In 2023, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce hosted Saturday Night Live, joining the ranks of game NFL players like Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Joe Montana. It, by most accounts, went well; our recapper Trae DeLellis went so far as to call it the best episode of the season at that point, praising how Kelce was able to “celebrate his recent triumph while also checking all ego at the door.” The fact that Kelce did so well likely came as no surprise to Heidi Gardner, a Kansas City native who had apparently been lobbying to get the athlete on the show for years.
“The biggest swing I ever did in that department, and it did work, but it took a couple years, was Travis Kelce,” Gardner said on the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast (via Deadline) of her push for the host. “I don’t want to take full credit [from] the show and the talent department, but I’m just obviously a big Chiefs fan, and I had seen him do other little acting gigs and appearances, and I was like, ‘He’s funny, he’s charming.’ I had done the ESPYs with him, announcing something together.” Apparently, Lorne Michaels was fairly blasé when she brought it up (as is his wont). “Lorne was like, ‘Well, he has to win the Super Bowl,’” Gardner recounted. “And I was like, ‘That is so much pressure to ask!’ And then he won the Super Bowl!”
Kelce (well, the Chiefs) won the Super Bowl for the first time in 2020, and again in 2023 and 2024. It’s unclear when Gardner’s real push for the host started; famously, the world kind of shut down for a while not long after the 2020 Super Bowl. It also seems that she presented with Kelce at the ESPYs after he hosted, teaming up for the July 2023 ceremony. Discrepancies aside, Gardner got her wish—and even shared a couple of sketches with him during the episode.
