In 2011, 190 players heard their names called in the NFL draft before the Philadelphia Eagles took a center out of the University of Cincinnati in the sixth round. Nobody pegged Jason Kelce as a future All-Pro, let alone a Super Bowl champion. Fifteen years later, the guy the league nearly overlooked is on top again, this time with an ESPN show that has posted the network’s best start in a decade.

“We have a ton of people that put a lot of work into making this show. Always good to see hard work pay off. Let’s keep it rolling 🚀🚀 @notthefakeSVP @PatMcAfeeShow @mspears96 @JasonMcCourty,” Kelce wrote on X, sharing ESPN PR’s X post.

The celebrations come after ESPN announced its best viewership start in a decade with 1.6 million viewers per show. The show is directly benefiting from massive lead-in interest. Monday Night Football (MNF) itself is having its best start of the ESPN era (up 26% year-over-year to 19 million viewers), highlighted by a record-breaking 23.2 million viewers for the Week 1 Denver Broncos-Kansas City Chiefs opener.

Kelce is part of the same show. When the former Eagles star announced his retirement from his playing career in March 2024, a bidding war broke out for his talents among major networks like NBC, CBS, and Amazon.

However, Kelce announced his multi-year contract with ESPN in May and joined the Monday Night Countdown (MNC) show. Apart from him, host Scott Van Pelt, alongside fellow analysts Marcus Spears, Jason McCourty, and Pat McAfee, are part of the same broadcast.

All these names have been putting in their hard work week-by-week since the start of the season. Hence, Kelce also included his ESPN teammates while expressing his joy at their achievement on X.

This start might also pave the way for ESPN to capitalize on its future in NFL broadcasting.

First off, ESPN has never broadcast a Super Bowl in its history. And that is about to change very soon. Under the NFL’s current multi-billion-dollar television rights agreement, Super Bowl LXI on February 14, 2027, will mark ESPN’s first-ever production and broadcast of the big game.

That said, it will be interesting to see if the broadcasting network can continue its momentum and generate record-breaking numbers and surpass Super Bowl LIX’s 127.7 million viewers in the upcoming Super Bowl game, with Kelce & Co. leading the Monday Night Countdown show.