Jason Kelce grew up watching Conan O’Brien, so while it was ambitious for him to do a late-night show, it wasn’t exactly out of left field.
He got better as time went on with his They Call it Late Night with Jason Kelce experiment, but the reviews — and the ratings — weren’t flattering.
Awful Announcing’s Ben Axelrod suggested that ESPN might still be figuring out how to best utilize Kelce, noting that the show’s five-episode run was even less memorable than his weekly appearances on Monday Night Countdown.
Despite this, ESPN’s president of content, Burke Magnus, remains hopeful that the late-night experiment will continue beyond the Super Bowl, even if the fanfare hasn’t matched the expectations.
From ESPN’s perspective, the ratings of a short-lived late-night show are less important than the long-term value Kelce brings to their brand. In essence, ESPN is more than happy to have him on board, regardless of the numbers. And that sentiment is shared by the network’s leadership.
As for Jason Kelce, despite the modest results, he found the experience deeply rewarding.
“Anything you put a lot of time into originating and creating, I think it’s amazingly rewarding when it comes full circle, and it’s actually being done,” Kelce said on the Fitz & Whit podcast with Ryan Fitzpatrick and Andrew Whitworth. “I had no idea what I was getting myself into it when of had this idea; we talked to ESPN, NFL Films. And then you’re building out writers and directors and set design and all these things that I don’t know why I didn’t think was going to be a lot of time spent on that, and it’s very meticulously thought out.
“It was incredibly rewarding to create all of that from nothing — and to do that with a bunch of people. And, like you said, it was an ambitious show. It would’ve been much easier to just do a straightforward sports-talk show and have some great panelists on. We had some phenomenal guests. The comedy bit is something I’ve always loved about late-night shows, and Conan and stuff — and we went for it. We had an amazing team of writers; a lot of them worked on Conan.
“It was fun to try it. It was fun seeing how much better I got as the weeks went by. It’s kind of like tape. You’re watching yourself, and it’s like, ‘Man, why am I not looking at the camera when I’m doing this? Why am I not — why am I pausing there?'”
Fitzpatrick pointed out how the media landscape often stifles honest critiques, and Kelce couldn’t have agreed more.
He wants honesty. He craves it, even.
“It’s hard to get it in this world, in the media landscape a little bit,” he added. “Now, you can get it, especially if you’re not searching there… But that was one of the things I really liked about the late-night show. One of our head writers, John, was like the coach.
“Like after the show — it was a hard show — and doing it in the moment in the venue, it felt really good. The energy was there. It was like, ‘Man, we just had a f*cking great show.’ And then you watch it on tape, and you’re like, ‘Man, I could’ve done all this other stuff.’ And he was just awesome to talk about it [with because he’s been doing it for so long. He was just amazingly helpful to help me get better an also just coach me through the process.”
While Jason Kelce acknowledged that he’s better unscripted, he admitted that the nature of the late-night show required a more structured approach.
“And I think that was a process for me to get better at, was going scripted,” he said. “But there are ways that felt more natural. And I think that was a process we ironed out as the show went… That was something for me that I just had to get reps at and to figure out, ‘OK, how can we go from the script itself while also being off the cuff and loose?’ It’s hard to be off the cuff and loose unless you’re comfortable and you don’t feel like you’re trying to be a robot a little bit.”
Ultimately, Jason Kelce’s late-night foray may not have been the slam dunk ESPN hoped for, but it wasn’t without its lessons and growth.
