Hunter Hillenmeyer Wants to be Top Dog

Hunter Hillenmeyer never expected to play football forever – although he certainly could if he controlled himself in a game of Madden. Still, the former Bears linebacker knows how much professional athletes play video games, which is why he’s one of the founders of a new app called OverDog. Hillenmeyer joined the BFT with guest host Fletcher Johnson on Tuesday to talk about the application.

According to Hillenmeyer, the core concept behind OverDog is a simple one: Many professional athletes and even more sports fans are avid gamers, so why not create a product that allows them to face off against each other?

“We’re really just building an experience around that connection,” explained Hillenmeyer. “So many [pro athletes] do this with so much of their free time – why not connect with fans, and take that same connection that you get from Twitter or Facebook, but in a much more fun and immersive way?”

As Hillenmeyer explains, the way the product would work is a pro athlete would log on to the app via his smart phone and issue a challenge to his fans in any game of his choosing. After the athlete has issued the challenge, fans would get a notification on their phones and decide whether or not they want to play against the athlete. However, not every fan is going to be able to play against an athlete every time, so potential opponents for pros will be decided by a random drawing. Also, Hillenmeyer says that they are working to incorporate a streaming aspect, so at some point in the future of the product you could still watch the matchup even if you weren’t the one facing off against a pro athlete.

“If LeBron was playing some huge Bulls fan that would love nothing more than to take LeBron down, I’d definitely tune in and  watch some great gamer dunking all over LeBron with the Bulls,” said Hellenmeyer.

As to whether the athletes would be as interested in the service as the fans, Hillenmeyer revealed that over one hundred professional athletes have already signed up for the service, and it has yet to be released. Also, if there was any question about if the service will attract the superstars of their respective sports, look no further than Cy Young winner David Price from the Tampa Bay Rays and Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe, who both serve on the advisory board for OverDog.

OverDog isn’t set to launch until April, but you can invest in the product via their Kickstarter campaign and find more information on their official website.

To listen to the entire interview, click below: