In the only recent year in which Travis Kelce and the Kansas City Chiefs did not play in the Super Bowl, the NFL star was driving around Los Angeles in early February with his business managers, André and Aaron Eanes, marveling at the billboards with Dwayne Johnson. , the actor and entertainer better known as The Rock.
“Man, I don’t think I’ll ever be as famous as The Rock,” Kelce said.
His co-directors looked at each other. “We said: Yes, it can be done,” André Eanes said.
The twin brothers knew since Kelce was at the University of Cincinnati that the 6-foot-5 athletic star with a Marvel character’s physique, blue eyes and affable charm had crossover potential.
But let’s be honest. no one imagined this.
This It was a year even The Rock could envy. Kelce, a tight end, won the Super Bowl (his second) in February. In March, he hosted “Saturday Night Live.” He has starred in seven national television commercials. The podcast he hosts with his brother Jason is among the most popular on Spotify. He launched a clothing line with his team.
And he’s dating the most famous pop singer in the world. Maybe you’ve heard it.
Kelce’s sudden conquest of the zeitgeist (being put on the map, so to speak) has taken even the most die-hard football fans by surprise. The reality is that most of his rise has been years in the making – the result of a carefully crafted business plan developed by the 34-year-old Eanes brothers, which blossomed at precisely the right time.
The Chiefs have spent the last few years as the most unstoppable force in football, and along the way, Kelce’s other team has grown to include a creative strategist, a community outreach coordinator, a Los Angeles-based publicist, a personal chef and a trainer. He has four football agents, led by Mike Simon at VMG. In the spring, he also became a client at Creative Artists Agency to feed his budding acting itch.
The Eanes brothers coordinate everything, managing the growing flow of incoming traffic for part of Kelce Inc. The movie scripts have been shared among the team. Game shows are a consideration. Maybe a few less commercials.
“People tell me, ‘Man, it’s been a crazy year,’” Aaron Eanes said. “When I say, ‘Actually, he’s not that crazy,’ people look at me funny. It’s because it’s easy when you have a plan. “We are executing that plan.”
Before rushing to YouTube and TikTok to investigate conspiracy theories, no, the plan didn’t include Taylor Swift.
Kelce’s managers have a window of time between the end of the Super Bowl in February and the start of training camp in July in which they must develop their plan for the Kelce brand. Once the season begins, Mr. Kelce states what he wants on his behalf.
But while Kelce’s shift toward a more conventional form of celebrity was planned before he met Swift, there’s no doubt that the doubling of his potential audience (from mostly men ages 18 to 49 to a much older group) large) largely backed by Swift’s female fans of all ages, has changed the calculus of where the plan goes from here.
“Travis’ knowledge is much greater and he has an even broader audience,” said Richard Lovett, co-president of CAA. “He has accelerated what was probably inevitable in terms of the level of awareness and attractiveness of him.”
André Eanes, who manages Kelce’s portfolio of 28 investments, met his client through Kelce’s college roommate, DJ Woods, a childhood friend of Eanes’ who grew up near Cleveland. They became close when Mr. Eanes started an event management business while he was still in college that booked venues and hosted DJs in Cincinnati. Mr. Eanes became Mr. Kelce’s go-to person for a VIP pass.
“He was always the life of the party,” Eanes said of Kelce. “Everyone wanted to hang out with Travis.”
At the same time, Aaron Eanes was studying sports management and entrepreneurship at Bowling Green University in northern Ohio. He wanted to help athletes grow their careers. But he had no interest in becoming a traditional sports agent.
“Agents are contractual advisors,” Eanes said. “Instead, I thought about a music model and building a business where there was coordination with all of your outside vendors.”
Eanes hadn’t even graduated when he began offering college football players the services of a coach in addition to a traditional agent. It was an unusual proposition at the time for most players, whose main goal was to get that first professional contract. But Kelce seemed to grasp the bigger picture his friends were painting. He became the second client of A & A Management, the company still run by the Eanes brothers.
“It was unusual,” said Simon, Kelce’s agent. “I think his thought process at the time was, ‘Let’s all do this together and we’ll figure it out as we go.’”
Kelce’s first flash of widespread publicity came in a 2015 article in Complex magazine, in which she stood on a pool table in a burgundy velvet Versace jumpsuit and Gucci sunglasses. Shortly after, Aaron Eanes received a call from a producer at E! about a reality dating show. “I was like, Of course not!” Mr. Eanes said.
