If you can, read this in Travis and Jason Kelce’s voices: “New news!” That’s right, today’s big new news is that the brothers’ wildly popular football podcast New Heights has made a deal with Amazon Wondery that’s reportedly worth nine figures. While there’s no denying that the podcast has consistently grown since its debut, there’s also an Eras Tour-sized elephant in the room that wasn’t mentioned. And I find the lack of specific acknowledgment regarding Taylor Swift’s and Travis Kelce’s relationship in this big announcement quite amusing.
The Kelce brothers have signed a distribution deal as well as an exclusive ad-sales and representation deal with Amazon Wondery. According to THR, the deal is worth nine figures and was reportedly “very competitive." Overall, it will give the company global distribution rights for the audio and video episodes, the show’s catalog as well as “the right to create international audio adaptations of the podcast.” While speaking about this new deal, Wondery's CEO Jen Sargent said:
We’ve been watching the growth of the podcast, really since it was launched, and I have been building a relationship with Travis and Jason and getting to know them for a while now. Sports is a really exciting category for podcast listeners. It’s a strategic priority of Wondery’s and Amazon’s. So there were a lot of reasons to think about joining forces here on the New Heights podcast.
New Heights is about to head into its third season, and it’s grown a lot over the last two. While public interest in the brothers was high during the first installment, because their teams played each other in the Super Bowl, there’s no denying that they both shot into a new level of stardom when Swift came into the picture.
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The episodes of the podcast that featured guests have always gotten views in the millions (for example their Patrick Mahomes episode is sitting at 5.6 million). However, the brothers’ video podcasts on YouTube were getting anything between 200 and 600 thousand views on average before the story about Travis going to the Eras Tour was told.
After that, episodes that only featured Travis and Jason started consistently getting well over 500 thousand views, with many crossing over the 1 million mark. For example, Episode 59, which featured talk about the couple’s SNL cameos, and Episode 57, which had a conversation about how the NFL was covering the pop star being at games, both surpassed 1.5 million views.
Let me be clear, it makes sense that Swift wasn’t mentioned. However, we can’t deny how much the Kelce brothers’ profiles have risen since Travis started dating the pop star.
The brothers seem to know it too. They’ll joke about Swifties listening to their podcast now consistently, and they’ve been open about how interest in the NFL has gone up since she started attending games. Heck, they even talked about how both their jersey sales have skyrocketed since the singer came into the picture.
So, while there are “a lot of reasons” why Wondery wanted to make a deal with New Heights, it’s hard to not wonder what kind of impact Taylor Swift and her fanbase had on this decision.
Outside of the Taylor Swift bubble though, the Kelce brothers are recognizable and lovable names. As Travis enters a new season with the Chiefs under a historic multi-million dollar contract extension, Jason will spend his first year of retirement calling games for ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown as they air on the 2024 TV schedule. Plus, they’ll both continue to host their podcast.
All around, this seems to be a lucrative and impressive deal for all parties involved, and a great step forward for New Heights, whether you consider the Taylor Swift effect or not. However, there's no denying how hard it is to not consider the impact her fame and fanbase has had on the growth of this podcast.
