In combined career earnings, Jason and Travis Kelce have made over $155 million from playing in the NFL. Their off-the-field ventures are now topping nine figures as well.
The brothers inked a deal with Amazon’s podcast network Wondery to be the new home of their “New Heights” podcast, Amazon announced Tuesday. The contract is worth in the neighborhood of $100 million, according to a source briefed on the negotiations.
The deal gives Wondery exclusive ad sales and distribution rights for the podcast, and episodes will be available for early listening and ad free for Wondery+ subscribers, according to Amazon.
That’s a lot of beer.
Can you believe these are the two titans of the athlete podcast wave?
Two media moguls pic.twitter.com/z8ua1Aj0Jp
— Kyle Pagan (@CBKylePagan) August 27, 2024
Gotta imagine this is Travis Kelce’s last year in the NFL after this deal right? He gets $12.5 million next year, which is a lot to walk away from, but you gotta think he can just make that up in endorsements. Since Jason retired, we’ve seen him in commercials with Wawa, Buffalo Wild Wings, Tide, and Dove. I’m probably missing 20 others. That’s before you even get to the multi-million ESPN deal to work Monday nights. But now that money isn’t an object, what’s stopping Jason from coming back and playing on the veteran minimum halfway through the year if the Birds gotta slide Cam Jurgens back to guard since the OL depth could be an issue? I’m just spit balling. Nothing to see here. Just talking shit.
Wondery will be translating the podcast into different languages.
Yo soy Jason Kelce:
“One of the interesting notes in the deal is Wondery’s plans to translate the podcast to different languages to increase its global audience, including in NFL-strong markets such as the United Kingdom and Mexico. That’s a blank space for NFL fans.”
View this post on Instagram
Can we do some media talk for a second? As a guy who’s sold a couple ads for a podcast that you can count on one hand I don’t understand these insane deals companies are throwing around. Is New Heights exclusive only to Wondery now? If not, I can just listen on Spotify and Apple still, which I feel is what most people will continue to do. Are people going to really subscribe to Wondery because they can get it a couple days earlier than they normally would? I get the exclusive ad dollars and merch is probably the most important aspect, and the subs might just be the cherry on top. But I just look at deals like Alex Cooper got for $125 million on Sirius and just don’t understand how that can be beneficial for the company. I’ve never met anyone who listens to Sirius that doesn’t already have a pre-loaded contract in their new car or drive a 16-wheeler. Is Sirius banking on Call Her Daddy numbers shooting up at night when the lot lizards are getting their feed? I feel like the numbers in these deals are a lot like when Adam Schefter throws the player’s agent a bone when he tweets “so and so signed for $75 million with $40 million guaranteed.” Everyone looks at the splashy number when the guaranteed money is more or less what the player will see. Feel like you see $100 million and freak out when it’s really like “$100 million if you hit this, this, and this metric.” I don’t know. If you read CB and have knowledge of these deals email me. I want to know what the grift is.
One more thing. I know every athlete is going to flog themselves when they see this deal and we’ll probably get 20 different athlete podcasts in the next couple of months. I’m not as bullish on the athlete podcast as a lot are. I still think there is a need for analysts and even your hot take bullshit artists. A lot of these athlete-driven shows have great guests, but don’t ever get great answers fans care about because they lob them softball questions. The one I always think about is JJ Redick’s podcast when he interviewed Ben Simmons. If I remember correctly it was one of Ben’s first interviews after all the bullshit happened with the Sixers. I was excited to watch it and it ended up just being teammates shooting the shit and drinking wine. There wasn’t much we learned that we didn’t already know and that’s partly because it’s friends interviewing friends and not a journalist or someone with interview chops knowing when to poke and when to back off. I’m not saying we need Barbara Walters cooking Fidel Castro with questions. But there’s still a need for reporters who can interview athletes on the record. Once the next CBA limits even more media access it’s going to be more athletes going on their friends’ podcasts and less talking to the media. So we’ll get more anonymous source bullshit through the media where you have to rummage between what’s actually real or what is watered down bullshit. That also adds to the fanboy schtick, which is huge on social media right now. If a local reporter criticizes an athlete there are thousands of people ready to jump in the replies. Sure you got jagoffs in the Philly media that give opinions for clicks, calls, and views – but no athlete is above criticism. I think that will end up course correcting, but for now it’s out of hand (I’m guilty of it too). This is just my two cents on the situation. I know Kevin could probably write a 10,000 word op-ed on today’s media. (Kinkead: don’t get me started on the fanboy social accounts, they’re the worst)
