Luckily for ESPN, all of the chaos at Fox Sports 1 due to a lawsuit that makes bombshell allegations against Skip Bayless and Joy Taylor has dominated sports media news this week, burying the stumbling start for Jason Kelce’s new late-night show on ESPN. According to reports, the debut episode pulled in just 290,000.
Jason Kelce’s new show, called They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelce, premiered at 1 a.m. EST on Saturday, January 4, and featured Basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley as a guest.
Despite the popularity of Kelce and Barkley as a guest, though, a reported for Puck News says that the debut numbers for the show are “not particularly good.”
“I’ve seen the numbers for ESPN’s first episode of They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelce, and they’re not particularly good: 290,000 viewers,” reported John Ourand of Puck News.
“Comps are tough. Two weeks ago, that time slot had more than 700,000 viewers. But that figure was inflated by the Indiana-Notre Dame playoff game earlier in the night. Same time period last January averaged 436,000. From ESPN’s perspective, viewership numbers from a late-night talk show that has a five-episode run don’t matter nearly as much as other aspects of this programming deal. ESPN is happy to be in business with Jason Kelce, regardless.”
“They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelce derives its name from They Call it Pro Football, NFL Films’ first full-length film (1967), representing Kelce’s subtle tribute to the sport and the company which will now produce his own show more than 55 years later,” ESPN says of the series.
In addition to the new late night show, Kelce — who retired from the NFL at the conclusion of the 2023 after 13 years of playing center for the Philadelphia Eagles — also had a role on Monday Night Countdown this season, and hosts the popular podcast New Heights with his brother Travis Kelce.
Jason’s wife Kylie Kelce also recently launched her own podcast, Not Gonna Lie, which stormed to the top of the podcast charts after its debut in December.
The second episode of They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelce will premiere at January 11 at 1 a.m. EST.
