Colin Kaepernick may not have a job in the NFL right now, but his media footprint is expanding. On Thursday, the publishing platform Medium plans to announce the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback is joining the company’s board, as well as partnering with the company to create and consult on content for a new vertical focused on race and prison reform.
Kaepernick is scheduled to conduct a series of question and answer interviews with athletes, activists and thought leaders - tentatively called “Conversations with Colin” - that will be published on Level, a vertical that Medium launched last year. Kaepernick will also consult on a series of feature articles that will appear on the site.
Kaepernick hasn’t played in the NFL since the 2016 season, when he became the first player to kneel during the national anthem in protest of police brutality and racial injustice. Earlier this year, Kaepernick announced he was forming a publishing company, Kaepernick Publishing, through which he is planning to release a memoir.
Soon after that February announcement, said Jermaine Hall, the editor in chief of Level, Medium began talking to Kaepernick about a potential collaboration.
“Colin is one of our social justice leaders,” Hall said. “I think he’s leading the charge and it’s based on what’s going on in the country right now. And because he’s no longer in the NFL and we’ve lost his talent on the field - hopefully he gets back there - but we’ve gained an incredibly powerful voice for the black community who can actually affect social change.”
Hall, a former editor in chief at Vibe who has also led the digital team at BET, said Level intends to begin publishing two magazine-style long-form stories each month. He and his team will serve as the main editors, while Kaepernick will have input on the topics and those commissioned to write. Hall said he was hopeful that Kaepernick’s first Q&A piece would run in the next two weeks.
Kaepernick has done almost no interviews with the news media since he last played in the NFL, but has remained a key figure amid the larger conversation about race in America and through the nationwide protests against social injustice and police brutality since the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed African American man, last month while in custody of the Minneapolis police.
Thursday’s announcement with Medium also comes as Kaepernick’s return to the NFL has been considered anew. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said Monday that he would “support” and “encourage” a team to sign Kaepernick. Los Angeles Chargers Coach Anthony Lynn said recently teams would be “crazy” not to have Kaepernick on their list of quarterbacks to work out.
President Donald Trump, who criticized protesting football players in 2017, said Wednesday that Kaepernick “should get another shot in the NFL. If he deserves it, he should.”
