How Their Podcast Has Made Jason Kelce, Travis Kelce Even Closer

How their podcast has made the Kelce brothers even closer originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The NFL season is a grind and it doesn’t leave a lot of time for much else.

Especially for two brothers going through a busy season.

So when Jason and Travis Kelce began their podcast, New Heights, in September, one of the best byproducts has been strengthening their relationship. And as their two teams prepare to play in Super Bowl LVII, which many have dubbed the Kelce Bowl, both Jason and Travis reflected on their decision to jump into the podcast game.

“We get to talk to each other every week, we get to have fun and in some ways I feel like it’s made my brother and I closer, talking every single week,” Jason Kelce said last week in Philly. “Normally in the course of a season, you go months without talking to each other at times. You’re so caught up in your own stuff. This ended up being a great thing.”

Jason, 35, and Travis, 33, had been looking for years to find something fun outside of football to do together.

And now they’re the co-hosts of a wildly popular podcast, that peaked as the No. 1 sports podcast this year. They even managed to get Ed and Donna Kelce, their parents, on the last episode.

But the really cool thing is how recording weekly episodes has given the brothers a chance to just be brothers. Who cares that it’s in front of a national audience? They still get to connect way more during the season than they ever had.

“During the course of the season, you just get caught up in the routine of things,” Travis Kelce said on Wednesday morning from the Chiefs’ team hotel in Scottsdale. “I don’t get to see his family as much. Home games are always fun because you get to have family and friends in. But throughout the week and stuff, you’re focused on your craft and trying to recover and all those things.

“So what this did was gave us a scheduled 2-3 hour window where we have to talk to each other and we have to talk about what we’re going through, throughout the week and throughout the games. It’s almost been like therapy, man. It’s been cool to hear what he’s going through and just to have some fun with my brother like we did back in the day.”

It’s not like there was no apprehension about starting a podcast while both are still in their playing days. Jason Kelce said one of the worries was that one of their seasons would go poorly and then it would be a pretty bad look. “Luckily, that hasn’t happened,” he said.

But there was also the worry that it could be a distraction or could be perceived as a distraction. But they had examples that it could work. Bussin’ With The Boys with Will Compton and Taylor Lewan had worked in the NFL. And The Draymond Green Show was not an issue for the Golden State Warriors when they won the NBA title in 2022.

What makes the New Heights podcast work is the natural relationship formed between the Kelce brothers throughout their lives. Even if that relationship has evolved over the years. It’s been well-documented that Jason was the more mature one and came to the rescue when Travis was suspended by the Cincinnati football team. Jason went to bat for his brother and got him back on the right track.

But these days, it’s less of an older brother, younger brother dynamic.

“I think when you get to a certain point being brothers, it becomes more of a peer relationship,” Jason Kelce said. “… I’m no longer telling him or showing him the ropes or trying to offer him guidance as an older brother. Now it’s more as a friend. It’s a different type of brother and he does the same for me. I get advice from him now, which growing up didn’t happen too often. The dynamic has changed a little bit in that regard. We get to genuinely just enjoy each other’s personalities and who we are as individuals and I think that makes it fun.”

Travis is still very outgoing but has clearly matured.

When asked about their evolved relationship, Travis pointed at his role in Jason’s growing family.

“To be honest, him having his own family, having his wife Kylie, two baby girls with a third on the way, it’s just been so cool to be an uncle, to be a brother-in-law and to see this family grow even more than it already was,” Travis said. “That was probably the biggest thing. New roles. You get to be a good brother to a lovely sister-in-law and her family and then I get to be a great uncle.”

Jason’s wife Kylie is very close to her due date and there’s a chance it could even happen while the whole family is in Arizona for Super Bowl LVII.

If that happens, it would be a heck of a story. And the world will get to hear about it on their podcast.

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