Former Philadelphia Eagles star Jason Kelce is making a big splash in his first year of retirement, proving that he’s not slowing down after leaving the field.
The future Hall of Famer has found success both on and off the screen, joining ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown as an analyst and collaborating with his brother, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, for their massively popular podcast, New Heights.
The podcast, which has soared to great heights in the podcasting world, earned the Kelce brothers a monumental deal with Amazon’s Wondery worth over $100 million.
However, not all of the Kelce family’s ventures are experiencing the same level of success. On January 4, ESPN premiered They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelce, a new late-night talk show hosted by Jason Kelce.
The show’s first episode drew only 290,000 viewers, a figure that falls short when compared to other late-night programming in that time slot.
The previous episode of Monday Night Countdown had garnered a much higher viewership, and the time slot itself typically attracts a larger audience.
Puck’s John Ourand posted on X about the disappointing viewership numbers, noting that the previous show in that slot had attracted more than 700,000 viewers, with a significant portion of that audience coming from the Indiana-Notre Dame playoff game earlier in the evening.
While the late-night time slot is typically a tough one, it’s clear that ESPN had higher hopes for Jason Kelce’s new venture.
ESPN’s long-term plan
Despite the lower-than-expected numbers, ESPN remains optimistic about their partnership with Jason Kelce. According to Ourand, ESPN isn’t overly concerned about the viewership figures for a late-night show with a limited run.
“Viewership numbers from a late-night talk show that has a five-episode run don’t matter nearly as much as other aspects of this programming deal,” he wrote.
ESPN is reportedly happy with its collaboration with the Kelce brothers, whether or not the show becomes a long-term success.
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