The rumors are true. Retired NFL star Jason Kelce is set to front a new late-night show on ESPN.
Kelce’s new weekly show, titled They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelce, has been picked up for a five-week run starting Friday January 3rd, 2025. The hour-long show will be shot in front of a live audience in Kelce’s adopted hometown of Philadelphia.
“I love late-night shows. I’ve always loved them. I remember at sleepovers watching Conan O’Brien with my friends,” Kelce explained Thursday night as he announced the new show during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Although the show will take the form of a traditional late-night show with all the usual trappings (including a live house band— Philadelphia-based seven-piece brass ensemble SNACKTIME), the show’s primary focus will be on sports personalities.
“We’re going to have a bunch of guys up there,” Kelce told Kimmel. “Legends of the game, friends that I played the game with, coaches, celebrities.”
Late-night TV will welcome a new host in 2025. Jason Kelce announced on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Thursday night that his new ESPN late show will air Friday nights starting January 3rd. pic.twitter.com/VZYHp13Q7Z
— LateNighter (@latenightercom) November 22, 2024
The show will be taped a few hours before it airs at 1am late Friday nights, and will be carried simultaneously on ESPN, ESPN+ and on the ESPN and Jason Kelce YouTube channels.
They Call It Late Night will be produced by NFL Films and licensed to ESPN. As The Hollywood Reporter notes, the show’s name is a callback to They Call it Pro Football, which was the first feature-length film produced by NFL Films in 1967.
Kelce already has a relationship with the sports channel, for which he began co-hosting ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown this fall. Since 2022, he’s also co-hosted the podcast New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce alongside his brother, the same Travis Kelce who once hosted SNL and is currently dating Taylor Swift.
Whether that means the younger Kelce and/or Swift might appear on the show remains to be seen, but one imagines ESPN execs licking their lips at the prospect.
With just a five-week commitment, They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelce would seem to be getting something of a trial run in what’s become an increasingly challenging environment for late night. That said, with traditional late-night shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon logging their best ratings when following sports events (especially in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demo), it could prove to be a formula for success.
wasn’t particularly funny or charismatic last night with Jimmy…his brother probably make a better host, when he retires