WEBVTT - Jody Avirgan 0:00:09.880 --> 0:00:13.720 Hi, everybody, it's Maddie. Welcome to Access podcast, the podcast 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:16.600 about podcast, And I gotta be honest with you. There 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:20.200 are a couple podcasts that I am a total geek. Four. 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:23.319 These are the podcasts that when a new episode comes out, 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:26.599 whatever I'm doing stops and I go listen to them. 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:29.640 One of those podcasts is thirty for thirty. So I 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:31.360 was really excited when I got a chance to talk 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:35.200 to Jody Avergan, who hosts and executive produces thirty for thirty. 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.360 Jody has been telling audio stories for years, including his 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:41.440 time at w n y C and for five eighty sports. 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:43.640 Coming up on the show, we're gonna talk to him 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:46.560 about the art of audio storytelling, plus how his daughter 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:50.160 became a meme seam around the world, and don't forget. 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:53.519 After the conversation, producer Morgan will be in and we 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:56.280 will be telling you about three podcasts that you should binge. 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:59.040 But right now, let's check out a little bit from 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:03.840 thirty for thirty. There are many levels of professional baseball. 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:06.600 There's the Big league's Major League Baseball, then there's Triple 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:09.680 A that's one step down. Then there's Double A a ball, 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:13.000 rookie ball, Winter League, and you keep going down all 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:16.120 the way towards the bottom. There are the independent leagues, 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:20.240 technically professional and that players get paid something to play baseball. 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:23.880 But those leagues exist several planets away from the show, 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:26.440 as they call the majors, and most of the players 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:28.760 in those leagues will never come close to putting on 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:31.920 a big league uniform. They'll play in tiny parts in 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:35.280 front of near empty bleachers until reality finally sets in 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:38.400 and they hang it up for one summer. Though, there 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:42.000 was someone very different among them, one of, without question, 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:46.679 the greatest baseball players and personalities of all time. Jody. 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:49.320 Welcome to Access podcast, and I have to ask you 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:51.880 a very important question to start. What is it like 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:57.560 to wake up every morning and just piss podcast excellence? Um? Well, 0:01:57.560 --> 0:01:59.440 the first thing I do every morning is drink a 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:02.320 glass of water, Honor, and then I go to the bathroom. 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:04.960 So you know I can't answer that. I try and 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:08.880 ingest podcast excellence. First, you know you've worked at w NYC, 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:12.320 which I think is basically the grace Land of podcasts 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:17.399 and audio storytelling. What initially drew you to audio storytelling? 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:20.160 You know, I won't give you the fullback story, but 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:23.040 you know in college, I did uh film and I 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:26.240 did documentaries and film. My parents to journalists, and so 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:30.000 I've always sort of thought about news and documentaries and 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.520 so forth. My start in radio was not necessarily in 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:37.200 the documentary storytelling world. It was it was at w NYC, 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:40.040 but it was really in the daily talk show mold. 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:43.119 So I landed at the feet of Brian Larr, who 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:45.720 is the post of the Buying Larror Show, which is 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:48.800 on its hand every day on the is a you 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:52.880 know your local public radio talk call in show. So that's, 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:55.040 you know, really where I got my start, and I 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:57.120 spent seven years there as my home base. And then 0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:58.639 I at w n y C. I was able to 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:01.960 sort of dip around and spend a month in the 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:04.799 newsroom here and there, you know, spend some time working 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:07.040 with the various shows. So I got a little taste 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:09.680 of the longer form stuff. But I don't know, I 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:12.720 really I've always liked to talk and I've always felt 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:16.080 like my metabolism is more akin to like a daily show. 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:18.160 I like making stuff and moving on and coming up 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:20.640 with ideas and executing on them pretty quick. And so 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:24.400 it's been a little of a challenge and an interesting 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:27.600 transition and just like really sort of a fun challenge 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:30.240 to go then now towards stuff that we're doing at 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:33.000 thirty for thirty, which takes months and months and months 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:35.480 to put together. So it's been nice to kind of 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:38.280 exercise those two those two years and almost come full 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:41.240 circle back to doing documentary stuff like I started doing 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:43.720 and thinking about when I was in college, and then 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:45.880 a couple of years thereafter when you were at w 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:48.080 n y C. I I've found some of your old 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:53.240 stories which were awesome, especially the toilet training method by Charles. 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:57.440 So I did a piece for Studio three sixty about 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:00.960 how Charles Mingus, one of my favorite musicians, greatest jazz 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:03.760 basis of all time, and one of the stranger figures 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:07.120 in the history of music, had toilet trained his cats. 