Dynamic Entity for Media Control

I am trying to create a lovelace card to display the card for the media player that is runinng.

So I created a helper input_text.active_player… Any automation assigns it the value based on the speaker in the house that is running.

Now I wanted to create a lovelace card to display the card for the entity name stored in the helper.

For instance,

When basement speaker is playing the automation assigns the helper the value: media_player.basement_speakers

Then I create a lovelace card:

type: media-control
entity: '{{states("input_text.active_player")}}'

This does not resolve to a card.