Monday marks the launch of Quibi, the new mobile streaming service from Jeffrey Katzenberg and former HP and eBay CEO Meg Whitman. Among the dozens of series debuting on the app are a handful of sports shows featuring some of the biggest names in the worlds of basketball, football, soccer, and more.
Some of the shows, such as Cam Newton’s Iron Sharpens Iron and Megan Rapinoe’s Prodigy, have previously dropped trailers that include looks inside what folks can expect to see — Newton’s show takes two athletes from different sports and has them discuss the methods they use to train, while Rapinoe’s looks at the stories behind some of the top young athletes on earth. They are, however, hardly the only two programs Quibi will feature the world of sports to one extent or another.
One such show is I Promise, which comes via executive producer LeBron James and gives a glimpse inside his school in Akron that shares a name with the program’s title. James isn’t the only member of the banana boat crew to appear on the platform: Carmelo Anthony makes a cameo on You Ain’t Got These, Lena Waithe’s look at sneaker culture that also includes cameos from Billie Jean King, Candace Parker, Jemele Hill, and Eric Koston.
Professional rally car driver Ken Block is one-half of the equation on Elba vs. Block, which pits him against Idris Elba in a collection of car-themed challenges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZunLf3pcMTQ
Beyond the five aforementioned programs, personalities in the world of sports pop up in a handful of other Quibi programs. Anthony Davis and Aaron Rodgers make appearances on episodes of Jennifer Lopez’s Thanks a Million, in which celebrities give $100,000 to someone who is then tasked with giving away half of it, while The Miz, Big E, Sasha Banks, Bayley, and Rob Gronkowski appear on Gone Mental with Lior, starring renowned mentalist Lior Suchard.
A trio of programs on the platform — The Replay by ESPN, Sports AM by TSN, and Speedrun by Polygon — will offer up sports and gaming news. Most of the aforementioned shows are available on Quibi as of its launch, with Elba vs. Block debuting on April 13 and Iron Sharpens Iron coming on April 20.