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:10.520 In particular, one of his cats called Nightlife to use 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:14.040 the toilet, and he not only kind of developed a 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.240 method on his own to toilet trainer cat, but then 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:20.359 he came up with a basically set of instructions, and 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:24.200 you could throughout the sixties and seventies send effectively a 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:26.600 self addressed stant avelope to Charles Mingus at a p 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:29.480 O box, and he would mail you back his Charles 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:31.960 Mingus catalog for toilet training your cat, so you could 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:34.440 do this for your cats at home. I happened to 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:36.720 have a cat that is toilet trained. My cat was 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:39.440 not trained using them. Yeah I know, my cat was 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:41.839 not trained using the Mengus method. But it got me 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:44.839 interested in this world, and so I pitched this story 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:48.120 to a studio three sixty. They were very, very skeptical, 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:50.520 I would say, at first. And we worked it for 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:53.159 a while and we found a cat to try and train, 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:55.159 and we sort of told a story about Charles Mingus 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:57.719 himself throughout it, and I don't know, kind of combines 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:00.280 a lot of the things I like in journalism, which 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:02.960 is kind of sneaking your way into a serious story, 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:06.520 telling something that is hopefully just like engaging to listen to, 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:09.559 and then all of a sudden you're learning about bigger stuff, 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:11.599 and in this case, you know, really learning about Charles 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:13.640 Mingus in addition to cats psychology. I mean, he was 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:15.719 I will say he was onto something when he developed 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:18.960 this homespun method. It actually really does fit in to 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:22.039 a lot that we now know about how cats operate 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:24.680 and how and how to go about to treat one 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:26.720 thing I did love about it the most was the voice. 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:29.400 Ever you had Charles Mingus voice, and that's the kind 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:32.880 of like little touch that makes the story really it 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:35.120 comes to life even more. Yeah, I mean, so we 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:38.120 got a voice actor to be the voice of Charles Mingus, 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:40.360 I will say, you know, one of the things. And 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:42.800 just working with that piece and working with Studio few sixty, 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:44.760 it was it was very fun and I had a 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:46.880 kind of vision for the piece and they helped me 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:51.679 work towards that. But they did that through really intense editing, 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:54.000 and you know, it was this piece took months and 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:56.760 months and months. It started out as many pieces do, 0:05:57.000 --> 0:05:59.720 probably like thirty minutes long, and then came down to 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:03.919 thirteen and tons and tons of revisions. And so to me, 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:05.560 it was, you know, a fun piece to work with. 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:08.040 It was great to work with the Studio V sixty 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:09.880 team and have a piece on a show that I admire. 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:12.640 But it was also a really good lesson for me 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:15.800 relatively early and doing this kind of stuff in the 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:18.600 editing process when you're at a place that takes stuff 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:21.839 really seriously. And I have continued to learn this lesson 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:24.279 and it's kind of the only lesson I feel like 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:27.000 I learned over and over which is the difference between 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:29.640 a good piece and a great piece is editing and 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:33.240 story editing, a line editing and then editing in you know, 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:35.480 in a session of the actual audio. And so that's 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:37.760 something I've tried to carry with me is just give 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:40.479 stories time and give them the sort of ruthless editing 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:43.039 because they that will that will take it to that 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:45.599 next level. I think that is when a lot of 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:48.599 folks never understand how much time goes into doing a 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:51.040 good podcast in audio, and I work with companies, I 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:54.080 work with radio talent, and I'm always amazed that, you know, 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:56.760 people don't understand the amount of effort that goes into something. 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:59.039 So when you're picking out a story, you know, you 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:01.599 know you're devoting a certain amount of time to you know, 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:03.760 a lot of time to something. So so how's the 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:06.960 process of deciding, Okay, this is a story worth me 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:09.960 investing a couple of months of time into. I mean, 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:11.840 I think you're hitting on something really important which we've 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:13.760 thought about a lot at thirty for thirty, which is 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:16.880 story selection is really huge because you know, our goal 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:19.440 with thirty for thirty. But I think just in general, 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:22.240 you want to find a story that is very specific. 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:24.560 In our case, you know, it's in the world of sports, 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:27.880 and we don't do like bio picks. We don't do 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:30.440 sort of a profile of a person. We try and 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:33.800 pick a specific moment that has bigger themes, and so 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:37.200 we really try and vet our stories on is this 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.880 something that will sustain big ideas and then does this 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:44.200 have a natural arc? Is there a natural evolution of 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:46.520 this story from A to B to C twod that 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:48.880 we can follow and then have the big ideas kind 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:52.040 of gloma on top of them. And I've just learned 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:54.880 that if you pick the right story and it's got 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:58.040 a natural momentum, and it's got big ideas that come 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:01.240 into it naturally, and it's got characters who are good talkers, 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:03.400 and it's got good archival, I mean, those are all 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:05.640 really hard things to find. But if you find that, 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.480 then you're almost just like getting out of the way 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:10.440 of the story as you're making it. You know, your 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:12.680 job is to just kind of collect it and let 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:14.800 it do its thing. Whereas the flip side of that, 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:16.680 and we've done that is you know, you've picked the 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:18.760 story and some of those things aren't there and the 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:21.480 whole time you just feel like you're fighting against the story. 