Nick Wright, Fox Sports star, keeps cashing in on his Chiefs obsession

[Hammock Parties]

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The Monday after the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Buffalo Bills to advance to their third straight Super Bowl, Nick Wright appeared on the set of Fox Sports 1′s “First Things First” in a red-and-white-checked Louis Vuitton fleece jacket. He wore sunglasses and lounged in his chair, his feet up on the desk in front of him.

“How are you feeling today?” asked his co-host, Kevin Wildes.

“I don’t want to overstate it,” Wright said. “One of the best days of my life.”

All that was missing was a victory cigar, though Wright had broadcast himself smoking one the night before on Instagram, minutes after the final whistle.

Wright, 40, has been in a gloating mood this season — and, really, for the entire Patrick Mahomes era. Whenever the NFL commentariat has voiced any whiff of skepticism about the Chiefs, Wright, a Kansas City native and die-hard Chiefs fan, has promised victory. And the Chiefs have obliged.

“It is unbelievably fortuitous, professionally, and unbelievably gratifying, personally, that I have become the media avatar for what will go down as the greatest team in the history of the sport and who will go down as the greatest player in the history of the sport,” Wright said in an interview.

Driven by Wright, “First Things First” has become “appointment television” for Chiefs fans, said Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas, a lifelong friend of Wright’s. “I’ve got a busy job, but I’m trying to catch his takes on Mondays.”

Ahead of last season, Wright got a tattoo on his arm that reads “Never A Doubt.” He told viewers it was a prediction of the Chiefs going 20-0, but after they lost their first game, it morphed into a promise of the team’s inevitability even during an 11-6 season. The Chiefs, of course, won the Super Bowl, and Patrick Mahomes adopted the slogan, too. The show has traveled to Chiefs Super Bowl parades, and Wright’s commentary circulates in the Chiefs’ locker room.

Through it all, his career has flourished. Last week, he appeared on high-profile shows including “Pardon My Take,” Dan Patrick’s, Dan Le Batard’s and colleague Colin Cowherd’s, all while pumping out episodes of his own podcast and doing two live hours daily on FS1. He’s a growing face of the network and recently signed a new contract. It’s not all because of the Chiefs, but their run has undeniably been good business for Wright.

“Nick has reached the goal of every broadcaster of when you think of a thing, you want to be the person who comes to mind,” said Carrington Harrison, a sports radio host in Kansas City (and a former intern for Wright). “For every political crisis, CNN has a specific person they call. Nick is very uniquely positioned where the Chiefs are the ‘it’ story and there’s no better person to talk about it.”

Wright’s first foray into sports media was as a 10-year-old in the parking lot of Arrowhead Stadium. He called into the Chiefs’ postgame show one afternoon; when the show wouldn’t let a kid on the air, he put his dad on the line for the screeners. Wright got through and complained about Marty Schottenheimer’s clock management. His insights were so good that he got a regular segment as “Nick the Kid.”



That same energy shows up every day on the set of “First Things First.” Wright created a bulletin board on set where he collects slights against the Chiefs. In 2023, the Bills’ Twitter account tweeted “Never a doubt” after a regular season win over the Chiefs. The Chiefs would lose their first playoff game this year, Rex Ryan said on ESPN. Mahomes didn’t make the Pro Bowl this year. Adam Schefter noted the Chiefs’ good penalty luck, and Wright promptly called it terrible journalism. (Schefter was far from the only prominent media member to raise the point.)

Wright has comebacks for everyone else, too. He unveiled a banner with Mahomes superimposed on the face of Babe Ruth, and he called the Bills eternally cursed because they traded the pick to the Chiefs that was used to draft Mahomes. He compared Mahomes to Tony Soprano, calling him the main character of the NFL while Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow are compelling bit players such as Carmela, Christopher and Paulie Walnuts.

“It helps that basically every one of his Chiefs predictions is accurate,” Wildes said.

Wright didn’t plan it exactly this way. When he launched his first show on Fox in 2017, he discussed with then co-host Cris Carter how much to lean into his fandom. Wright decided he had to be a Chiefs fan to talk about the NFL authentically. Also, the Chiefs weren’t a national story. Four months later, Mahomes debuted.

“So much of the industry is fighting for the same two corners: who can be the biggest Cowboys fan in sports media and who can be the biggest Cowboys skeptic,” Wright said. “No one was looking for the Chiefs corner. It’s totally unguarded territory. And I’m like, ‘Well, I’ll take it’ — because it is what I believe. And now it’s the most sought-after real estate in sports media.”



Wright is not the first media member to follow a subject to a larger profile. Brian Windhorst famously covered LeBron James in high school before following him to Cleveland and Miami. Skip Bayless covered the Cowboys in Dallas as a columnist and then made his fandom part of his TV shtick.

Nor is Wright the first to realize the importance of fandom. Dan Katz, a Boston-area native better known as Barstool Big Cat, turned himself into a Chicago sports fan when he started blogging about the city’s teams. The best corollary, though, may be Bill Simmons, whose Boston roots helped make him an essential voice at the same time the Red Sox broke their World Series curse and the New England Patriots enjoyed the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick era.

“I think fans like when certain members of the media are die-hards, too,” Wright said. “And I don’t think fans like at all when people look down on being a die-hard fan, as some people I think have.”

In Wright’s case, Chiefs players have noticed, too. He has gotten FaceTime calls from Chiefs General Manager Brett Veach after playoff victories. Mahomes sent him bottle service in a Kansas City club at a Super Bowl celebration, and Wright spent that night partying with tight end Travis Kelce until 5 a.m.

Asked whether he might be more critical of the Chiefs if he wasn’t also a fan, Wright said, “I like to think I wouldn’t be because this specific thing has been so blindingly obvious, and it’s been one of the biggest shockers of my professional life that people for the last couple years have been in such denial about this team.”

In 2012, Wright had a decision to make. He had come home after college and spent five years on local radio in Kansas City. He had a contract extension waiting to be signed, and he was house hunting with his fiancée. Then a radio station in Houston offered him a job. Wright chose to leave.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever been happier than I was in 2012,” he said. “But I left because I had always said that I wanted the finish line of [my career] to be one day if you asked 100 sports fans, ‘Family Feud’-style, who is the biggest sports talk personality in America and that I get the most votes.

“I’m like seventh place now,” he added with a smile.

It was emotional to say goodbye to Kansas City. Wright’s dad was the president of the firefighters union there. He grew up with season tickets to Chiefs games. Mayor Lucas officiated the renewal of his marriage vows. But that has made this Chiefs’ run somehow even more special. Segments on his hometown team can sound like he’s doing local radio on national TV.

On Sunday, the Chiefs will play for history, and Wright is already preparing a victory show for a three-peat — even if, as Cowherd noted, Wright may get better ratings for a Chiefs loss. “The audience likes to see you bleed once in a while,” Cowherd said.

An anguished Wright certainly would make for good TV, even if he can’t quite fathom it. “Intellectually, I know they can lose. I know the Eagles could win,” Wright said. “But spiritually, it seems impossible.”

[T-post Tom]

Love the bombast filtered thru red & gold. Always cogent/relevant. Good on him.

[BWillie]

The banners are a thing of beauty

[kysirsoze]

Kinda weird they photographed him like he was a victim of serial murder, but good for him.

[Pants]

He has had the strongest takes since day one. He's a great listen regardless of which sport or team or player may be the subject.