Warner Bros. Discovery and Bleacher Report noticed no purpose to draft retired athletes for video podcast insights when among the best sports students are nonetheless within the sport.

Micah Parsons was an All-American linebacker at Penn State earlier than being taken within the first spherical of the 2021 NFL Draft by the Dallas Cowboys. Now an NFL Defensive Rookie of the Yr and three-time All-Professional, Parsons is now on the second season of his Bleacher Report video podcast, The Edge—and his first as president of Bleacher Report’s B/R Gridiron division.

The present permits Parsons to debate the deserves of his Large 10 faculty soccer background towards that of Southeast Convention (SEC) counterparts like teammate and Alabama alum Trevon Diggs. It additionally lets him present followers context for sideline squabbles, huge contract renewals, and even his restoration from a excessive ankle harm. 

When the Cowboys are 3-3, and Corridor of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman expresses his displeasure with go routes publicly, Parsons makes use of The Edge to let Aikman know that perhaps gamers want to hear that within the locker room first.

“We’ve got seen for a while that there’s viewers demand for getting nearer to athletes,” mentioned Bleacher Report Normal Supervisor Bennett Spector. “What was a really conventional paradigm in media—we are going to convey individuals in after they’ve retired, or they must be extremely polished—is just not the consumer sign that we noticed on social media. When athletes interact with their followers straight, that’s when main spikes happen with audiences.”

Bleacher Report supplied cameras, crews, producers, and expertise reserving, nevertheless it wished to take a seat again and let Parsons be himself. If he wished to ask rival gamers like Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Darius Slay, Inexperienced Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love, or Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud onto the present, they have been good with it. If he wished to talk on to followers and educate them concerning the sport, they have been for that, too.

What they couldn’t do was get advertisers . Regardless of a Nationwide Soccer League Gamers Affiliation survey that claims 36% of followers would buy a product from a model that sponsors their favourite NFL participant, manufacturers handed on Parsons’ present and others from Bleacher Report as a result of they wished to see the athletes’ dedication for themselves.

Insurance coverage firm Nationwide, an official NFL sponsor that presents the league’s Walter Payton Man of the Yr Award, was going over its 2024-25 media plan when Bleacher Report approached it about The Edge. Nationwide CMO Ramon Jones mentioned the corporate arrange an in-person assembly with Parsons, however the last-minute addition of a compulsory observe session saved him away. 

As an alternative, Parsons recorded a video message that expressed his want to work with the model and ended on a be aware from its jingle: Nationwide is in your aspect.