Jason Kelce will try his hand at hosting a late-night television show early next year.
During an appearance on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Thursday night, Kelce shared that he will host a new show called “They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelce” on ESPN. The one-hour program will be taped over five consecutive Friday nights, starting on January 3. This timing lines up with the final week of the NFL’s regular season and the playoffs.
The show will be filmed in front of a live audience at Union Transfer in Philadelphia. The first four episodes will air at 1 a.m. EST beginning on January 4, with the last episode scheduled for 1:30 a.m. EST on February 1.
“I’ve always loved late-night shows. I remember sleepovers watching Conan O’Brien with my friends,” Kelce said on the Kimmel show. “We’re going to have a bunch of guys up there—legends of the game, friends that I played with, coaches, celebrities,” he added.
The band Snacktime, based in Philadelphia, will provide music for the show.
The title of the show is a nod to “They Call it Pro Football,” the first full-length film produced by NFL Films in 1967. NFL Films was founded in Philadelphia, and its creators, Ed and Steve Sabol, are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The film also featured the iconic voice of John Facenda, who was a news anchor in Philadelphia before becoming known as the voice of NFL Films.
NFL Films will produce the show in collaboration with Kelce’s Wooderboy Productions and Skydance Sports.
Each episode will also be shown on replays airing on ESPN2 and will be available on ESPN+, ESPN’s YouTube channel, and the Jason Kelce YouTube channel.
Kelce is in the first year of a multi-year contract with ESPN. He appears regularly on ESPN’s “Monday Night Countdown” and offers halftime and postgame analysis. After 13 years playing for the Philadelphia Eagles, he retired at the end of last season.
He was one of the most sought-after former players by networks and took part in last year’s NFL Broadcasting and Media Workshop, previously known as the “Broadcast Bootcamp.”
Kelce has also made headlines for other reasons recently.
On November 2, he was involved in an incident with a fan in State College, Pennsylvania, before the Penn State-Ohio State game.
The fan heckled Kelce and appeared to shout an anti-gay slur about Kelce’s brother, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, in relation to his relationship with pop star Taylor Swift. Video footage showed Kelce grabbing the fan’s phone and throwing it on the ground.
Kelce apologized for the incident on ESPN on November 4.
Then, on Thursday night, a fan confronted Kelce outside the El Capitan Entertainment Center in Hollywood, where “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” is taped. Video from TMZ shows Kelce explaining that he does not sign autographs for people who follow him around.
After being yelled at for more than two minutes, Kelce eventually got out of the car and signed autographs, even shaking hands with a man who had been yelling at him with offensive language.
