Over the past year, I have become an avid podcast listener and enthusiast. I first discovered the world of podcasting while doing lawn work last summer. I was scrolling through Spotify, trying to find music to listen to but was sick and tired of all my playlists. So instead, I tried a podcast to change things up. Since then I’ve found a variety of podcasts I enjoy listening to and probably listen to an average of four a week. Today I will share with you some of the few I listen to.

I listen to primarily sports podcasts. Three of my favorites are Sin the Fields, Pardon My Take, and Windy City Gridiron. Pardon My Take is the most general, all encompassing sport podcast of the three. Produced by Barstool Sports, the hosts Big Cat and PFT along with their producer Hank talk about anything going on in the major sports world while not taking themselves too seriously. Sin the Fields is an ultimate frisbee podcast hosted by Pat and Tad that, similarly to Pardon My take, tries mostly to make jokes and keep the discussion light. They are produced by UltiWorld, the leading face of journalism in the ultimate frisbee world. Lastly, Windy City Gridiron is a more unique format of podcast. They are an umbrella for four different podcasts, all hosted and produced by employees of WCG. They all cover the same topic: the Chicago Bears. While all the podcasts are hosted by different people, they generally talk about the same things week to week.

In comparison to The Daily and Call Your Girlfriend, only Pardon My Take could match their production value. PMT has their own studio where they record their episodes, so conversation sounds natural and fluent. Obviously this is not the case right now because of Covid-19, right now they are over Skype. Regardless, this allows for more enjoyable and entertaining conversation like in The Daily or CYG. They have an intro song, Electric Avenue, that they play each episode along with little sound bites they use as transitions between segments. WCG and Sin the Fields, however, are of a much lower production value. Both of these are over Skype or some other video calling software. This creates a much more scripted feel to the conversation where one person says what they are thinking then turns it over to the other person to avoid awkward interruptions. The conversation is still enjoyable, but you can tell things are easier in person. Besides the conversation, the only other sound that is used are the intro songs, but these change every podcast and are not iconic like Electric Avenue is to Pardon My Take.

I definitely feel the sense of intimacy with the podcasts that we talked about in class. I feel this especially with Pardon My Take because I have listened to that podcast the longest. When they make inside jokes in reference to past shows and I understand them, it makes me feel like a part of a small group. I also follow the hosts on twitter, so I feel super close to them as I follow their activity online. This also helps me gets more out of the podcasts when they reference things they have tweeted about. Additionally, I agree on the point of the feel of de-professionalization in podcasts. Especially with WCG and Sin the Fields, the whole podcast just feels more relaxed and unprofessional than anything on the radio or TV because of the lack of structure. I enjoy this because it makes the hosts seem more like regular guys like me.

What I enjoy about podcasts compared to other media outlets is that they are the easiest way to get the content I enjoy the most. All the podcasts I listen to are focused on a particular interest of mine. It fun to know you can always get more content on these interests whenever a new episode of the podcast comes out. While I could get this content from a news article on some of the publishers’ websites, it is much more time consuming to sit down and read when I could listen and multitask with something else. Furthermore, I cannot get the dialog on topics of my interest in things like news articles either. Podcasts are the media of the future and I would encourage everyone to give one a listen.