New Heights

New Heights is the podcast that proved two football players with microphones could outdraw the entire sports-media establishment. Hosted by brothers Jason Kelce — the Philadelphia Eagles’ legendary center, retired in 2024 after 13 seasons — and Travis Kelce — the Kansas City Chiefs’ Hall-of-Fame-bound tight end — the weekly show mixes film-room honesty with sibling chaos, and it became a genuine cultural phenomenon.

The launch was humble. In September 2022, produced with Wave Sports + Entertainment, the premise was simple: two active NFL stars pulling back the curtain on pro football — recapping their own games, roasting each other, and talking the league like fans instead of analysts. The chemistry was instant. Jason, the cerebral technician; Travis, the charismatic showman; both funny in the unscripted way you can’t coach.

The fanbase named itself. During an early episode, Jason claimed the quarterback sneak — the Eagles’ infamous “Tush Push” — worked “92% of the time,” and listeners ran with it: the 92%ers. It’s the rare podcast fandom with its own identity, its own lore, and its own segments, including the beloved “No Dumb Questions,” where the brothers answer fan queries with total sincerity and zero preparation.

The Kelce Bowl supercharged everything. Super Bowl LVII in February 2023 — the first Super Bowl ever to feature brothers on opposing teams, Chiefs vs. Eagles — turned the podcast into the emotional center of the biggest story in sports. Their mother Donna became America’s favorite football mom, the episodes around the game drew record audiences, and New Heights stopped being a football podcast and started being an event.

Then came the Swift era. When Travis began dating Taylor Swift in the fall of 2023, the show’s audience exploded overnight — Swifties arrived by the millions, chart positions went vertical, and a sports podcast briefly became appointment listening for the biggest fandom on earth. The Kelces handled it with grace, welcoming the newcomers instead of gatekeeping, and the 92%ers absorbed the Swifties like they’d always been there.

The trophy followed. In March 2024 at the iHeartRadio Podcast Awards in Austin, New Heights was named Podcast of the Year — the top prize in the industry. The brothers accepted by video, stunned: “We won podcast of the year,” Jason announced, while Travis could barely believe it. Jason’s speech thanked “all of the 92%ers out there — a.k.a. Swifties — who voted for us,” a perfect summary of the coalition they’d built.

The money followed the trophy. In August 2024, the Kelces signed a three-year deal with Amazon’s Wondery giving the company exclusive advertising and distribution rights — financial terms weren’t disclosed, but reports put the total at nine figures, among the richest podcast deals ever signed. Wondery’s CEO called the show a “cultural phenomenon” in the “cultural zeitgeist.” She wasn’t wrong.

The show kept evolving with its hosts. Jason’s tearful retirement announcement in March 2024 became one of the most-watched sports moments of the year, and his post-playing career — late-night TV, Monday Night Football-adjacent gigs, and an even looser podcast persona — gave New Heights a second act. Travis, meanwhile, stacked crossover projects: a 20-episode Amazon game show, acting roles, and the Kelce Jam music festival the brothers launched together.

The secret is that it never stopped being a hang. For all the awards and the nine figures, the show’s engine is still two brothers who genuinely like each other, talking ball the way they would at a family barbecue — honest about the game, ruthless with each other, and completely uninterested in media training. In an era of polished athlete podcasts, New Heights wins by being the least polished room in sports.

Why people listen: it’s the funniest, most honest football conversation anywhere — two future Hall-of-Famers with nothing to prove and everything to say. Sports fans get the inside game; everyone else gets the best sibling comedy on the internet.

Previously covers New Heights because the Kelce brothers rebuilt the sports podcast in their own image — and the whole industry is still catching up.

The name is a hometown tribute. Jason and Travis grew up in Cleveland Heights, Ohio — raised by Donna, the now-famous football mom, and Ed Kelce — and “New Heights” nods to those roots while promising exactly what the show delivered: new heights for both brothers’ profiles. The Cleveland Heights pipeline also produced the show’s secret weapon: genuine sibling history. These two have been roasting each other for three decades, and the microphone just gave the rest of us a seat at the table.

The episode anatomy is deceptively tight. A cold open — usually chaos — gives way to the week in football, told with the specificity only active (and recently active) players can offer: line-play minutiae from Jason, route-running war stories from Travis. Then come the segments: “No Dumb Questions,” where fans ask anything and the brothers answer everything, and the recurring bits the 92%ers quote back at them. Guests range from NFL royalty to Hollywood A-listers to Donna herself, and the booking power now rivals any studio show in sports.

The Swift bump deserves quantification, because it rewrote podcast history. After Travis’s relationship with Taylor Swift went public in the fall of 2023, New Heights shot to No. 1 overall on Apple’s podcast charts — not sports, overall — and stayed in the cultural conversation for months. Downloads multiplied, the YouTube channel exploded, and an entirely new demographic learned what a tight end does. The Kelces’ genius was in the reception: no gatekeeping, no eye-rolling at the newcomers, just open arms and funnier episodes. The Swifties came for Taylor and stayed for the jabronis.

The Wondery deal’s fine print tells the industry story. Three years, exclusive advertising sales and distribution, the full back catalog included, audio and video both — Amazon bought the whole operation, not a license. The reported nine-figure total put the Kelces in the tiny club of podcasters (Rogan, SmartLess, Call Her Daddy) whose shows are valued like media networks. For Wondery, it was a statement: the future of sports audio is talent-owned, personality-driven, and already has a fandom with a name.

Jason’s second act became the show’s second engine. His March 2024 retirement press conference — forty emotional minutes in an Eagles t-shirt — was one of the most-watched sports moments of the year, and the newly retired Jason brought a looser, funnier, more philosophical energy to the mic. ESPN came calling (Monday Night Countdown), late-night came calling, and the podcast gained a co-host with even more time to overthink football. Travis, meanwhile, built the crossover résumé: the Kelce Jam music festival with his brother, a 20-episode Amazon game show, acting turns including Ryan Murphy’s Grotesquerie and a Happy Gilmore 2 cameo.

The legacy is structural. New Heights proved the athlete-podcast could be the main event rather than the side hustle — that two players with no media training, no teleprompter, and no filter could outdraw the networks by being exactly themselves. Every star-driven show that launched in its wake is chasing the Kelce formula: honesty over polish, fandom over demographics, and brothers over brands. The 92%ers didn’t just find a podcast. They found the blueprint.