Killing Sports: Axing The Weakest Link In Your Podcast

As a radio programmer, sports was always one of my biggest weaknesses. I just don't care. Outside of the Super Bowl, I never sit down to watch a game on television, let alone attend one in person. I realize that I am the odd man out here. I recognize that for the majority of the listening population, sports is a huge obsession, and I know enough to know that the audience wants to hear about sports even if I don't.

During my tenure as a radio program director, I leaned on other people to help me with my lack of sports knowledge. Fortunately, there were always plenty to go around. But most podcasters, including myself, aren't surrounded by a large team of people. I knew that this meant I would have an even tougher time compensating for my sports deficiencies on my podcast.

The original vision of The D Brief podcast was to answer a simple question: "What is happening in Detroit this week?" We called it "Detroit's arts and entertainment podcast," a heading that encompassed everything from concerts and comedy to food and drink to, yes, even sports. After all, suburban Detroiters are probably more likely to head into the city to see a Lions game than they are to go to the Motown Museum.

Except that when it comes to talking about sports, I'm terrible. In fact, I'd rather avoid the topic entirely. Yet the programmer in me couldn't allow that to happen. I decided to include sports in my podcast for the same reason I used to include Nickelback on my alternative rock playlist: the audience wanted to hear it even if I didn't.

My first podcast co-host, comedian Mike Geeter, could talk about sports competently, but it takes two to carry on a conversation. So when we went looking for our third co-host, we sought somebody who could fill that role. Instead, we found Becky Scarcello, who could talk knowledgeably about many topics, including Detroit restaurants, Detroit bands, and Detroit events - but not Detroit sports. She had as little interest in the subject as I did.

When Mike took his leave of the podcast, he was replaced by Jag, a former midday jock on a local radio station. Jag's knowledge of sports was even deeper than Mike's, but this wasn't enough. Despite Jag's best efforts to carry the sports segment, it was clear that without engaged and willing partners to banter with, the conversation was weak.

We asked Jag to steer the sports segment away from "players and scores" and more towards broad, human interest stories related to sports. While this helped, it still wasn't enough to make the segment compelling. The weak links were Becky and I, and there was nothing Jag or anybody else could do to overcome that.

That point really came home when I asked my colleague at Jacobs Media, alternative rock consultant Mike Stern, for feedback on our podcast. He didn't beat around the bush: "You're in over your heads when it comes to sports. Why are you even covering sports? There are a million other places where I could get this information, and all of them do it better."

Before talking to Mike, I felt compelled to cover sports in our podcast even though it didn't interest me. I now realize that I had been overcompensating for my weakness. In fact, the podcast would be stronger if we simply cut the segment that Becky and I so obviously struggled with. And that's what we did.

We decided that moving forward, we might cover alternative sports - roller derby matches, marathons, hydroplane races, etc. - if they warranted the attention. We might even cover mainstream sporting events if they were too big to ignore, such as the Michigan/Michigan State game. But when we did, we would look for a unique "arts and entertainment" angle on these events. For example, Michigan musician Mike Posner's performance during the halftime show gave us an excuse to talk about the annual Detroit Lions Thanksgiving Day game.

But never again would we attempt a straight-forward sports report. Now, we stick to our strengths, and out podcast is better for it.

LISTEN: Hear the latest episode of The D Brief podcast.

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2. Using Recurring Guests in Podcasts
3. The Ideal Length for a Podcast
4. Promoting Your Podcast by Tapping into a Pre-Existing Audience
5. Can Segments Make Podcasts Smart Speaker Friendly?