The Kansas City Chiefs’ 40-22 loss in Super Bowl 59 was the capper to a topsy-turvy season — one that saw iconic tight end Travis Kelce continue losing his battle with Father Time. A massive cap hit in 2025—$19.8 million, most among TEs—could even put him at risk of being cut by K.C. However, Ochocinco believes Kelce is in a unique position to take a pay cut and stay.
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As you might have learned over the past year and a half, Kelce is dating pop icon, Taylor Swift. The superstar has amassed a fortune of over $1.1 billion according to Forbes, which makes Kelce’s $94 million in career NFL earnings look like a minimum wage salary.
So, while discussing the possibility of the Chiefs cutting Kelce, Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson suggested he could take a pay cut to stay, especially given how wealthy his girlfriend is.
“Trust me, he good. He’s dating a billionaire. I think he has no worries… To come back and keep the band together, to be able to get some other key offseason acquisitions, I have no problem with doing that, and coming back, and giving this thing another go. He can do that, so he’s not one that’s hurtin’, so he’ll be fine,” Ocho said on Nightcap.
NEWS: The #Chiefs may be forced to release Travis Kelce this off-season due to his 19.8 million dollar cap hit.
This would be the highest cap hit for a TE in the entire league. Kelce struggled mightily this season. pic.twitter.com/YU1gYkx4ev
— MLFootball (@_MLFootball) February 11, 2025
Ochocinco and co-host Shannon Sharpe also pointed out that Kelce doesn’t just have to rely on his future wifey and his football money. Kelce has done a great job of parlaying his athletic success into money in non-football sectors. He made $35 million off endorsements last year, which is over twice as much as his $17 million NFL salary for 2024.
Travis Kelce has diversified his earnings over the last year
Kelce’s net worth was estimated at around $40 million during the 2023 season. But, after becoming King of the Swifties, that number skyrocketed to $52 million by the start of the 2024 campaign.
At this point, there’s pretty much no section of the business world in which Travis Kelce has not inserted himself. He’s got endorsement deals with Nike, Old Spice, Experian, State Farm, and Bud Light, running the gamut from beer to insurance, to athletic apparel and male grooming.
He’s also invested in various fitness brands, which was expected based on his day job. But he’s also expanded into real estate, and he owns an entertainment production company — 1991 Productions. He’s also the main proprietor at a variety of Kansas City area eateries.
Roll all that up and put a Taylor Swift bow on it, and you’ve got a guy who’s pretty financially secure, no matter what happens next with his NFL career. He could certainly grease the tracks for his return to K.C. in 2025 by taking a pay cut—and based on his recent play, he probably should.
“Travis Kelce’s a team player… He’s making so much money off the field, he’s not going to have a problem taking a pay cut. He’s not gonna have a problem doing that. Because he’s gonna make up whatever he doesn’t get off the field, because he has so much going on. It’s the same situation with Tom Brady. In Tom Brady’s day, he was taking pay cuts in New England to make sure they kept the team around him,” Johnson continued.
Travis Kelce was the best tight end in football for 4-5 years, but over the last couple of seasons, he’s had a noticeable dip in production. He posted career lows in receiving yards (823), yards per reception (8.5), and TDs (three) in 2024.
The tight end position is not a deep one in the league, so his 97 receptions still ranked 3rd at the position, while his 823 yards were 5th. However, they marked noticeable declines for him personally compared to previous years.
The belief was that the Chiefs were just waiting to unleash him in the playoffs. That seemed to be the case after a seven-reception 117-yard performance in the Divisional Round. However, he managed just six receptions for 58 yards combined in the AFCCG and the Super Bowl. That was by far the worst two-game playoff total of his career.
Travis Kelce’s $17.125 million salary in 2024 was the most for any tight end in the league. That was fair enough based on his historical production. But now that he’s clearly in the downturn, a restructuring seems to be in order. A team with championship aspirations can’t be allotting 6.71 percent of their cap (5th-most among TEs) to an aging player who can’t hit 1,000 yards anymore.