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:24.520 And there's no worse feeling in the world than feeling 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.000 like you're fighting against the story that you picked and 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:29.400 you want to do but it's just not there, and 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:31.440 you're just killing yourself and trying to make it happen. 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:33.559 And so we've done some of those, and you find 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:35.280 a way to make it happen. But I would much 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:38.200 rather spend a lot of time developing a story and 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:40.679 making sure it's one that feels like it inherently has 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:42.559 all those things we're looking for, so that our job 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:44.800 is to really just sort of help nurture it to life. 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:47.760 When the Beak from series came out that Julia did, 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:49.640 I was interested, but I was like, wow, is this 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:52.480 you know, this is pretty daring to decide to devote 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.160 a season to this story. How did that come about? 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:57.600 And deciding, Hey, this is something we're going to do 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:01.160 all these episodes on for this. So that was originally, 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:02.880 I mean, that was one of the first ideas we 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:06.640 ever had, was we should do an episode on Vicram yoga, 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:10.120 and in particular the sexual sought allegations against the founder 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:12.920 of Vicram. You know, good Vicram Choudry, and we and 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.440 Julia Henderson, one of our reporter producers, took it on 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:18.840 um and she had a background in Vicram and so 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:21.760 she was always interested in this story and we were 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:24.160 going to do it as just one episode in a 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:27.280 regular season. I had from the very beginning of the 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.600 show in my mind thought, well, we do this model 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:32.679 where we do two seasons a year and they're about 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:35.559 five episodes each. I would love to find every once 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:37.679 in a while a story that could just be one 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:40.040 season and just do a serialized story. So I had 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:41.800 it in the back of my head. I had set 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:43.600 you know, the team knew that, like we should be 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:46.000 on our looking out for these And a few months 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:50.080 into reporting Victram story, Julia sent a really long email 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:52.480 after after a big reporting trip and said, you know, 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:54.280 I just think there's more here. I think that this 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:58.600 is this could be multi part. And the specific things 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:01.480 that felt like, okay, this will let us, this can 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:06.920 sustain is one finding out about his backstory and he 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:09.520 has a really fascinating kind of rise and how he 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:12.240 came to America and became a sort of sensation in 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:14.400 America before he even started to you know, how he 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:17.800 accumulated his power before he abused this power was a 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:20.079 big one. But we also realized that there's a story 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:22.360 of kind of fitness in America as part of this too. 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:25.440 Bickram was was a craze, was a fitness craze and 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:27.560 one of the first fitness crazes, and it helped us 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:30.440 understand how those kinds of things take off and get 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:33.360 franchised and get a bunch of people doing them. But moreover, 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:36.520 we just felt like we could focus on his behavior 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:39.120 in the last ten years, last seven years and the 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:42.960 sexual assault allegations, but the most compelling thing is to 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:46.320 take our time to understand how we got there, because 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:49.959 it wasn't just that this was an awful person who 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:52.360 did awful things. It was this was a person who 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:56.320 built systems around him and accumulated power, a lot of 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:58.800 it power that was you know that he accumulated because 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:02.120 he was doing things that were really positive in people's lives. 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:05.760 And then once he had that power around him, why 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:07.960 was there a culture and why was there why was 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:09.760 there a sort of system him that allowed him to 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:12.760 abuse that power? And that's not a thirty minute story, right, 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:15.000 You need the time to be able to tell that. 