PlayersTV, the first-ever athlete-owned media network, is offering viewers unprecedented access to the lives of their stars both in and outside of their sport. Cheddar News speaks with PlayersTV co-founder Collin Castellaw who says the company is close to launching a new subscription platform 'Athletes on Demand' that will allow stars to create unique content for their fans. 

Closing Bell

PlayersTV Connects Athletes With Fans Providing Unique Content

Um, okay, well, let's turn to the business sports because players tv, the first ever athlete owned media brand has provided viewers with unprecedented access into the lives of professional athletes, both in and outside of their sports, sort of a behind the scenes. Look as well, the company announcing its athletes on demand subscription platform earlier this year. And that will allow sports stars to monetize their intellectual property, create unique content and connect with fans backed by big name investors like chris, paul, Kyrie Irving Carmelo Anthony, just to name a few. And joining me now is Colin Castella co founder of Players. Tv Colin, thanks for coming on as so I know you're streaming service, athletes on demand set to launch this fall. What can fans expect? Yeah. Hey, thanks for having me on, you know, athletes on demand is incredibly exciting for us. Uh, mostly because in the, you know, kind of realm of athletes, sports content, there's really not kind of that one centralized destination. So, you know, there's a lot of really great content that lives out there, but some of it lives, you know, on Youtube or HBO or show are all these different places. And so basically kind of, our main goal is to utilize the power of the collective, both with professional athletes, as well as sports content creators to essentially put that all in one roof. So, you know, if you're the sports mega fan, you know, it's kind of all there for your viewing pleasure. Okay, a lot of ways to watch this, Who are some of the athletes that will be featured? Yeah, great question. So right now, we currently have over 50 athletes that are, you know, kind of either investors, content partners or marketing partners with us. Um, so a lot of them, uh, you know, I think our plan is to hopefully push above 100 athletes by the end of the year. Um, and so there will be a lot of different ways that athletes can, you know, kind of distribute contest with us or contact with us inside of the platform itself. So, um, you know, obviously a lot of our big name investors, like you kind of mentioned at the start of the Read, um, and really, you know, we are kind of basketball heavy. That's where our, our bones were started. But, you know, we're really looking to kind of expand into, you know, both, you know, other, you know, professional athletes, you know, we already have some football players, we have a few baseball players were really kind of scaling there as well as female athletes as well. So we're, we've got, um, you know, kind of the power of the group collective and that's kind of what we plan to roll out with. So how active our players in the actual development of this content Colin are they able to use their own voice in the content that we see as fans? Yeah, absolutely. And I'd say that's probably one of our secret sauces to the company, Right? You know, a lot of times people don't understand that athletes are really incredible human beings just in and of itself, they may be world class of the sport they play, but a lot of them have other interests, hobbies talents outside of their, you know, kind of traditional sport. And so they're really kind of a crew creative group that a lot of people don't even understand have those kind of creative juices. So a lot of times what we'll do is we'll I. D. Eight with an athlete, you know, and really, it kind of comes from their brain and we basically just kind of help bring it to life, is how we like to do it. How does this benefit some of the league's, I would suspect that the leagues would be in on this as well as it is a brand extension. Yeah. And really, that's kind of where we're seeing a lot of, a lot of traction when it comes to the fandom. Right? And so we always believe that essentially the bond between an athlete and a fan grows even stronger when they know more about the athlete. Right? So, if, you know what an athlete likes from a, you know, philanthropy perspective or a business perspective or what their favorite food is now, once you're watching them inside of the, you know, kind of actual plane arena, um, the connection is greater, and so a lot of the times that kind of makes, you know, the on field on court product even more strong when it comes to that phantom connection. So really we see this as kind of like filling in the missing puzzle piece to that overall fandom in the ecosystem. Talk to me more about the business model here, Colin how your company is making money and then the stake that the athletes have in this as well. Yeah, great question as well. So, you know, basically what it comes down to is we don't put all of our eggs in one basket, we have multiple revenue streams um in a variety of ways, both, you know, from, you know, kind of future plans as well as what we've done in the past, predominantly right now we're doing a lot of branded sponsorship content um that's kind of the easiest, low hanging fruit. A lot of our athletes come attached with brands that they already work with, you know, so we were with companies like, you know, beyond me, Sony State Farm, you know, some of those kind of major brands to not only create content that speaks to, you know, the athletes following in the fans, but also content that really kind of, you know, helps the brands essentially get their name out there in a way that's much more organic with um, you know, kind of the rest of the week system. So a great example of that is we're working with a major car company currently um and they're working with professional athletes to essentially do like a really cool experience with hbCU students. Um, and so I can't get fully into the details before we officially announce it, but it's pretty cool to see like the brand stepping up and not only supporting what the athletes interested in, but also, you know, kind of these college students as well. Yeah, I think obviously the college students probably do see this as a very big opportunity for them as well. Colin talk to me more about partnerships that might be in the works other distribution models that you're pursuing here and is the metaverse something that you're looking into? Yeah, so really, you know what we think about when it comes to players tv in general is a, the power of the group collective and be harnessing the power of distribution. So the massive kind of problem in the ecosystem when it came to content was there is either a lot of really great content, but it's living in a bunch of different places or there's a lot of great content that could be produced, but they don't know where to distribute it out, right? So we heard over and over and over again from professional athletes, hey, I've got this idea for a documentary or I've got this idea for a reality series, but there's no real great place for it to live. So that's really kind of what our focus was to crack that distribution ecosystem and we do that a variety of ways, right? We have the direct consumer coming in the fall, like we mentioned earlier, we have the live linear channel, It's in over 200 million homes and devices right now, as well as a very robust digital footprint of over 300 million social followers, that we can kind of, you know, fire stuff out there as well as a handful of other opportunities. So really, what we focus on from a monetization and a content perspective when it comes to distribution, how do you take that one piece of content instead of monetizing at one time? How do we monetize it? 45678 different. Um, and really utilizing our athletes as partners in it. So if it's, you know, I p that we're developing with an athlete will co own that I. P with them. Um, you know, and essentially kind of bring them in as partners into the fold rather than just, you know, kind of like paid talent opportunities, Like traditional media is done in the past. So, I do want to talk about the social aspect Colin, cause I heard you mention obviously they're your major social presence. How do you find that viewers and fans engage with the social content that might be different from some of the video on demand. Yeah, so really, you know, we kind of think about content of, you know, 3 60 so it's gonna be different depending on where you view it. So take our show, front office, for example, it's a really cool investing show where athletes, you know, have to companies that go head to head for an investment, that's from executive producer chris paul. And so that content will be different if it lives on Youtube, if it lives on our directing consumer, if it lives on linear. And so it might just be the highlights on the social channel. Right. And so really we think about, you know, hey, how do we shoot long form first and then chop down to distribute in different places. So that's really kind of, the name of the game for us is really putting the most engaging stuff on social, the stuff that's going to get people talking, get them excited about. Um, you know, the content of the project. And then, you know, that's kind of how we think about it from a social perspective. All right, Colin Castella, a co founder of Players, tv Colin, thanks so much for coming on and I'm excited to see some of this forthcoming content