Jesse Palmer helped pull Sam Hartman past his hesitation. ABC has named the 27-year-old Washington Commanders quarterback the next star of The Bachelor, and the franchise is lining up a milestone 30th season for March 2027.
Hartman said Friday on Good Morning America that he was “excited but also very nervous.” He added, “I have a tough time holding conversation with one girl. 30 is going to be pretty tough.”
Good Morning America on Friday
The announcement puts a current NFL quarterback at the center of one of ABC’s most durable reality brands. Hartman signed with the Washington Commanders as an undrafted free agent in 2024, so the casting creates a rare overlap between an active pro football career and a lead role built around a reality-TV schedule.
Hartman said he was initially hesitant about looking for love on television, but Palmer changed his mind. “He kind of gave me the insight and gave me kind of what it is and what it’s not,” Hartman said of the host, who fronts The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. That kind of handoff matters here: the show is not only changing leads, it is handing the franchise to someone whose public identity still comes from football.
Wake Forest and Notre Dame
Hartman’s football résumé gives the casting a different weight than a typical reality-TV pickup. He played five seasons at Wake Forest, transferred to Notre Dame for his final season in 2023, and finished his college career with 134 touchdown passes, an ACC record.
In 2022, he was diagnosed with Paget-Schroetter syndrome while playing at Wake Forest, returned to the field that year, and received the ACC’s Brian Piccolo Award. He has said he wants someone with a competitive spirit, compassion, and a sense of caregiving, and he tied that to his parents’ work in medicine. “Their big thing is just be myself and enjoy the experience and trust the instincts and trust your gut,” he said.
March 21 on ABC
Season 30 of The Bachelor premieres Sunday, March 21, at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and streams the next day on Hulu. For viewers, that means the casting is not just a headline about an athlete crossing over; it is the first real signal about how ABC plans to stage a milestone season around a lead who is still in the NFL pipeline and still thinking through the mechanics of dating on television.
Hartman’s own line is the most revealing piece of the setup. He said, “I know one thing, when people are saying, ‘I do,’ they don’t ask you where you met, they just ask if you want to do it forever. I don’t see any problem with that.” If ABC wanted a lead who could turn a 30th season into a business story as well as a dating one, it found him.