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:16.720 So that's so we just kind of made the call 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:19.560 and said, okay, we think this is going to be multipart, 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:21.800 and all of a sudden, all of these other avenues 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:24.240 opened up for us. It's funny. I know a lot 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:26.520 of folks involved with Bickram and I did it for 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:28.880 a few years, and I don't think anyone was shocked, 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:30.880 you know, by a lot of things that came out 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.320 in the podcast. But I'm a p one, as we 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:35.960 say in radio. I've been listening to thirty from the 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:38.839 very first podcast came out. But I found a lot 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:41.120 of folks who I would talk to because everybody wants 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:42.840 to ask me, you know what podcast am I listening 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:45.199 to and and all of that, who I wouldn't say 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:47.800 would be somebody that would seek out thirty for thirty, 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:50.240 who sought that one out and just fell in love 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.520 with that podcast and also with them, went back and 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:55.240 listened to the old episode. So I think it was 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:57.000 it really was a build a bridge for a lot 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:59.560 of folks too. Yeah. I mean that was strategic on 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:01.160 our part of and something the only reason we do 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:03.520 that kind of stuff. But we realized, okay, we're ESPN, 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:05.720 We're thirty for thirty and thirty for thirty has always 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:07.800 been as a film series, and then we've tried to 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:09.920 sort of inherit that as a podcast series. The Bridge. 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:11.840 You hear all the time from people, you know, I 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:14.240 don't like sports, but I like thirty for thirty. I 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:16.320 love hearing that. You know, we always have thought of 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:18.800 our show as a show that is not for sports people. 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:21.760 It's you know, it's good stories, and our lens happens 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:25.240 to be sports. That said, I realized that, you know, 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:27.640 there is for some people. I have many thoughts on this. 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:30.199 For some people kind of block for sports and they 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:32.320 just aren't that interested. And we did realize that the 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:35.400 Bickram series might break out in that way, both in 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:39.040 terms of subject matter and sort of themes, but also 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:41.000 in terms of format. It's just kind of like, hey, 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:43.040 there's something interesting going on here. Let me let me 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:45.439 check this out. A five part series. So yeah, I mean, 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:48.560 we thought of like, some of our straight ahead sports 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:51.439 stories are going to get the es the core ESPN crowd, 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:53.760 and we're going to keep them, hopefully, and they'll stick 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:55.280 around to listen to the Bickerm thing. And then the 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:57.160 Bickerm thing is going to reach out and get some 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:00.120 maybe more this American life type listeners in and then they'll, 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:02.080 as you said, go back and listen to our stuff. 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:05.319 And we're just trying to kind of accumulate different audiences 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:08.719 as we go and hopefully keep them around. I think 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:11.880 in general, you know, sports are positive and bring people 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:14.280 together in a lot of ways, and sports stories have 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:16.520 all the elements of good storytelling that you know, you've 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.480 talked about having a story arc. A game. A sport 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:21.559 is a story arc from the beginning to the end, 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:23.640 and there's a story in every game, and I think 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:26.520 that's one of the things that you almost have unlimited 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:29.199 amount of content to go find and and I'm sure 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:30.959 it's a little overwhelming, it sounds with the amount of 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:33.480 stuff that you probably want to do. Yeah, so I 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:34.679 will say, I mean, going back to what I was 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:37.280 saying earlier about what we really feel like, it's a 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:39.720 very high bar in terms of picking a story. We 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:41.840 get a lot of pitches that are like, oh, that 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:45.360 game was crazy, and that's not enough. You know, there 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:47.040 are a lot of crazy games, and we go we 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:49.120 rarely do games, both on the film side and on 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:51.160 the podcast side. There's episodes that we do were like 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:55.160 it was hardly any actual game or action on the 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:57.400 field or on the court or whatever. You know, it's 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:01.000 about the people, and it's about the game cause someone's 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:04.520 life to change or our society to change. You know, 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.839 those are the bigger themes we're looking for now. That said, 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:11.680 to your point about the natural arc of sports, I 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:13.960 will say yes, obviously, Like you can point to a 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:16.839 game or a season or a career and kind of say, oh, 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:19.920 someone is going to win and someone is going to lose, 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:22.040 and that's always, like, you know, nice thing to have 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.920 in terms of keeping a narrative going. There's also another 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:28.000 thing we think about a lot. You know, any storyteller 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:30.760 thinks about steaks. There's always a moment at which you 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:32.960 have to ask yourself, what are the stakes of our story? 