The latest step into athlete content comes from Buffalo Bills‘ linebacker Von Miller. Bleacher Report announced Thursday (ahead of Miller and the Bills kicking off the NFL season against the Los Angeles Rams) that they’ve tapped Miller to host a live video podcast (or “vodcast”), which will see him interviewing players from around the NFL regularly. The plan is for these interviews to cover both football and players’ personal lives and passions. The series will begin Tuesday (at a to-be-determined time) with Miller (seen above in a preview image) interviewing Baltimore Ravens’ DE Calais Campbell. Here’s a quote from Miller from a release:
“There is so much more to explore with today’s NFL player and there are so few platforms that do it. The Voncast will give audiences a new perspective of their favorite players and insights in the midst of the season that they can’t get anywhere else.”
The show will air live in the B/R app, and they’ll continue their focus on fan interaction there. As with B/R’s weekly fantasy streams and NFL reaction streams, fans can engage with the hosts (in this case, Miller and his interviewee) live during the show. After the show, the recording will be available on B/R’s YouTube channel as well as all podcast platforms.
This follows the Taylor Rooks X vodcast interview series B/R has previously done, which spun out of the interview show they initially named Take It There. The combination of a live vodcast interview with fan participation and a feed that can be later disseminated to video and podcast platforms for anytime consumption has worked well for B/R in the past, and it’s worked well for Rooks (who, in addition to her work with B/R and Turner, will now also be doing features and interviews for Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football). So this is a logical format. We’ll see how it works for the Voncast.
But it’s certainly notable to see an active NFL player commit to interviewing other players on a regular basis during the season. Regular media appearances from an active player are not “unprecedented,” no matter what Undisputed may say, but this is a bit of a different format, and one that requires Miller to ask questions and engage in discussions rather than just answering questions. We’ll see how he does with that.
