4 Big NBA Player Podcasts Are On the Move to Blue Wire

Dwight Howard, D’Angelo Russell, Penny Hardaway, and Victor Oladipo are all bringing their podcasts to Blue Wire, the platform’s founder and CEO Kevin Jones confirmed to Front Office Sports. The podcasts were all previously independent. 

Over the past several years, current and former player podcasts have become a cottage industry in the sports media space, and nowhere is this more pronounced than with basketball. FOS asked Howard, who was inducted into the Magic’s Hall of Fame earlier this week, how he thinks he cuts through the clutter.

“Well, we’re not trying to compete against nobody but ourselves,” Howard said. “I think the best version of ourselves every day, the most authentic version that we give to the fans and the world will bring enough energy and bring enough force that people will really love watching our podcast. … We talk about things outside of basketball, things that are different from sports. And that’s why it is called Above the Rim.”

Howard’s dream podcast guest? President Donald Trump.

“I just like to have conversations with people just to see where their spirit and their energy lies,” Howard said. “And a lot of times, when we see people online, we see people in the media or the face that they put on when they’re on TV or whatever, maybe [it’s] a little bit different than how they carry themselves and how they move when they’re not on camera and stuff like that.”

Howard said he’d want to discuss Trump’s upbringing and the difficulty of the job. “I don’t think people understand it, the tough assignment of being a president, but also trying to carry your own morals. … I’m [not] taking up for any president or anything like that in history but I’m just of the understanding that it is a very hard job—it’s like being a king in your own land and you have so many people that you have to try to take care of, and a lot of times your feelings and emotions have to be out of decisions and stuff like that,” he said.

Howard also said the top basketball player he’d like to host is Victor Wembanyama.

The Blue Wire podcast network has more than 200 shows, including ones hosted by Cam Newton, Amon-Ra St. Brown, J.R. Smith, and pro wrestling interviewer Chris Van Vliet. Collectively, the network reached more than 177 million downloads last year.

With Howard’s Above the Rim, Russell’s Backyard (cohosted by Logan Linkmeyer), Hardaway’s Two Cents, and Oladipo’s Inner Court podcasts, Blue Wire is adding a collective 445,000 YouTube subscribers and 9.2 million Instagram followers of the athletes.  

Blue Wire negotiated with Russell’s agency, CAA Basketball, for the podcast, which is sponsored by PrizePicks and Ro. “I’m excited to announce my partnership with Blue Wire, a top-tier podcast media company led by Kevin and his incredible team. Together, we’re building something special, and I can’t wait to share what’s coming next,” Russell said in a statement.

“Our Blue Wire team continues to forge strong business relationships with premier athlete and influencer talent in the sports space. We’re eager to help grow the budding media empires of D’Angelo, Dwight, Penny, and Victor,” Jones said.  

Highly successful NBA podcasts that could be called empires have included All the Smoke from Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes (they interviewed then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris in September) and JJ Redick’s Old Man and the Three, which he left to become coach of the Lakers.