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:34.960 Our steaks, I think are the same as a lot 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:37.040 of other shows that aren't about sports. You know, it's 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:40.120 about someone's life or about someone at an inflection point, 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:42.400 or society the inflection point. But then there are also 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:44.800 moments where the stakes are literally like there's a big game, 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:46.920 someone's gonna win or someone gonna lose, or we've done 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:49.680 a couple of gambling stories. You just get to say, 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:52.000 there's literally a million dollars on the line, and all 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:53.840 of a sudden you can tell that the audience is 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:56.480 a little perked up or whatever. So, yes, there are 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:58.600 some of those nice elements in sports stories where you 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:00.760 just get to kind of refer to winners or losers 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:02.640 or steaks, and you know that that's going to be 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:05.160 a hook. What have liked? You know, between seasons, you've 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:08.160 been putting up some past audio from other documentaries. I 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:10.440 just feel like every time I listen there are stories 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:12.640 that I go in thinking I'll look at this show 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:16.120 description and I'll be like, I don't know English soccer, 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:18.440 I don't really care about that, And then I listened, 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:20.080 and then by the end of it, I love it 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:21.840 when I'm sad when it's over because I just I 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:25.000 enjoyed that one so much. And then the documentary. I'm 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:27.840 a w VU fanatic. I went to West Virginia University, 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:31.160 and I didn't know that story about the first dunk 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:33.520 happening at w VU. It's got to be fun to 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:36.440 be able to present those and surprise people. Yeah, you know, 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:38.880 I almost wish we could get to a point where 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:40.920 we don't have to put an episode description in because 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:42.520 I know some people look and say, well, I'm not 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:46.200 into football, I'm not into this particular athlete or team 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:47.600 or whatever, you know, And our goal is really the 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:50.160 telling a story. There is a universal appeal and is 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:53.160 going pretty quickly past a lot of the specificities of 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:55.760 what sport it is or what athletes it is, you know, 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:57.960 by three or four minutes. And I hope that everyone, 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:00.440 when they're listening to us, just realizes, oh, this is 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:02.640 a good story, and I'm invested in these characters and 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:06.000 I'm along for the ride. I obviously recognize that some 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:08.320 sports are more high profile than others, some athletes are 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:10.280 more high profile than others. But I've been really heartened 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:13.560 actually to see just in the reception and in the 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:16.040 download numbers, that people are generally listening to all of 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:18.200 our stories. And we hear from people all the time 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:19.720 and say, I don't you know, like you said, I 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:22.080 don't really care about soccer, I don't really care about 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:24.200 poker and what I was into that, And so you know, 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:26.640 our goal is just there's a good story almost everywhere, 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:30.160 and we just need to find them. Well. Great podcasts educate, entertain, 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:34.160 empathetic experience. I call it the three es, and that's 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:37.800 what is. It covers all of those things. The thing 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.680 I love about podcasting the most is I feel like 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:42.800 it is the one time in people's lives where they 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.920 actually do focus on one thing and they come out 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:48.640 feeling better. At least I think with a good podcast 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:50.760 they do. I just wanted to talk to you, you know, 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:52.760 how do you feel about for folks that have been 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:54.640 in You know, I've been in podcasting for eleven years 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:56.360 and it's just the last couple of years seeing the 0:16:56.440 --> 0:16:59.400 surge and people listening, it makes me feel better about 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:02.080 society in a way. Do you feel that too? I 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:05.159 generally agree, and I think podcasting it's a cliche, but 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:07.920 it's true. Podcasting is intimate and it's empathetic. I think 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:11.399 it is a healthy kind of thing to to engage in, 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:15.200 so more people listening to podcast are generally a good thing. 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:17.400 I mean, I will say to your point about where 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:20.040 this industry has exploded in the last couple of years, 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:23.320 I think it's only been I will confess, in the 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:25.800 last maybe a year or so that I really feel 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:28.639 like the quality of work had gone to a new level. 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.040 You know, if we had been talking eighteen months ago, 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:34.760 my mindset was kind of like, we're in the podcast revolution, 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:36.920 but what's good out there? Like that? You know, I 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:40.280 felt this weird disconnect and hasn't been that long, but 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:42.879 in the last year, I just feel like I've been 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:46.400 really inspired and by a lot of new, really impressive work, 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:48.240 and so now it feels like a lot of other 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:50.280 industries were just like growing up a little bit and 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:53.399 most talented to people who have the most important stories 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:55.600 to tell, and the resources for those people to tell 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:57.720 those stories are finally starting to come to bear. You know. 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:00.840 I've just been especially inspired in the last six months 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:03.000 or a year. I tell talent when I'm working with 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:05.480 new folks in podcasting that, you know, the days of 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:08.560 two guys telling dick jokes on bad mikes for two hours. 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:10.760 You know, that's not the world we live in right now, 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:12.760 and that's not the kind of podcast people are consuming 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:15.480 and they really want good quality podcasts. I mean, there's 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:18.159 still a home for those, and man, maybe about but 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:21.040