What’s in a name? For professional athletes, the answer is a lot as the stars join the growing not-com movement in a move to differentiate themselves from the plethora of media options on the table. With the expansion of the Internet, athletes are jumping into new opportunities to boost their online presence, and this month alone, at least eight athletes are making a tactical shift from .com websites, including Gordon Hayward, Brandon Bair, DJ Fluker and Davon House of .life extensions, while Andrew Nicholson is tapping .camp for his site.
For NFL linebacker AJ Hawk, who launched his own podcast series The HawkCast a year ago, the switch from .com to .show was an elemental strategy designed to simply educate fans on what exactly his media presence entailed. Now 53 episodes into the format, his lineup of interviews has included sports names that range from Joe Buck to Ricky Williams as well as a wide range of celebs that include the likes of Bret Michaels, Josh Duhamel, and Kato Kaelin. Cynopsis Sports spoke with Hawk about his decision to launch the show, how it impacts his post-football career and the importance of a name.
Hawk on launching The HawkCast: It all started because I was a big fan of listening to other people’s podcasts. I thought it was always interesting to hear people talk in a real and casual conversation-type of setting where it didn’t sounds like a typical interview. So I was talking with my wife, who encouraged me to do it and I started learning how to do something like this, the logistics of it, how I would talk to people, etc. and with that forum available to me, I’ve ended up enjoying it even more than I thought I would.
On lessons learned: I’ve learned it isn’t as easy as it looks! I knew that would be the case going in, as I had typically been on just the one side of an interview over the years. Most athletes have never been the guy asking the questions and since I want to go into the broadcast world when I’m done playing football, I knew this would help me get some practice asking the questions so I knew what they had to go through. I had Joe Buck on my podcast pretty early on, and he gave me a great piece of advice when I asked him what to do when you are about to interview somebody and you aren’t excited about it, and he said to keep an open mind because they could completely blow you away and they may not be who you thought they were. That has been absolutely true, and with each interview, I learn something new. Of course, I also find something that bugs me about my interview skills that I can correct, whether it is a tic or something I repeat, and I work to overcome that and get better.
On rebranding the site: It made sense to me to rebrand to TheHawkCast.show because when I would try to explain what a podcast is to someone, a lot of people didn’t understand what that actually entailed. With the not-com movement going on, I realized that using a .com extension didn’t represent what I was doing. But if they type in .show, they will realize, “Wow, AJ Hawk has a show!” and it will help people become more aware.
On the AJ Hawk brand: I don’t really feel like I have a brand because there is no separate me. There’s no different version of me online or in my home or on the football field. This is who I am, whatever you see represents who I am at all times.
