August 2024: Wondery paid more than $100 million for three years of exclusive New Heights distribution. Largest sports talent podcast deal in history. Two brothers, one banter format, a Taylor Swift halo — and a structural lesson in why athlete-as-media is the next sports-PR playbook.
New Heights is the most consequential sports podcast deal of the modern creator-economy era.
Travis and Jason Kelce launched New Heights in August 2022 under Wave Sports + Entertainment. The format was simple: two NFL brothers, weekly banter, game breakdowns, guest interviews, light pop-culture crossover. Within a year it was a top-five sports podcast in the United States. By the 2023 NFL season — coinciding with Travis Kelce's relationship with Taylor Swift becoming a global story — New Heights was routinely the #1 podcast in America, sports or otherwise.
In August 2024, Amazon-owned Wondery signed an exclusive three-year distribution and content deal worth more than $100 million. That is the largest podcast deal ever signed by athlete-talent. It rewrites the sports-creator-economy comp set the way Joe Rogan's 2020 Spotify deal rewrote the talk-podcast comp set.
Snapshot
Operators
Travis Kelce (TE, Kansas City Chiefs) & Jason Kelce (retired C, Philadelphia Eagles)
Property
New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce
Launched
August 2022 — Wave Sports + Entertainment
Wondery deal
August 2024 — $100M+ over three years, exclusive distribution, content extensions
Rank
Top-3 U.S. podcast across all categories during NFL season; #1 sports podcast across multiple weeks 2023-2024
The athlete-podcast category was Pat McAfee territory until New Heights — and McAfee's model is solo plus production team. The Kelce template is different: two athletes with overlapping but distinct platforms, brotherly chemistry as the format moat, and zero requirement for outside guest pulls in the weeks where the brothers themselves carry the show.
Three structural moats stacked.
The first is the chemistry. New Heights cannot be replicated by hiring two unrelated NFL veterans — the brotherly dynamic is the product. The same logic applies to other family-podcast successes (The Sklar Brothers, the Manning brothers' adjacent broadcast property). Family chemistry is non-duplicable IP.
The second is the in-season relevance. NFL podcasts have a 17-week window of maximum salience. Travis is active, which means New Heights is live-reporting from inside a Super Bowl-contending locker room every week. Jason brings the recently-retired veteran-analyst lens. The two-week game window between Sunday game and next-week recap is the highest-engagement audio slot in U.S. sports media. New Heights owns it.
The third is the Taylor Swift crossover. Travis's relationship with Taylor Swift, public since fall 2023, dragged the show outside the sports demographic into mainstream pop culture. The audience expansion from sports-male into the Swift demographic added millions of new listeners — and the Swift effect did not reverse when New Heights' core sports content continued. That is rare in audience expansion: most cross-over audiences churn back to their original surface.
Why the Wondery deal matters
The $100M+ Wondery deal does three things at once.
It re-prices athlete-podcast IP. Before New Heights, the comp set was Pat McAfee's reported nine-figure ESPN deal and the Manning brothers' adjacent broadcast property. The Wondery deal establishes that pure podcast IP — without a broadcast television tie-in — can clear nine figures on athlete chemistry alone.
It positions Amazon as the dominant sports-podcast distribution buyer. Spotify owns Rogan and Bill Simmons. Wondery (Amazon) now owns New Heights. The two-platform duopoly for prestige podcast IP is set.
It demonstrates the family-IP moat. Future athlete-podcast deals will be benchmarked against the Kelce chemistry. Solo athletes will struggle to clear comparable valuations. The Kelce template raises the bar for athletes considering a media play — solo path is harder, family path is easier if the chemistry exists.
What this means for sports communications
The athlete-as-media-operator playbook has now been validated at multiple scale points. Pat McAfee built the solo-operator template. The Kelces built the family-IP template. The next generation of NFL, NBA, and MLB stars approaching retirement will run the math both ways — solo media business, or family/friend media business with built-in chemistry.
For brand marketers, the implication is structural: athlete sponsorship spend is increasingly competing not just with broadcast media buys but with athlete-owned podcast inventory. Bud Light, Buffalo Wild Wings, DraftKings, and Experian inside New Heights reach the same NFL demographic at lower CPMs than Sunday broadcast windows — with better contextual fit. The trade-off is dependence on the athletes' continued willingness to produce content.
The risks
Two known weaknesses.
Travis Kelce is still an active NFL player. Career-ending injury or sudden retirement would reshape the property — Jason continues, but the in-locker-room reporting edge disappears. The Wondery deal is presumably structured to handle this contingency, but the audience composition would shift.
The second is the Swift effect dependency. The pop-culture audience expansion is real but tied to a relationship. The audience may or may not retain its full expansion if the relationship structure changes. New Heights would remain a top-five sports podcast — that floor is durable — but the top-of-all-categories peak is partly Swift-derivative.
A sports podcast hosted by Travis and Jason Kelce, launched in August 2022 under Wave Sports + Entertainment. Distributed exclusively through Wondery (Amazon) since August 2024 under a three-year, $100M+ deal. Top-three U.S. podcast across all categories during NFL season.
How much did the Wondery New Heights deal cost?
Reported above $100 million over three years for exclusive distribution and additional content extensions. The largest podcast deal ever signed by athlete-talent.
Why is New Heights so popular?
Three reasons. The Kelce brothers' chemistry is non-replicable family IP. Travis's active NFL status provides in-locker-room reporting access nothing else in sports media can match. The Taylor Swift crossover expanded the audience outside the sports demographic without churning the core listenership.
Who else competes in athlete-podcast media?
The closest comps are Pat McAfee (now under ESPN, nine-figure reported deal), the Manning brothers' Monday Night Football alternate broadcast, and Bill Simmons / The Ringer (under Spotify). New Heights is the dominant family-IP athlete podcast.
Written by
EPR Editorial Team
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