The brothers finally relented, thinking that a television show could open other doors. After “Catching Kelce,” which lasted eight episodes and never found Mr. Kelce’s true love, they agreed that the reality show was one thing and over. Instead, Kelce, a lifelong comedy fan, gave his co-directors an ambitious goal to pursue: He wanted to be on “SNL.”
Aaron Eanes approached the show’s producers during the 2020 season, but their reciprocal interest sounded lukewarm at best. That changed in October 2021 after Kelce went on an “SNL” show. After the pre-game party in Philadelphia and got to work, chatting (and impressing) Lorne Michaels.
The day after the Chiefs defeated the Eagles in the Super Bowl last February, Aaron Eanes’ phone rang at 9 a.m. It was “SNL.”
“I don’t think I’ve slept yet,” Mr. Eanes told the booking agent.
After taking the stage at Rockefeller Center’s Studio 8H on March 4, less than a month after winning the Super Bowl, Kelce choked up during the show’s opening monologue at the enormity of fulfilling a childhood dream. She had brought her family along for the trip: her brother, Jason, the Eagles’ center; and her parents, Ed and Donna, whom the Eanes brothers help manage for free.
After “SNL,” the Eanes brothers began interviewing with Hollywood agencies that had stronger connections in the entertainment industry.
“We’re just two guys who live in Ohio,” Aaron Eanes joked.
Lovett and Tom Young, co-director of sports media for CAA, said Kelce had a quiet charisma and coachable nature that made producers want to work with him. “The decision makers and those people who have to be visionary about who the next potential movie star is, those people had already taken advantage of Travis even when he left ‘Saturday Night Live,’” Lovett said. “And probably before.”
But he wasn’t rushing anything, Aaron Eanes said. That’s not Mr. Kelce’s style. And Eanes had already been laying the groundwork for his client’s path to the A-list. Throughout 2022, Eanes had targeted sponsorship deals with companies that were not traditional NFL partners, such as promoting vaccines for Pfizer , for example, or a new Experian debit card. The purpose was to build Mr. Kelce’s resume as an independent pitcher, rather than another tradeable player in a commercial for one of the NFL’s partners, capitalizing on a foundation built by the league.
Danielle Salzedo, a veteran brand strategist who joined Kelce’s management team after 14 years at Viacom, said she has taken marketing lessons from working with musical artists like Harry Connick Jr., who was constantly willing to reinvent himself to reach new audiences.
“That ability to continue to evolve what his image is and stay current but still elevated, from someone who is already a global star,” Ms. Salzedo said, “is something that I think Travis has the ability to do.”
Kelce’s inner circle insists that his time as a viral celebrity hasn’t changed him. His personal chef, Kumar Ferguson, has been friends with Kelce since they played recreational basketball together in fourth grade. He brings home-cooked food (usually wild rice, chicken and vegetables) to the Chiefs’ practice facility every day so he and Mr. Kelce can have lunch together.
Despite the increasing number of distractions, Kelce’s longtime coach, Alex Skacel, said the star tight end’s dedication to football has never been stronger.
Mr. Skacel likes to share the story of a visit to Paris Fashion Week a few years ago, when he and Mr. Kelce went for a late-night run around the city because Mr. Kelce was anxious for exercising after a whole day sitting. along the track. “It’s midnight and we’re running on the bridges over the river,” Mr. Skacel said. “No matter where you are, you find time to do what you need.”
While 2023 was a near-perfect year for Kelce, Aaron Eanes said the increased attention has his team considering a potential area of concern: oversaturation. There is too much? of Mr. Kelce on TV and in the news, and could fans go numb at the sight of it? The plan for next year revolves around one word: healing. Fewer offers. Quality over quantity. Authenticity first.
After a midweek visit to New York to speak at a sports business conference, the Eanes brothers were rushing to catch flights to Ohio to spend a few days with their family before returning to Kansas City, where the Chiefs were playing the Buffalo Bills. in a clash of two top-level teams.
The game was decided in the final moments with a penalty that reversed what would have likely become an iconic play in Kelce’s career.
Kelce trailed by three and caught a pass in the open field. Then, as he was about to be tackled, he showed off the arm he had used as a high school quarterback, throwing a perfect pass to an open teammate who ran for what appeared to be a winning score. The only problem was that the teammate had lined up incorrectly before the play, which erased the touchdown.
The Chiefs lost the game, but once again, Kelce found a way to be in the middle of it all.
“We positioned Travis to be world famous,” André Eanes said. “We didn’t know how it would happen, or when it would happen, or what would help moving forward. But it’s always been the thought in the back of our minds.”
