Sports media heeds call of the podcast
Podcasting is a medium that has grabbed people’s ears, but still looks to be on the cusp of growing into something bigger.
While there is already plenty of sports talk available, some of this nation’s best known sports media folks are embracing the form. In the past few months, CBC launched Off Guard with Perdita Felicien and Bob Cole and others. TSN stalwarts James Duthie and Bob McKenzie are both now in on the game.
Returning TSNers Jay Onrait and Dan O’Toole also plan to continue theirs after they get back on the air in September.
“It’s become equally one of the things that people want to talk to us about whenever we meet fans,” said Onrait.
Podcasting has already had a big effect on helping some people make it, including Sportsnet’s Tim Micallef and Sid Seixeiro, who came up at The Score, which was an early adopter of the medium years ago. They still post the audio of their television show as a podcast, which has become the quick and easy way for more established radio types to get in on the action.
More creatively, Sportsnet also airs The Steve Dangle Podcast on the radio for the first hour and then he continues with extra content, that offers a little more colourful language. Sportsnet also has (Jeff ) Marek vs. (Greg) Wyshynski.
For sports media specifically, the best local one isn’t strictly a sports podcast. Toronto Mike is the platonic ideal of podcasts, as host Mike Boone usually focuses on a single interview subject and has had long and revealing chats with all kinds of Toronto luminaries. He’s had plenty of the sports personalities open up, such as former Blue Jays sideline reporter Barry Davis, who was his most recent guest.
With over 220 episodes, and having done it for five years, he got into the world because he helped get former morning radio hosts “Humble” Howard Glassman and Fred Patterson get theirs up and running, now Boone is the guy that other folks often go to for advice on how to get going.
“I think now we’re at the point where people are thinking that they need to have a podcast. Like all of these bigger names getting in are using it to support other enterprises, which is completely different from myself, which is a totally independent production,” Boone said.
Then he jokes: “Although now that guys like James Duthie are getting into it, I have no idea how we little guys are supposed to compete.”
When asked why he’s starting his Rubber Boots Podcast now, Duthie says he was intrigued by Onrait and O’Toole’s initial success, but was worried about the maintaining it along with his day jobs.
“One of the frustrations I have is that when I get to interview people, it’s always very short. Especially sports television, which is not conducive to long interviews,” said Duthie.
“I missed being able to sit down with someone and really get into it. But I am worried about keeping this going. Like I want to get good guests, and I’m the show’s booker, so I’m dealing with Hollywood agents trying to get people.”
He also admits he’s still experimenting, wondering if he should break up the mix of behind the scenes stories and interviews with notable people. He also sees it as an opportunity to try to showcase some of funny friends and co-workers.
CBC’s Off Guard will only have eight episodes this season, and has three distinct segments built loosely around a theme — Felicien talks to other high performance athletes and their experiences, reporter Jamie Strashin has more of slice-ofsports-life segment, while Pete Mahovlich and Bob Cole inject in some hockey flavoured nostalgia. It feels more structured and something that was cooked up like in a more traditional radio organization such as CBC.
“That was their vision, to have a product that was unique. CBC Sports hasn’t done this before, so I think in this first pilot season, it is a bit of an experiment to see what works, what people like and what they connected with,” says Felicien.
Like with most thing involving media, it does feel like the U.S. is ahead of the game here, especially when it comes to monetization. Podcasts have been around since 2004, and most of the bigger names in the U.S. have taken to it, although the guy that seems to be leading the pack is no stranger to being a web success.
In early February, Bill Simmons did an interview with the Recode about how his site, The Ringer, was doing and was emphatic about how well that site’s podcasts are doing.
“The one thing that’s not a problem for us is money,” he told reporter Peter Kafka. Simmons pointed out that a number of his site’s podcasts had over 100,000 listeners, and Kafka remarked that no on believes there’s much money in podcasting and that advertisers were still coming to it.
“It’s already happened. We had Dunkin’ Donuts, and Buffalo Wild Wings, and all these great things,” Simmons countered. “The biggest reason we’ve had success this first year is we’ve had brands that wanted to do business with us.”
Boone, who is a digital marketing manager in his day job, doesn’t see that kind of action here, but there’s a good reason for that, as while there’s plenty to listen too, there is still room to grow.
“Canada seems to be lagging behind in terms of monetization of podcasts. There seems to be a lot of good American examples and success stories, but it’s tough to find good examples in Canada of profitable podcasts,” he says. “The other thing is no one will tell you what there numbers are, and really, that’s because they are all likely smaller than you think.”