlines is backing the couple just as much as their fans, after the carrier added two Super Bowl flights to their roster with a hidden nod to each of the celebrities.
On February 10, flight AA 1989 will fly from Kansas City to Las Vegas in time for the Super Bowl, with flight AA 87 returning on February 12. Eagle-eyed fans spotted the reference, first to Swift’s nine-time platinum album named 1989 and then to Kelce’s jersey number 87.
The airline’s marketing team was labeled “genius” by social media users and began responding to comments with lyrics from Swift’s songs.
When one fan picked up on the hint, American Airlines replied: “We don’t wanna keep secrets, but we can only say that we’re in our football era. For tonight, anyway.”
To another, the business responded: “What if we told you none of this was accidental…”
“Are you ready for it?” they asked another.
In response to Fortune’s request for comment, American Airlines added: “We just can’t shake it off.”
The company may be hoping for an uptick in interest courtesy of Swifties—a famously dedicated fandom—after they drove massive gains for other organizations.
In November Forbes reported viewing figures for the football league is up 53% for female viewers aged 12 to 17 and up 34% for females above the age of 35, compared to the season-to-date average of Sunday Night Football.
Likewise, Heinz created a “Ketchup and Seemingly Ranch” sauce in October, after a Swift fan account went viral for analyzing the star’s meal as she watched a Chiefs game from a suite.
The Swift effect
However the “Love Story” singer isn’t just helping brands create fun marketing opportunities, she’s proven to be something of an economic phenomenon.
The Pennsylvania singer, now estimated to be worth $1.1 billion by Forbes, has certainly got fans on Wall Street.
In November a research note from BTIG landed in inboxes with the title “Now We Got Bad Blood.”
The day before, one from Goldman Sachs’s David Kostin led with “All You Had To Do Was Stay”—both references to Swift’s songs.
Indeed, the 34-year-old Eras Tour was the first ever to cross $1 billion in total revenue, and was so economically seismic the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found the month of her concert was the best for hotels in the area since the start of the pandemic.
The response was so large that Swift also found herself name-dropped by the Fed, which wrote in its Beige Book—a summary and analysis of recent economic conditions—in July: “Despite the slowing recovery in tourism in the region overall, one contact highlighted that May was the strongest month for hotel revenue in Philadelphia since the onset of the pandemic, in large part due to an influx of guests for the Taylor Swift concerts in the city.”
As Steve Sosnick, the chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, puts it: “She’s an economic force—ask [Federal Reserve chairman] Jay Powell—and a true phenomenon. I wonder if this was what Beatlemania was like.”
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