Taylor Swift Takes Kelce Brothers' Podcast To New Heights

Forbes

6 hours ago

In the big scheme of podcast guests, it's hard to get bigger than Taylor Swift. And that's exactly what New Heights – hosted by Swift's boyfriend, Travis Kelce with his brother, Jason – was banking on when the idea to have Taylor announce her new album on the show was hatched.
However, rather than simply leveraging Swift's appearance into a flash-in-the-pan viral moment, New Heights is already building out an impressive case study in how to turn big moments into lasting momentum.
Instant Success On Instagram
New Heights' Instagram Reels have generated 566 million views since the start of 2025, according to data provided by Tubular Labs. And an impressive 244 million of those came from Aug. 11-13, when the Swift promotion cycle started.
The Life of a Showgirl announcement clip (with blurred cover art) alone delivered 161 million views – making it not only the No. 1 video by far for New Heights this year, but also the No. 1 U.S. Instagram reel over the last week. The show maximized the lead-up to the episode with seven separate Instagram Reels to drum up interest and acquire new viewers.
Not coincidentally, by Wednesday afternoon, New Heights was the No. 1 podcast on Apple. Before the new episode even aired. The Daily Beast reported the episode had 1.3 million live viewers on YouTube over the first hour, which was 500K more than Donald Trump's appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience had last fall.
Now that Swift has appeared on the show once, it's unlikely that the Swifties (and other interested parties) that flocked to New Heights are all suddenly unsubscribing. Instagram audiences for New Heights and Swift overlapped by just 13% over the last six months. Even losing half of that number is a significant upswing for the show.
Taylor Swift And Travis Kelce Are Power Of Power Couples
Celebrity power couples have long been able to parlay their respective individual successes into even greater returns together. While Jay-Z and Beyoncé may be the most notable case, there are many more who have also been able to maintain and grow wealth as a collective brand unto themselves.
As a billionaire, Taylor Swift doesn't need assistance from a partner in the wealth department. But her successful empire still finds new ways to maximize revenues via a carefully curated public persona, limited interviews and minimal brand partnerships.
Swift has been dating Kelce since the summer of 2023, and only now is she appearing on New Heights (started in 2022). That's not casting aspersions at all. Rather, it's pointing out that the spot was carefully chosen in a way that bundles Kelce into a larger part of Swift's collective success, here via the new album announcement.
Kelce's various endorsement deals are a residual part of their relationship, too. But this episode of New Heights is arguably the launch of the public Swift/Kelce franchise as a larger financial machine that outwardly works to fuel each other's successes (something they both benefit from in the end).
Kelce isn't going to play football forever, and retirement speculation has peppered the last couple off-seasons. One way to keep his upward momentum going is to make sure his podcast retains (and grows) relevance beyond football. The specter of a possible Swift relationship nugget, or even surprise guest appearance, certainly helps there.
Latest Glow-Up For Podcasts
It's been a big year for podcasts, as video's role has exploded, more celebrities have started shows and the revenues climb well past $7 billion for the entire industry.
Swift's appearance on New Heights doesn't change the fortunes of podcasting in the short-term. But in the long-term, it sparks ideas that could extend to other crossover collaborations, album announcements, surprise celebrity drop-ins and more.
Video podcasts are rapidly becoming the new equivalent of TV talk shows for many viewers, so it's natural that they'd eventually become more event-ized in the same way TV is. By arguably starting at the top of what's possible in terms of resonance (with Swift), the use of celebrity within this episode and its promo cycle has the potential to pull the whole industry up with it.
At minimum, expect to be seeing New Heights as a bigger fixture of the larger podcast ecosystem going forward as it starts pushing the boundaries of what a 'sports' show and audience looks like.