Jason Kelce thinks Philadelphia’s brutal sports media coverage actually helps teams win. After 13 years of living through it, he might know something the rest of us don’t.
The retired Eagles center made his case on 94WIP, defending the city’s notoriously harsh sports talk landscape.
“I am very pro-Philadelphia media being very honest with their pro sports teams,” Kelce said. “I’ve seen that in the building that it has an effect on people to make corrections and make change.”
Jason Kelce says the demanding Philadelphia media helps the pro sports teams in the city improve:
“I am very pro Philadelphia media being very honest with their pro sports teams. I think that in general it pushes, a lot of the times the envelope—and I’ve seen that in the… pic.twitter.com/4D8lSZ6HFa
— SPORTSRADIO 94WIP (@SportsRadioWIP) September 18, 2025
It’s a counterintuitive argument from someone who spent more than a decade getting roasted by callers and talk show hosts. Kelce admits the coverage can be “very frustrating to go through at times as a player and an athlete in this city.” But he insists there’s a payoff: “You can’t fall asleep in this city. You’re going to be getting crucified if you’re not going out there and doing your job, and I think that does push people.”
It sounds good in theory, but Philadelphia might be the only city where this still works. Mike Francesa and Chris Russo aren’t pushing the Mets to trade for Mike Piazza anymore. That era of sports radio as genuine civic accountability died everywhere else years ago. Most markets have shifted toward entertainment, manufactured hot takes for clicks, or outright cheerleading designed to drive engagement.
As Kelce explained to his brother Travis, WIP “control[s] a lot of the narrative” but is “oftentimes just a reflection of what the fanbase truly thinks about the team.”
If that reflection is accurate, though, you’d expect Philadelphia teams to consistently outperform cities with softer coverage. They don’t. The Eagles won Super Bowl LII, LIX, and reached another one, sure. The Phillies reached two World Series. But they’ve also had long stretches of mediocrity despite all that supposed accountability. The 76ers have been competitive for years without winning anything that matters. The Flyers have been mostly irrelevant.
Other cities manage just fine without the constant threat of getting “crucified.” But those comparisons might miss the point. Other cities don’t have Philadelphia’s media culture because other cities can’t replicate it. You can’t manufacture the kind of authentic, working-class sports anger that drives WIP programming.
The bigger question is who this approach actually helps. Kelce thrived under the scrutiny and became a Philadelphia icon, but the city’s sports media has also driven away coaches and players who couldn’t handle the pressure.
As local media everywhere else gets blander and more corporate, Philadelphia’s sports talk remains genuinely unhinged. Whether that produces better teams is debatable. Whether it’s the last place where sports media still functions as actual civic pressure rather than entertainment is harder to argue against.