Colin Jost has been at SNL for twenty years and has been in his on-air Weekend Update role for more than a decade. During that time, he’s worked with hundreds of A-list celebrity hosts and prominent musical guests, and for the most part, he’s kept it entirely professional. In fact, there’s only been one time during his entire tenure at Saturday Night Live in which he asked someone for an autograph. Not surprisingly, the person in question was a New York City sports legend.
Jost is a well-known fan of many of the NYC sports teams, and in particular, he’s a huge New York Giants fan. So, when Super Bowl-winning Giants quarterback Eli Manning hosted back in 2012, he couldn’t help himself and asked the legend to sign a ridiculous 8x10 of him lying in a bed of footballs. Here’s a portion of the quote he gave People while talking about the autograph…
He just signed it 'To Colin, Eli.’ It looks almost romantic. It's such a funny photo.
Fortunately for Jost, that wouldn’t be his last interaction with Manning. He’s currently at The Ryder Cup hosting a special three day morning show called Breakfast At Bethpage. It’s a daily prepper for the huge every other year golfing competition between The United States and Europe, and it’s being produced by Eli and his brother Peyton Manning (along with NBC Sports and T-Mobile).
Jost and Manning also got a chance to play some golf together earlier this week when they competed in the Celebrity Ryder Cup. The two partnered in a winning effort alongside teammates Miranda Lambert and Noah Kahan. Assumedly, Jost didn’t ask the quarterback for any more autographs, but perhaps he worked it into the contract he signed w/ the Manning Brothers’ Omaha Productions, which is involved in the upcoming Chad Powers series and had a hand in WWE's well-received Unreal series.
Jost, of course, famously grew up on Staten Island. I say famously because his purchase of a Staten Island Ferry Boat alongside buddy Pete Davidson has become a regular source of roasting at times, even fodder for SNL sketches. Trying to steer the ship back to profitability has been a work in progress not unlike his beloved New York Football Giants, who have had exactly one season with a winning record since 2017. They’ve started this season 0-3, but with fourteen games left, there’s still time to turn things around.
Reviews for Breakfast At Bethpage have been quite positive, which shouldn’t come as a surprise given Jost’s surfing coverage at the Olympics was also received very well by fans. He’s got a knack for blending together sports and popular culture, and whenever he decides to leave Saturday Night Live, that seems like a possible next step in his career.
You can catch Jost when SNL officially returns for Season 51 in early October. He'll be joined by a ton of bunch of fun guest hosts, who assumedly, he won't ask to get an autograph from.
