Sports Podcasts Score Big: Kelce Brothers' Podcast Is Latest in Series of Big Money Deals

Sports Podcasts Score Big: Kelce Brothers' Podcast Is Latest in Series of Big Money Deals Kelce brothers' New Heights podcast deal reflects synergy of sports, entertainment, and new media By Dan Daley, Audio Editor

Thursday, September 5, 2024 - 2:40 pm

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How do you make $100 million in the NFL? Add audio. Or more specifically, an audio podcast. That's what the Kelce brothers, Jason and Travis, have done, resulting in a nine-figure touchdown in the form of a deal with Amazon's Wondery premium podcast studio division in late August.

The Kelce brothers, (Jason left, Travis right), recording their podcast, New Heights, using the Shure MV7 podcast microphones.

Amazon - which also has the rights to the NFL's Thursday Night Football franchise - acquired the brothers' weekly New Heights podcast, which features a mix of sports-talk, interviews, and personal and professional chatter.

We couldn't be more excited to team up with Wondery for the next phase of New Heights,' the Kelce brothers said in a statement. We love this show, and the fanbase that has grown with us over the last two seasons. Wondery understands the shared vision and will offer a wealth of experience and resources to take us to New Heights'! We are going to create some groundbreaking moments together through this partnership.

Travis Kelce's Super Bowl champ KC Chiefs are scheduled to play their first regular season game Sept. 5. Brother Jason retired from professional football this year after 13 years with the Philadelphia Eagles and is now a voice on ESPN's Monday Night Countdown.

As per the Wall Street Journal, the three-year deal gives Wondery the rights to distribute and sell ads for audio and video versions of New Heights, which will remain available across platforms such as Spotify, Apple, YouTube, and Amazon Music. Episodes will be available early and ad-free on the Wondery+ subscription service, which will host a livestream for the show each year. The deal also gives Wondery the option to collaborate with the brothers on live events and have a first-look for new consumer-product lines that either brother may want to pursue.

Wave Sports + Entertainment, which previously distributed the show and has partnerships with over 115 sports leagues globally, will continue to produce the Kelces' show.

Digital Traction

The Kelce brothers join the rarefied ranks of $100-million podcasters, a tiny and very vocal cohort that includes the irascible Joe Rogan and Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy podcast, which SiriusXM last month struck a deal for at just north of $100 million.

Travis Kelce in particular represents the traction the league is seeking with younger, online-centric viewers. His well-publicized romance with music superstar Taylor Swift, who dominates music streaming services, has effectively generated an additional $331.5 million in brand value for the Chiefs, and the NFL, according to Apex Marketing, including from the tripling of ticket sales for KC's home games, where fans hope to catch a glimpse of the singer.

Adding the Kelce brothers' podcast to its line-up will likely further boost Amazon's value to the league, in addition to what Thursday Night Football has already done. Nielsen data for TNF contests on the tech giant's Prime Video streaming platform shows they draw a growing percentage of 18-to-34-year-olds (2.4 million, up 14 percent over last year), and up 17 percent to 5.49 million in the 18-to-49 age group, than NFL games shown on broadcast television.

The Kelce brothers' big catch comes as podcasts continue to grow revenue even as the rate of the growth slows. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) projects the sector will top $2 billion this year, up from $1.9 billion last year and $1.8 billion the year before. Those single-digit jumps pale compared to the 72 percent podcasts leaped from 2020 to 2021, the year they crossed the $1 billion milestone. In a pattern seen in music and movie streaming, a smaller number of blockbuster titles garner ever-larger shares of sales and advertising dollars.

Its Own Microphone Category

Jason Kelce using the Shure MV7 podcast microphone while recording.

Citing over 1.7 million active podcasts as of 2022, market research firm Market.us reports that demand for new podcast content has helped create an entire category for microphone products. Manufacturers including Audio-Technica and Shure have dedicated products for the class, such as A-T's AT2005USBPK and Shure's MV7 microphones, which are also packaged as kits that can include headphones and mic-boom arms.

The Kelce brothers use Shure's MV7 podcast microphone on their show, part of the company's MOTIV series, which feature onboard DSP. The company says those kinds of high-profile uses have helped boost sales of the overall category.

Sales of [podcasting microphones] in our content-creation portfolio doubled during the pandemic, and sales continue to exceed pre pandemic growth, notes Jenn Liang-Chaboud, Manager of Entertainment Relations at Shure. It's not uncommon to see podcasters appear on ESPN or have broadcasters appear as guests on notable podcasts. It's exciting to watch the media landscape evolve, and we're fortunate to collaborate with production companies that are creating the most consumed sports podcasts in the world.

Regarding the intersection of sports broadcasts and podcasts, Gary Boss, senior market manager at Audio-Technica - which just launched its own original culture-based podcast series - points out that from the early days of podcasting, some sports broadcasters have spun their broadcasts into podcasts.

In fact, some of the early sports-podcasts became broadcast sports podcasts, he says. Today, we have a dedicated

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