Hollywood’s Hottest Free Agents Are the Kelce Brothers

Alex Weprin
·5 min read
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Last April, Jason Kelce entered the NFL’s West Coast media hub in Inglewood, California (it’s right next door to SoFi Stadium), with trepidation. In an otherwise nondescript conference room, Kelce talked with those sitting with him about the difficulties that NFL stars can have after they retire from the game, an attendee recalls.

Kelce was in Los Angeles to attend the NFL’s broadcast boot camp, which gives players a chance to hone their skills for TV, radio, podcasts and other mediums.

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“So many guys are interested in, ‘How can I stay in football?’ ‘I think I’d be good on TV, but I’m not really sure,’ ” Tracy Perlman, the NFL’s senior vp player operations, told The Hollywood Reporter at the time about the boot camp. “So this gives them the opportunity to learn about it and understand the commitment it takes, and it gives them the reps to figure out, ’Am I good at this or not?’ ”

And Kelce, who already had a hit podcast when he entered the camp (New Heights, which he co-hosts with his brother, Travis Kelce), “crushed it,” in the words of the attendee.

“We all knew he’s gonna be a star, if he wants to be,” they added.

Jason and Travis Kelce found fame for their on-the-field football skills, but the pair have since become two of the hottest names in the media business, and interest in their services is said to be in high demand.

Look no further than Travis Kelce’s latest gig: game show host. Kelce, while still an active tight end with the Kansas City Chiefs, has been taping a reimagining of the game show Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? for Amazon Prime Video titled Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity? with famous faces replacing the titular schoolkids. Prime announced the 20-episode pickup Wednesday.

The Chiefs star signed with CAA last year for his off-the-field work.

During this year’s Super Bowl week in Las Vegas, Jason Kelce (likely aware that he would officially retire a month later) was courted by many of the league’s broadcast partners, seeking to entice him to their studio shows or broadcast booths (The Athletic named CBS, NBC and ESPN as potential landing spots).

He already has made one high-profile appearance since retiring: On April 6, Jason Kelce and teammate Lane Johnson donned Eagles-themed luchador masks and helped WWE star Rey Mysterio win his match at Wrestlemania 40 on April 6, with the crowd giving the Eagles stars a standing ovation.

But while Jason is pursuing NFL-related options, Travis already is thinking beyond the game show. The Chiefs star, of course, hosted Saturday Night Live last year, and he recently told THR that he is interested in pursuing scripted roles as well.

“I’m out here in L.A. trying to get more comfortable in the entertainment world before we start back up with this football thing, knowing that that’s my main focus in my life, and it’ll always be that until I’m done playing,” Kelce said. “But I’m definitely still dabbling in the scripted world, the entertainment world, and we’ll see where that road takes me. I’m extremely excited, but at the same time, I know I’m a bit of an amateur in that world, so I definitely got to get comfortable and, I don’t know, put my own creativity on it.”

Travis also was in Hollywood to record an episode of New Heights, joined in person by Jason, now a year after his turn at the NFL’s broadcast boot camp. And they had a surprise guest: action star and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was appearing on their podcast for an extended interview.

Schwarzenegger heaped praise on the brothers for their authenticity and the fun they have on the show, before moving the conversation to a topic he said should maybe be “off the record.”

“A lot of times you guys do the show where you are in another place and you are in another place, right? And it’s this split-screen thing which really works well, yeah,” Schwarzenegger said, noting how Jason and Travis would host the show from their respective homes in Pennsylvania and Kansas City during the NFL season. “But now you’re together, because you’re in Hollywood. There are reasons — I’m not stupid, right — there’s a reason why those guys got you together in Hollywood. I mean, there’s all kinds of interviews being scheduled.”

The brothers laughed it off, though Travis wondered aloud if he had any parts available.

But it is New Heights that could end up being the brothers’ biggest deal yet. The show routinely performed well on Apple and Spotify podcast charts since its debut in 2022, and it often hit No. 1 after Travis Kelce’s romance with music superstar Taylor Swift went public near the start of the last NFL season.

Now the show is being shopped around for a new deal, with Swift herself sporting a New Heights baseball cap at Coachella earlier this month.

And while the podcast market writ large has cooled, top shows are still scoring big paydays.

Joe Rogan reupped with Spotify in a deal estimated at $250 million, and the Jason Bateman-, Will Arnett- and Sean Hayes-hosted SmartLess left Amazon for SiriusXM in a $100 million deal. An eight-figure deal for New Heights certainly has to be in play.

“I think everybody’s kind of shocked on how it’s taken off the way it has,” Travis Kelce told THR. “But we just started off by wanting to showcase our brotherhood and our similarities knowing that we’re really two different walks of life. … We wanted to give people a firsthand look at what it’s like to be at the lunch table or at the dinner table with Jason and Travis Kelce.”

And while the topic of conversation over dinner for most of their adult lives has been football, Hollywood is calling, and the doors are opening.

It might make for new dinner conversation fodder.

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