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Meet Jason: Kelce to host late-night show on ESPN starting final week of NFL season

By JOE REEDY AP Sports Editor

Jason Kelce will try his hand at late night television early next year.

Kelce announced during an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Thursday night, he will host “They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelce,” on ESPN. The one-hour show will air five consecutive Friday evenings starting January 3. This coincides with the final week of the NFL regular season and playoffs.

The show will debut in front of a live audience at Union Transfer in Philadelphia. The first four episodes will air at 1:00 a.m. EST starting January 4, and the final episode will air at 1:30 a.m. EST on February 1.

“I loved the late night shows, always loved them. I remember sleepovers watching Conan O’Brien with my friends,” Kelce said on Kimmel’s show. “We’re going to have a bunch of guys there — legends of the game, friends that I’ve played with, coaches, celebrities,” Kelce said.

Philadelphia-based band Snacktime will provide music for the show.

The show’s title is an homage to “They Call it Pro Football,” which was NFL Films’ first feature film in 1967. NFL Films hails from Philadelphia and its founders Ed and Steve Sabol are members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It also featured the legendary voice of John Facenda, who made news on Philadelphia television before becoming better 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 seen on replays broadcast on ESPN2, and will also be available on ESPN+, the ESPN YouTube channel and the Jason Kelce channel on YouTube.

Kelce is in the first year of a multi-year deal with ESPN. He appears on the network’s “Monday Night Countdown” show and provides halftime and postgame analysis. He played 13 years for the Philadelphia Eagles before retiring at the end of last season and was the networks’ most sought-after former player. He participated last year in the NFL’s Broadcast and Media Workshop, formerly known as “Broadcast Bootcamp.”

Kelce has been in the news lately, however, for other reasons.

He was involved in a confrontation with a fan in State College, Pennsylvania, before the Penn State-Ohio State game on November 2, when a fan heckled Kelce and appeared to shout an anti-gay slur about his brother , the Kansas City Chiefs. terminate Travis Kelce, for dating pop star Taylor Swift. The video showed Kelce grabbing the fan’s phone and throwing it to the ground.

Kelce apologized for the incident on ESPN on November 4.

On Thursday night, an autograph seeker verbally confronted Kelce outside the El Capitan entertainment center in Hollywood, where “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” is recorded.

The video obtained by TMZ shows Kelce explaining that he doesn’t sign autographs for people who follow him. After being yelled at for more than two minutes, Kelce finally got out of the car and signed autographs, including shaking hands with a man who was berating Kelce with obscenities.

The Associated Press contributed to this article