Already plagued by its 1am EST airtime and poor ratings, Jason Kelce‘s late-night ESPN talk show is now facing a steady current of negative reviews.
‘They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelce’ is the worst show in the history of television,’ one critic wrote on X.
Another took it a step further, calling the program ‘one of the worst ideas ever.’
The show, which derives its name from David Letterman’s legendary late-night show, premiered on January 3 with an underwhelming response. The culprit could have been its late start time or the content itself, but in any case, the show garnered only 290,000 viewers on its first episode, according to Puck’s John Ourand.
For context, Ourand points out that ESPN had 700,000 viewers watching that same time slot two weeks earlier. However, he adds: ‘that figure was inflated by the Indiana-Notre Dame playoff game earlier in the night.’
ESPN has confirmed the 290,000 viewers for the first episode, adding in an email to DailyMail.com that the second episode saw a sizeable jump to 881,000 viewers.
More importantly, as Ourand pointed out, the viewership figures don’t really represent Kelce’s value to the network.
The Super Bowl winner and Philadelphia Eagles legend makes a reported $1.8 million a year with ESPN, not including a $1 million signing bonus, according to a May report in the Sun. That deal encompasses Kelce’s primary duties with Monday Night Countdown as well as the limited, five-episode run of his late-night talk show.
So while there may be some negative responses to Kelce’s Steve Allen impersonation, the network likely cares much more about his Monday Night Football duties.
And that’s a good thing for Kelce because social media is a bottomless pit of criticism.
‘Late night with Jason Kelce is one of the most pathetic shows I have ever seen,’ one angry fan wrote on X. ‘Stop selling out and just go back the roots.’
‘The Jason Kelce late night show is unwatchable,’ another added.
Fortunately, not everyone was hating on Kelce. One fan wrote the second episode was ‘a substantial improvement.’
And another complained to the live TV streaming service, Sling, that Kelce’s show failed to record.
‘Impractical Jokers and Jason Kelce Is it Late Night isn’t on demand,’ they moaned.
What’s more, one Philadelphia sports fan declared the third episode to be a dramatic improvement.
‘Jason Kelce’s late night show has really found its footing,’ they wrote on X. ‘Fantastic niche he’s finding here. Really like it. So much better than where he started So happy to see it!’
Kelce’s ESPN deal also gave the network the right to buy Jason and his brother Travis’ popular podcast if they chose to sell before 2025, the Sun reported. The brothers instead signed a reported $100 million podcast deal with Amazon for advertising and distribution rights to their show, New Heights, according to multiple reports.
