Jason Kelce is ready to blitz the ranks of TV’s late-night hosts in a limited-run wee-hours program on ESPN.
“They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelce” will air on five consecutive overnights heading into late-season NFL football weekends. The series will run at 1 a.m. on Saturdays starting January 4 on ESPN, with the final broadcast launching at 1:30 a.m. The one-hour show will originate from Philadelphia, where Kelce enjoyed a a 13-season run in the NFL, and he will hold forth in front of a live crowd at the city’s Union Transfer. Each show will be taped Friday evening, just hours before the program goes to air.
It remains unclear if ESPN sees a future for Kelce around midnight, but the show is said to be something the former football center wanted to try when he joined the Disney sports giant earlier this year, ostensibly as a key addition to “Monday Night Countdown,” the pre-show that leads into “Monday Night Football.”
At the time of his hire in May, Disney and ESPN said that “Further opportunities will be explored.”
Kelce is known for his gridiron prowess, but also for an outsized personality. He and his brother, Travis, host a popular weekly podcast, “New Heights,” and he has made a handful of TV appearances, including in the WWE’s WrestleMania.
He will make a late-night play in what is relatively safe space. None of the best-known late-night programs on ABC, CBS and NBC run original broadcasts on Friday nights any longer, and the main Friday-night option, HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” is on earlier in the evening. As for late-night programs aimed at sports fans, most of them already air on ESPN, which features Scott Van Pelt in an end-of-the-night version of “SportsCenter.”
The show will have many of the trappings to which late-night fans have become accustomed. There will be live music from the Philadelphia band Snacktime. Kelce and guests are expected to examine the coming weekend’s games, and will look for fans at the venue to take part in the proceedings.
The programming gambit should, at the very least, draw younger crowds to NFL play. The show will debut hours before the last weekend of NFL regular-season play, with subsequent hours leading into Super Wild Card, Divisional and Conference Championship weekends before the finale ahead of the Pro Bowl Games and nine days from Super Bowl LIX.
ESPN will televise original broadcasts of the show, but also make each episode available on ESPN+, ESPN YouTube and the Jason Kelce channel on YouTube presented by ESPN. Replays will air on ESPN2. NFL Films will produce the show in conjunction with Kelce’s Wooderboy Productions and Skydance Sports.
While the show is new, it makes some nods to history. The program’s title pays homage to “They Call It Pro Football,” the first full-length project from NFL Films, The original feature was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2012, cited as an example of how football and sports were showcased on television following its creation. Time will tell whether a similar honor is accorded Kelce’s new project.
