Abstract
Although sports podcasts have become very popular, they have not been the focus of much academic research. This is expected to change due to their evolution in recent years. Podcasting as a medium is considered to have started in 2004, growing rapidly in the 2010s (English et al., 2023). As Lambert (2018) noted, whilst podcasting grew rapidly between 2005 and 2010, many of the early versions sounded more like audio versions of fanzines magazines than the polished products that have emerged in recent years. By 2021, the Apple Podcast platform was listing over two million shows (Newman, 2021), illustrating how they have become an established feature in the media landscape (Berry, 2016).
There are hundreds of sport-themed podcasts on offer, with Apple Podcasts listing and ranking them by popularity (see also Spotify and Podbean). ESPN is one of the world's largest platforms for sports podcasts (Lambert, 2018), with its ESPN: Fantasy Focus Football winning in the ‘Sports and Recreation’ category in the (US-centric) People's Choice Podcast Awards in four out of the past five years. Other countries have their own awards, for example, recent winners in the British Podcast Awards (sports category) can be found at https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/.
Fan-produced sports podcasts have become a popular genre due to their often-critical commentary of their club or sport. In the UK, several fan-produced sports podcasts have received awards, including ‘The Anfield Wrap’, and ‘Arseblog’. As others have noted, these independent podcasters operate outside traditional (gatekeeping) media channels and, as alternative media, cover issues bypassed by the mainstream media (English et al., 2023; Markman and Sawyer, 2014; Thomas, 2022). These podcasts act as a space for fans to voice their opinions, fostering a sense of community and shaping fan discourse around their clubs.
With few in the mainstream media willing to ‘bite the hand that feeds them’, the emergence of these critical voices is therefore to be welcomed. In addition to the ‘End of Sports’ podcast reviewed here, this review highlights two other podcasts of note: ‘Burn It All Down’ and the ‘Edge of Sport’. All three podcasts are presented by self-identified sports fans who struggle to ‘walk the line’ between being a sports fan and yet remaining highly critical of the very thing they love.
‘Burn It All Down’ is a sports podcast hosted by a group of journalists and academics: Brenda Elsey, Jessica Luther, Shireen Ahmed, Lindsay Gibbs, and Amira Rose Davis. Adopting an intersectional, feminist position, the podcast presents a unique perspective on major sports stories, thus offering something vastly different from that found in the mainstream media. The format varies but typically includes interviews with influential figures in the sports industry, giving a platform to voices that often go unheard in a sports media landscape dominated by white, cisgender men. Although the focus is on sport, it addresses broader social and political issues. Since its launch in 2017, it has produced 267 weekly episodes, and 469 total episodes; however, since October 2022, the show has been ‘on hiatus’. As the hosts explained in Episode #267 (‘Burn On, Not Out’), they described the constant pressure (‘churn’) to produce the weekly shows, explaining that as soon as one episode finished, they had to ‘go again’, balancing this against their ‘paid work’ in academia and/or the media. In this episode, Brenda Elsey spoke of her frustration that there was ‘a lot of stupid sports analysis out there that make a lot more money’ and that their challenge was to identify how they could make the podcast financially sustainable. This is a common issue facing podcasters; monetisation of podcasts can be achieved through a combination of subscriptions, carrying advertising, selling associated merchandise, or through a sponsor
Launched in 2017, the ‘Edge of Sports’ is hosted by the sports journalist, Dave Zirin. In this weekly podcast, produced by The Nation, Zirin interviews athletes, journalists, activists, and the occasional academic. As of June 2024, there have been 300 episodes that have explored how sports and politics intersect, or as Zirin states, ‘collide’. Episodes have focused on a range of contemporary and historical issues including athlete activism and social justice in sports. Zirin's approach is both informative and provocative and offers a US-based analysis of the power dynamics and social issues embedded in the sports world and how these are linked to broader cultural and political issues.
The hosts of the ‘End of Sport’ podcast are all teachers and researchers working in North American universities. Derek Silva is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Western University, Canada. Nathan Kalman-Lamb is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick, Canada. Johanna Mellis is an Assistant Professor of History at Ursinus College, USA. All three are widely published and have written collaboratively for both academic publications and the popular media on harm, coercion, and exploitation within US sport. As Ratts and Benedek (2021) have noted, it is useful to consider the motivations of the hosts/creators in shaping the content of the podcasts. The hosts are openly critical of the system of professional sport. They acknowledge that as sports fans, and additionally for Mellis as an ex-athlete, their discussions are heavily influenced by autoethnography, along with a recognition of their culpability in perpetuating the system. In the opening episode, Kalman-Lamb and Silva identify the ‘MO’ of the podcast to offer a critique of the role of sport in society and provide an alternative to the acritical daily updates, previews, and match reports provided by the mainstream sports media.
The typical format of the ‘End Of Sport’ podcast is to take one issue per week and explore this with invited guests. However, the format sometimes varies, for example, by reporting a recent conference or involving a panel of experts. Different issues have been discussed, with some selected for their topicality, for example, at the time of writing this review, episodes were focusing on campus protests across the US in response to the slaughter taking place in the Gaza Strip. The most featured themes have been ‘abuse’ (17 mentions), ‘trans and non-binary’ (10), and the ‘Olympics’ (6). There are regular discussions on the exploitation of US college football players, who are seen as exploited workers, and on the hosts` desire to see college athletic workers become unionised. Discussions often extend beyond the campus to address broader societal issues, including what the hosts view as ‘MAGA fascist politics’. The themes of masculinity and racism feature regularly, as does the political economy of (women's) sports. The sports featured the most include the NFL with 29 mentions, followed by gymnastics (13 mentions), Basketball (11), swimming (10), ice hockey (8), soccer (6), and baseball (5).
