Sports podcast

History#

Podcasts in general began to gain a following in the mid and late 2000s. In October 2004, Sam Coutin began The Sports Pod and shortly after he launched the My Sports Radio podcast network. By 2006, shows on Coutin’s network were achieving 500,000 downloads each month. In 2007, Bill Simmons stumbled upon a podcast interview of Boston Celtics executive Danny Ainge by ESPN NBA draft analyst Chad Ford. Simmons, also an ESPN employee at the time, inquired to his management about hosting a podcast of his own. Simmons was sent basic audio equipment and hosted his B.S. Report podcast in a DIY fashion from his home. His Bill Simmons Podcast hosted on the website was “the lone sports program among iTunes’ 20 most popular podcasts in 2017 “. From 2015 to 2020, ad revenue for podcasts rose 1,350%; sports podcasts were near the top of all genres driving that revenue. By the late 2010s, podcast versions of sports television talk shows like The Herd with Colin Cowherd and First Take were among popular sports podcasts. Established sports networks, such as ESPN, also offered original podcast programming in addition to their repackaged content. In 2021, television station group Tegna purchased the Locked On Podcast Network, “which produces 160 daily shows for U.S. sports teams”. In January 2022, Fox Sports launched Fox Audio Network, a podcast network to leverage its on-air talent such as Skip Bayless and Nick Wright, in the audio space.

Audience and demographics#

Early in the history of sports podcasts, exact numbers on viewership was difficult to track. ESPN opted to not share viewership of The B.S. Report with Simmons, and the latter only realized how popular his podcast was when Seth Meyers, then a cast member on Saturday Night Live, asked to guest on it. The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz was the network’s most downloaded sports podcast show in 2018, with more than 91 million IAB Certified downloads.

See also#

• List of sports podcasts
• Podcasts hosted by professional athletes
• Sports radio