Warner Bros. Discovery and Bleacher Report saw no reason to draft retired athletes for video podcast insights when some of the greatest sports scholars are still in the game.
Micah Parsons was an All-American linebacker at Penn State before being taken in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft by the Dallas Cowboys. Now an NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year and three-time All-Pro, 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 show allows Parsons to debate the merits of his Big 10 college football background against that of Southeast Conference (SEC) counterparts like teammate and Alabama alum Trevon Diggs. It also lets him provide fans context for sideline squabbles, big contract renewals, and even his recovery from a high ankle injury.
When the Cowboys are 3-3, and Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman expresses his displeasure with pass routes publicly, Parsons uses The Edge to let Aikman know that maybe players would like to hear that in the locker room first.
“We have seen for some time that there is audience demand for getting closer to athletes,” said Bleacher Report General Manager Bennett Spector. “What was a very traditional paradigm in media—we will bring people in after they’ve retired, or they need to be highly polished—is not the user signal that we saw on social media. When athletes engage with their fans directly, that’s when major spikes occur with audiences.”
Bleacher Report provided cameras, crews, producers, and talent booking, but it wanted to sit back and let Parsons be himself. If he wanted to invite rival players like Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Darius Slay, Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love, or Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud onto the show, they were good with it. If he wanted to speak directly to fans and educate them about the game, they were for that, too.
What they couldn’t do was get advertisers interested. Despite a National Football League Players Association survey that says 36% of fans would purchase a product from a brand that sponsors their favorite NFL player, brands passed on Parsons’ show and others from Bleacher Report because they wanted to see the athletes’ commitment for themselves.
Insurance company Nationwide, an official NFL sponsor that presents the league’s Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, was going over its 2024-25 media plan when Bleacher Report approached it about The Edge. Nationwide CMO Ramon Jones said the company set up an in-person meeting with Parsons, but the last-minute addition of a mandatory practice session kept him away.
Instead, Parsons recorded a video message that expressed his desire to work with the brand and ended on a note from its jingle: Nationwide is on your side.
