Cody Miller on becoming a content creator, launches NFT Marketplace

Swimmer Cody Miller won two medals at the 2016 Rio Games: a bronze in the 100m breaststroke and a gold as part of the Olympic record-setting 4×100 medley relay team. He has also earned six more medals in short and long track world championships, setting a few individual American records and relay world records in the process.

Miller, 30, graduated from Indiana University and continues to coach in the Indianapolis area. After Rio, he started a YouTube channel with swimming-centric content that has attracted more than 175,000 subscribers. Last week, Miller launched his own NFT marketplace as part of a new collaboration between Kyro Digital and Veritone. Those who purchase the blockchain-backed collectibles also gain additional access to private events, video tutorials and exclusive merchandise.

About his previous interest in Web3. . .

Pretty minimal, dude, pretty minimal. I mean, I have friends who are NFT nuts who say, “You should have your own NFT.” And I’ve always been like, ‘Well, I don’t know that much.’ But the functionality of [Kyro] is cool. But I wouldn’t call myself an expert.

About wanting to launch this project. . .

It is more about the functionality of it. I mean, selling an NFT is one thing. It’s another thing to give a fan an experience or something that’s a little personal that they can get something positive out of it, whether it’s a conversation or asking questions or just learning. And then on top of that, to have something you take away that is yours to keep forever. So in our example, the NFT is your digital ticket to something, but you get to keep that NFT forever. And, dude, we live in a digital world. My friends care more about their digital assets than they do real life stuff, like their Fortnite skins and stuff.

The Gold NFT Edition offers fans to participate in a virtual meet and greet with Miller.

About pictures of the NFTs. . .

I chose the pictures and I was quite involved. Obviously I wanted to like whatever it was we supported people. So I thought some of the photos we chose were pretty cool, like the one of me looking like I’m flying through the air, but I’m actually underwater in a pool. It’s one of my favorite pictures.

About becoming a content creator. . .

That’s kind of the whole reason I started my YouTube channel: I’ve always been an athlete, and I’ve never invested my energy into doing anything really creative. So, after the Olympics, I just felt like I needed to do something a little different and kind of flex a different muscle. If you were to classify me as a content creator, you’d have to be a little creative.

If he had a plan when he started the YouTube channel. . .

No, it just totally snowballed. I have been a movie fan all my life. I basically shelved it and went the “I’m going to try to be an Olympic swimmer” route, and I invested more of my time and energy into my athletic career as opposed to film school or something like that. And then after the Olympics I just thought, “Maybe I just want to learn how to edit film.” Just let me learn how to do this.’

And in my research process I came across the world of vloggers and YouTube and I was fascinated by it. And I thought, “Shoot, maybe I could make one of these – just a video, like a little swimming documentary,” you know? And then I thought, “Well, maybe I’ll just do this in vlog form, just a 10-minute video.” I had no plan and it just snowballed and just grew into this thing. And it’s been pretty fun, man.

About how he maps out his content plans. . .

It varies depending on the season. Sometimes during the year if there are a lot of big swimming related events, I know there would be great opportunities to make really cool videos. So there is a lot more planning that goes into it. This week, just back from vacation, I have no plan, just [asking myself]’What day do I go to the gym and what day can I go to the pool and let’s put something together and make something fun.’

Both [plans] are just as funny. I like more thoughtful [videos], comes with a premise like eating a bunch of Taco Bell before I go and try to do this really hard swim workout. A lot of thought goes into how it’s going to look and how it’s going to be a digestible piece of YouTube content. But I also like the idea of, OK, I wake up one morning and today I have to make a video. How do I take my normal routine and make it something that isn’t boring and fun and interesting. So it is also a unique challenge.

On the swimming calendar right now. . .

Right now we are on a break. There are not many big meetings coming up. I mean, we have a couple of World Cups. We are in the middle of it [Olympic] quad from, in the world of swimming, it’s been the never-ending season because, with the Olympics pushed back, you had three world championships squeezed into a very short space of time. And now we come from it. So everyone is just like take a deep breath. So I’m in a more relaxed, relaxed time right now, which is different and new, because most of my life has just been grind, grind, grind, grind.

On how he views his competitive swimming career right now. . .

I consider myself more of a champion swimmer as opposed to an elite, Olympic hopeful swimmer right now. I have two children. I’m not trying to swim 30 hours a week right now. And I don’t know if I’ll make it to the next Olympics. That’s just where my priorities are. But I still love to swim. And I’m still very, very active. It’s just, I don’t want to invest that much time into it. But I still enjoy making the videos and I will compete. We actually have a pretty big event, the Indianapolis World Cup, in about two weeks. So just up the road for me so that’s cool. But nothing like Mad Major. It’s quite relaxed. Finally.

On tracking his sleep. . .

I did the Whoop thing for a while. I certainly see the benefits of that, I really do. But I also think there are some negative side effects of that too, like constantly knowing. As an athlete, if I was in a state where I thought I was doing everything I could to maximize my performance—like, say, I go to bed at 8:30—and then I wake up the next morning and it’s like, “Hey, my recovery is only 65%.” It would mess with my head. I didn’t like that. So I didn’t like knowing all this data all the time. And now, especially when I had my first child and my sleep was total garbage, I thought, ‘I don’t know. It is not good. I don’t need to know this.

On analyzing his swimming technique. . .

Where we train, we have these underwater review stations set up on every course. So you have to imagine this: an Olympic-sized pool with 30 25-yard lanes. There are 30 lanes and we have an underwater camera system in almost every lane. And they’ve actually just installed new TVs on these rolling systems, so we have 55-inch TVs right out of the water in front of the court. So every time you swim into the wall, the camera is set to a delay of about 15 seconds so you can see the entire last lap as you swim into the wall. So underwater video is a big thing.

About the increasing use of heart rate equipment in the water. . .

The other thing that’s becoming more popular is heart rate monitoring because we spend so much time training the aerobic system and it’s hard to tell when you have a certain heart rate [zones]. Now, wearable technology has gotten a lot better. My team uses a little [Polar] chip that you have on your swimming cap that you hold on your temple. We use a cap and it just stays there.

It gives you an accurate real-time reading of where your target heart rate zone is. So we can swim for two hours, but the coach only wants you at certain heart rates for certain times. Now we can train more precisely and get a better understanding of what we are actually doing. So it becomes more popular. It really promotes the ability for programs to train more effectively.