One year ago, the Jason Kelce sweepstakes took the sports media world by storm.
With his younger brother — whose relationship with the world’s biggest pop star still felt fresh — preparing to play in the Super Bowl and his own retirement all but official, the then-Philadelphia Eagles center seemingly spent the entire week leading up to the game in Las Vegas in front of every camera possible. Behind the scenes, Kelce’s free agency was officially underway, as he reportedly met with suitors just weeks before officially announcing his retirement from the football field while simultaneously beginning his new career off of it.
After two months of courtship, the native of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, landed at ESPN, which quickly emerged as the frontrunner early in the process. Suffice it to say, hopes were high at the Worldwide Leader and elsewhere. One author even went as far as to question whether he’d ultimately become football’s version of Charles Barkley.
At the time, my thinking was fairly straightforward. Some analysts have the personality, some have the Hall of Fame credentials, but very few have both. And when you get that magic mix and a sprinkle of not taking yourself too seriously, that’s the sports media jackpot.
One year into his reported three-year, $24 million deal at ESPN, however, and the closest Kelce got to being Barkley was when Sir Charles was a guest on the first episode of his late-night show, They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelce.
That’s not to say Kelce’s been bad; as an analyst, he’s been perfectly fine, perhaps even good. But it’s hard to imagine executives in Bristol feel like they got their bang for their buck in Year 1 of the Jason Kelce era, in which memorable moments proved few and far between.
There was the time the 37-year-old wore an ill-fitting shirt during his Monday Night Countdown debut — “I’ve lost a little bit of weight, but my tits are still struggling,” he said — which was followed by a Week 2 broadcast in Philadelphia that was so Eagles-centric that Kelce later apologized for it. Other than that, perhaps his only other truly memorable moment from the season came when he went viral for spiking the phone of a fan who used a homophobic slur to describe his brother while in State College for an appearance on College GameDay ahead of the November matchup between Penn State and Ohio State (Kelce, who repeated the slur during the incident, apologized and didn’t face punishment from ESPN).
I keep mentioning “moments” because that’s presumably what ESPN brought Kelce on board to create. Any number of ex-NFL players can break down film and dish hot takes. It’s the ones who make you feel like you need to be watching them live — and who prove themselves to be clip-worthy on social media — that set themselves apart.
And if there was ever any question about whether that was ESPN’s motivation in hiring Kelce, it was quickly put to rest with the inception of the aforementioned late-night show. Debuting at 1 a.m. ET on Friday night/Saturday morning in early January, They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelce aired five episodes in its initial run, which ultimately proved to be even less memorable than his presence on Monday Night Countdown.
While the late-night show was clearly a work-in-progress (you can read a review of the lackluster debut episode here), perhaps the most curious aspect of it was how little ESPN seemed to promote it. Heck, outside of the initial announcement, you wouldn’t have even known Jason Kelce had a late-night show on ESPN based on the network’s airwaves and social media feeds.
One could certainly question whether a late-night show hosted by Jason Kelce — or any ex-athlete, for that matter — is a winning formula. Still, the reality is that the project isn’t going to stand a chance without the ESPN machine behind it.
Even if Kelce’s first few months at ESPN seemed more like him getting his feet wet than a launch into stardom, he and the network were served a golden opportunity with his former team facing his brother’s team in the Super Bowl. And while the six-time All-Pro dutifully performed his role as an analyst — in addition to having a heartfelt moment regarding New Orleans in the wake of last month’s terrorist attack — it seemed notable that perhaps his best analysis about his Super Bowl conundrum didn’t come on ESPN airwaves, but rather social media.
Where do we go from here?
The good news is that Kelce’s not a lost cause. He’s just yet to live up to lofty expectations. And while he still has room to grow as an analyst (as one would expect), it feels like the faults of his first season as a full-time media member are more a matter of his employer not putting him in the right spots than anything on his end.
Regarding what worked, Kelce seemed at his best during his cameo in the Monday Night Football booth, as polarizing it might have been due to his obvious Philly ties. Although it’s unrealistic to think he’ll be joining Joe Buck and Troy Aikman full-time, that’s at least something to build on. His chemistry with Scott Van Pelt, Ryan Clark, and Marcus Spears is another plus and one would suspect that it would only continue to improve. For now, though, I’ll hold off on calling it football’s version of Inside the NBA.
Speaking of that Barkley comparison, it’s worth noting how the fellow Philadelphia sports legend has always felt synonymous with his employer — even when he’s at odds with it — while Kelce’s ESPN job often felt like just one of his many gigs. Perhaps that’s what it will always be, and that’s just a reality of the current sports media landscape. But if that’s the case, then it’s probably time to readjust our expectations, which might not have been realistic in the first place.