The three hosts are likable, engaging, knowledgeable, and do a good job of ensuring the interviews are insightful and well-conducted. Their guests are typically academics and those undertaking a PhD who often draw upon their research to inform the discussion. Journalists have also appeared as guests, as well as administrators and current and ex-players, all speaking about their personal experiences. The guests’ ‘expert status’ helps to ensure there is a link between academic theory and practical application. As a UK-based academic, one criticism is its focus on North America; this can be seen as a strength in terms of the depth of discussion generated, but also a weakness in that some episodes will not be relevant to an international audience.
There is no definitive or official method to identify a podcast's total number of global listeners or downloads across all platforms and apps. However, using just the Podbean platform, data for the first 123 episodes showed the average number of downloads was just over 1000 per episode (note: download data was not available for Episodes 124 to 142). At the time of writing, three episodes have been downloaded over 2000 times: Episode #103 on ‘Sport and Empire’ with Tyler Shipley and Nikhil Pal Singh (on how imperialism advances and is advanced through capitalist sport); Episode #27 featured an interview with Kelly E. Wright on the language of ‘race and sport’; and Episode #29 which featured an interview with Geza Poszar who worked for the now discredited Béla and Martha Karolyi and the Communist Romanian sport system. The other most downloaded episodes (via Podbean) were Episode #51 which interviewed Victor Ray (University of Iowa) on the materiality of race and racism that saturates sport, and the 2020 US administration's assault on critical race theory (1800 downloads). Episode #34 (1700 downloads) featured an interview with the former US gymnast, Jennifer Sey, on the culture within the sport, and the impact of the ‘Athlete A’ documentary. Episode #66 (1700 downloads), titled ‘The Plantation Dynamics of College Sport’ heard the three hosts discuss the ‘plantation dynamics’ of revenue generation from college sports. The number of downloads from just this platform (and thus not including Spotify or Apple) is impressive, especially when compared to the numbers who download academic journal articles and those able to attend an academic conference to listen to a presentation.
The hosts take an unashamedly academic approach which, when coupled with its critical edge, gives it a unique, distinguishable profile in the sports media landscape. As Mirance (2024) has noted, in terms of its accessibility, the content would be suitable for final-year undergraduate or post-graduate students. The format remains one-way rather than interactive; hosting a ‘phone-in’ episode/segment could generate listener/consumer interaction. Its North American focus, in terms of its diet of guests, issues, and sports, could be complemented by including some more international themes, with invitations extended to non-North American speakers and consideration given to other sports / topics. It would be good if academics in other countries were able to set up their own versions, but it is recognised this would entail a significant commitment. The creators have done well to get this started and to continue producing it. Both the ‘End of Sport’ and the ‘Burn It All Down’ podcasts might be seen as a response to Burawoy's (2005) call for a more public sociology that engages audiences beyond academia. At the same time, the hosts will be acutely aware of the requirement to balance the need for more public sociology with the increasing pressure on academics to ‘do more with less’ (Fleming, 2021; Smyth, 2017).
Podcasts have become very popular due to their ‘on-demand’ nature which gives the listener control over their consumption. In education, podcasts usage looks set to increase, as they become a primary method for delivery of content, complimenting (or in some cases replacing) traditional lectures (Rockhill et al., 2019). Podcasts are popular with students with different learning styles as it allows them to listen in segments and reduce cognitive overload (Rockhill et al., 2019). However, as a one-way communication channel whilst they can help students with the ‘facts’, they do not necessarily give them a thorough understanding of complex processes (Rockhill et al., 2019).
On a personal level, I enjoyed the episodes that moved beyond the specificities of the USA and the college system, for example the episodes featuring Professor Raewyn Connell (#134) and on the genre of sports documentaries (#130). Interviews with international academics and covering more non-US issues would likely generate a broader audience. It would also help to create the sense of a global community among sociologists who love sport but who remain critical of many of its components. Ideas of ‘community’ became more important during the COVID-19 lockdown which halted all sports and academic conferences. Whilst sport has ‘returned to normal’, the impact on education has been more long-lasting. The shift to remote working that began during lockdown remains, with many continuing to work from home, only coming onto campus to teach. Shrinking university budgets have reduced office space and cuts in funds for conference attendance have resulted in fewer opportunities for informal encounters at the ‘water cooler’ and networking at conferences. For academics, podcasts are providing a sense of a community (albeit one-way) and are therefore valuable. Like the hosts, as an academic who studies sport, specific episodes have helped me think through issues which I have then taken into the classroom. The free-to-download ‘End of Sport’ podcast provides something that cannot be found elsewhere, making it an essential source for those of us who love sport, who are fortunate enough to get paid to study and teach it, and yet who remain highly critical of much of its content. Hopefully we will see more consideration of podcasting and its impact on the sporting and educational landscapes.
