Playmaker HQ Builds Out Player-Driven NFL Slate, Moves Bomani Jones Into New NYC Studio

Jameis Winston and Willie Colon are among current and former players hosting programs added to the company's roster

Playmaker HQ has rolled out a full slate of new football programming for the NFL season, built around former players breaking down the game themselves.

The lineup includes The Jameis Winston Show, a weekly program with Jameis Winston and co-host Alex Day covering the week's biggest storylines; The Bart & Willie Show, which pairs Bart Scott, in his return to a national digital platform after leaving ESPN, with fellow NFL veteran Willie Colon for twice-weekly episodes; and the Initial Contact Show, a new commentary program hosted by Richie Incognito. The new shows join Nightcap, Shannon Sharpe and Chad Ochocinco's established reaction show to NFL Sundays.

Sportswriter Bomani Jones on the set of his eponymous podcast at Playmaker HQ's office in ManhattanAnchoring the expansion is The Right Time With Bomani Jones, one of the most popular podcasts in sports media, which has moved from remote production into a purpose-built studio at Playmaker's New York City office.

The show, which launched in 2018 while Jones was at ESPN, previously aired under Wave Sports + Entertainment. Playmaker's studio is 100% dedicated to Bomani for now, according to Playmaker Head of Content Drew Rauso, and is located in the company's office in Manhattan's Flatiron District.

It was built under the context and pretense of, let's get Bomani in here and elevate his show, says Rauso. We worked with him and his team to design it, set it up. They are there three or four days a week shooting. I'd love to get some other shows in there eventually, even one-off productions.

Playmaker typically assigns a dedicated producer, social-media manager, long-form editor, and social editor to each of its shows, who work alongside network-wide heads of social, production, and postproduction. The Right Time's new studio layout can host guests in person, and remote guests appear on an in-studio monitor as Jones sits alongside his producer.

It's shot out of our office, which allows nice proximity and interaction with our sales team, says Rauso. We think that's super valuable.

Also, he adds, it's just higher-quality capturing. You're now using better mics, better cameras. You can change the lighting better; you can get more product placement.

Hosted by Jameis Winston, The Jameis Winston Show is a new part of Playmaker HQ's roster of sports-related programs and podcasts.The Playmaker brand, which is owned by Danish digital-sports-media company Better Collective, has amassed millions of followers across its social-media accounts; some have been around for a decade. The company has begun using WSC Sports to automate production of social-media clippings for its shows that require fast turnaround from recording to publishing, mainly The Right Time and The Bart & Willie Show.

For Bart & Willie, we are now in our own studio, with a producer and a TD line-cutting live, says Rauso. The way we operate now is, there's no sending off download and upload to a remote editor, [which] obviously takes a bunch more time. The TD [is] in the room line-cutting and switching; takes that footage, the line cut, and immediately drops in lower thirds or any other graphics; and gets it up in a few hours.

WSC's tool allows Playmaker to basically live-clip from recording for distribution across social platforms, he explains. Playmaker relies on Riverside to record remote hosts and guests, as well as Asana and Frame.io to manage episode approvals and share feedback during production. The company is also testing Frame.io's mounted-storage feature, which lets editors work directly off a server without waiting for uploads and downloads.

Roommates Show Block Party at Randall's Island Park last month was the podcast's third live event and attracted an audience of 10,000.The Roommates Show is produced in a studio outside New York City, its fourth season having debuted this month. Playmaker upgraded its production gear for the show to Sony FX3 cameras and a new slider. New episodes release on Thursdays.

Because it's a show with three hosts in addition to a guest, Rauso says, you have a lot of people, and a lot of times they're kind of in a horizontal line. A slider has helped give a wide, more dynamic feel to it. It's tough when you have three hosts and a fourth or a fifth guest.

The slider was also used to film last month's Roommates Show Block Party at Randall's Island Park, marking the third live event for the podcast; previous editions were recorded in Central Park. The live recording in September drew a ticketed audience of 10,000.

I think it's the largest audience for a sports live podcast in North America, or at least in the U.S., says Rauso. We did live shows in New Orleans at the Super Bowl two years ago, and we will continue to have a presence at NBA All-Star as well.

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2026/10/29/playmaker-hq-builds-out-player-...
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