Yesterday marked the announcement of Players TV, Athletes on Demand, the first all athlete owned television network. Set to launch in late March, the aim and niche evokes The Players Tribune. The mission is to tell the athlete stories that don’t get told by the mainstream media, who often pigeon hole athletes into certain boxes and stereotypes.
Vernon Davis the just retired tight end who won a Super Bowl and made two Pro Bowls over the course of his 13 year career is involved, and he was on hand at the launch announcement on Friday. The event, which included two athlete and TV network executives, took place at Tavern Club on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.
The event coincided with NBA All-Star Weekend in Chicago, with 10 time NBA All-Star Carmelo Anthony and eight time All-NBA Chris Paul on hand.
Neither were made available to the media, but we did have an exclusive with Davis, and the audio of that is below.
Davis, who has made his mark in acting, and aims to become the next Will Smith, talks about the new network, the changing media landscape, hanging out with Will Ferrell, why he looks up to Smith and more:
While Anthony and Paul didn’t do media, they did speak during two interesting and thought-provoking panels, and we have video clips from those below.
After the Melo and CP3 videos via Twitter, we also have some audio excerpts of the panels, via Sound Cloud below. It’s a really challenging, but also a very interesting time in the media business and there is a lot to unpack there; and we’ll be doing so in future posts
https://twitter.com/PaulMBanks/status/1228384979517874178
https://twitter.com/PaulMBanks/status/1228395339020939270
Best of luck to Vernon Davis and company!
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
You can follow Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com on Twitter here and his cat on Instagram at this link.