The Players’ Tribune is launching a podcast network

Having already carved out a nice niche in sappy essays titled “Letter to My Younger Self,” the Derek-Jeter-founded website The Players’ Tribune is looking to broaden its horizons.

The podcast project began Thursday with an hour-long oral history on the 1986 New York Giants, narrated by Michael Strahan. It will reportedly be the first of four audio oral histories The Players’ Tribune will produce, in addition to several traditional podcasts. Via Digiday:

Overall, The Players’ Tribune plans to create four to six podcast shows this year, according to Jaymee Messler, president of The Players’ Tribune. This includes a flagship The Players Tribune-branded interview show as well as multiple athlete-hosted podcasts and other topical series. All of the podcasts will be distributed on iTunes and other top podcasting platforms including Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher and TuneIn.

This announcement comes days after the news that the Players’ Tribune, founded in October 2014, had raised $40 million from investment firms and athletes, despite middling web traffic.

This isn’t the first time the Players’ Tribune has tried its hand at multimedia journalism. They’ve produced various short videos, including a Budweiser-branded interview series, and in August announced they were turning the life of NFL player Vernon Turner into a movie. (The film will be based on an essay called “Letter to My Younger Self,” of course.)

The Players’ Tribune has lots of money, a beautiful website and access to tons of star players. They’ve gotten major scoops and published powerful essays. Still, much of their content remains unoriginal and overly sanitized. There are only so many times you can read about hard work and perseverance and how great someone’s mother is (though we’re sure she’s really great!). We’ll see if the podcast series is any different.

[Digiday]