Patrick Mahomes Trolls Travis Kelce With Brutal First Pitch Video After Guardians Investment News
Patrick Mahomes will never let Travis Kelce live down the first pitch. Never.
Wednesday brought the news that Kelce is becoming a minority owner of the Cleveland Guardians. It is a feel-good story. Kid from Cleveland Heights buys into the hometown team. Future Hall of Famer puts his football money into a Major League ownership stake. Family ties and roots and all of that.
Mahomes saw the news, congratulated Kelce on X, and then immediately reposted the most humiliating moment of his teammate’s life: the 2023 ceremonial first pitch at Progressive Field that Kelce somehow spiked into the dirt about three feet in front of him.
“Congrats! @tkelce,” Mahomes wrote, attaching the clip. Three years later, the joke still lands.
This is how Mahomes operates. He is the most accomplished quarterback of his generation and he runs his locker room like he is the funniest guy in the back of the bus. Kelce is his favorite target. The first pitch is his favorite weapon.
The investment itself is a big deal. The Guardians were valued at roughly $1 billion in 2022. They are now estimated at $1.7 billion. Kelce did not disclose his stake or how much he paid, but minority shares in MLB franchises typically run in the $50 to $200 million range, depending on the team and the percentage. He can afford it.
Kelce has earned over $111 million in NFL salary across his career, according to Spotrac. He owns a piece of the Alpine Formula 1 team. He owns 1587 Prime, a steakhouse in Kansas City with Mahomes as his partner. He has a podcast empire with his brother Jason that generates serious money. He has a global media presence thanks to a certain pop star. He is one of the wealthiest active athletes in American sports.
Now he is an owner. And of course, his quarterback partner happens to be a minority owner of the Royals, Cleveland’s hated AL Central rival. So Mahomes vs Kelce just got a whole new layer.
“I have so much love for this city,” Kelce told ESPN. “I say it all the time: I’m just a kid from the Heights living the dream. I credit every good thing in my life to Cleveland and being raised here with the values and the people and the work ethic.”
The bigger picture here is the NFL star transition into ownership. Tom Brady is part of the Raiders. LeBron has stakes everywhere. Russell Westbrook is a Diamondbacks investor. The trend of superstar athletes converting their playing money into franchise equity has accelerated in the past five years, and Kelce joining the Guardians is just the latest move.
For now, it is a great story with a perfect Mahomes punchline attached. Kelce is one of the great players of his generation. He cannot throw a baseball. Both things will be true forever, and his quarterback is going to remind him every time the moment is right.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
