Get to know the voices behind the podcasts covering the 2019 Rapids

Last year there were three podcasts covering the Colorado Rapids. The club has since canceled their official pod with Richard Fleming and as of 2019, two new pods have popped up. The more coverage of our Burgundy Boys, the better, so we thought a round-up was in order so Rapids fans can learn a little more about the people behind the pods.

Hear it from the OGs: Voice of C38

How long has your pod existed?
The Voice of C38 started in the beginning of the 2016 season. Since then we have recorded about an episode per week, and also have done an offseason show called Untapped since the 2017-2018 offseason.

Who are you and why did you start your podcast?
The podcast was started back in 2016 because at the time, there was a serious shortage of Rapids media available. There was the podcast being hosted by the Front Office, but it wasn’t the same as hearing from the fans. There was a level of self-reflective analysis that was missing from that cast and of course, since it was produced by the Rapids themselves, they weren’t going to want to be as critical as others could be. We started out trying to be just as our name says: A voice for the supporters to talk about the team with both praise and critique.

The roster has changed a couple of times over the years, but the current lineup is:

• Brendan Wyatt, the host and soccer diehard who brings a wide variety of experience and perspectives
• Austin Mais, aka the Drunken Monk, the truest supporter of all of us, having been a fan since the team first started back in 1996
• Brian Jennings, a journalist for 17 years who has a rapport with the players like no one else has
• Colin Peterson, who brings in facts, figures, and statistics to keep everyone else honest and on the level.

What do you focus on besides the Rapids?
Our content overall is 100% focused on the Rapids, but we have expanded beyond just our crew talking for an hour on the cast. We are responsible for the DJing at the C38 tailgate prior to every home match and we also do player interviews at the tailgates as well. Brian will also provide audio from player interviews from after matches. On occasion, we’ve even had the opportunity to interview members of the Front Office including Senior Director of Soccer Development Brian Crookham and the General Manager, Padraig Smith.

What makes your podcast different?
A lot of what makes our podcast feel different is that, at heart, we’re a bunch of supporters who deeply love this team and want to put a voice to that emotion week-in and week out. To paraphrase how MLS describes us, we have a passion you’d expect from the full-90 minute fan combined with the laid-back attitude you’d expect from Coloradoans. We drink beer and talk about the team, we’ll get mad and argue with each other over who had the best performance in the last game, and we’ll try to involve our fans in our discussions.

What’s your favorite thing about having a weekly podcast?
Getting a chance to talk about the state of the team from a variety of viewpoints. There rarely is a single game result or piece of news where all of us walk away with the exact same opinion. It can be fascinating having two fans of the same club who saw the same game and sit in the same section have two completely different reactions.

When do new episodes come out & where can people find you?
New episodes are first live-streamed on our Periscope channel at 5 p.m. MT. The audio version is then released on Thursday mornings.

You can catch us at the following links for the podcast, and you can visit our website for more content from the Voice crew.

• Periscope (live stream)
• LibSyn
• Spotify
• iTunes

Geek out on tactics & rules: Holding the High Line with Rabbi and Red

How long has your pod existed?
Holding The High Line with Rabbi and Red debuted on January 30, 2018.

Who are you and why did you start your podcast?
We are hosted by Matt Pollard of Last Word on Soccer and Mark Goodman of the Denver Post. The guys met through Twitter originally and then in the press box at DSG Park. We quickly became friends and colleagues. Being the two nerdiest members of the press corp and enjoying spending an hour breaking down tactics and wonky MLS roster rules made it easy.

Over the 2017-2018 off-season, we independently thought up the idea of starting a podcast, both knowing we couldn’t do it solo. The guys got in touch, met for a beer at the Bulldog while watching soccer (of course), realized we had similar visions, and Holding The High Line was born!

What do you focus on besides the Rapids?
HTHL is very much Rapids focused. Most episodes open with banter where we’ll discuss something topical in MLS or soccer in general. We’ll mention news from around the league or the sport worldwide, but won’t designate a whole segment to recapping the full weekend of MLS games. We’ll occasionally talk Colorado soccer as well (Switchbacks, DU Pioneers, FC Denver, etc.).

Every week, we’ll do a full breakdown of the previous game in a segment called ‘Good Thing, Bad Thing, Big Thing.’ We love talking tactics, breaking down the stats, and looking at match-ups to make sense of what happened. This will usually lead to a bigger picture view of the club’s form and some notes on the opponent.

We’ll also preview the Rapids next opponent. This doesn’t have as formal of a structure. If it’s a team Colorado hasn’t played recently, we’ll breakdown their whole roster and how they play. If it’s a Western Conference team Rapids supporters know well (Ex: RSL or SKC) we jump straight into the game itself, how the two teams will play, or another big topic for the opponent. This week we talked about Gedion Zelalem signing for Sporting Kansas City, for example.

Depending on the schedule, we’ll often have a third segment. If one of us does midweek media, we’ll have ‘From Field 20’ to highlight something Hudson is working on or play some player interview audio. If we get a good long-form interview, we’ll sometimes dedicate a whole segment or show to that. Rabbi had a 40-minute sit-down with Fran Taylor last year that we ran over the holidays. Red likes to do 10-15 minute player sit-downs to discuss their soccer journey and ask some human interest questions.

We usually end the show with listener questions, submitted to us via email (rapids96podcast@gmail.com) or using #AskHTHL on Twitter.

What makes your podcast different?
HTHL is what would happen if Freakonomics Radio and Men in Blazers had a baby and raised it in Colorado. We’re nerds. We’ll get into all the nebulous details of MLS. We talk finances and formation regularly. The guys will namedrop complex soccer jargon, define it, and then explain how it applies to the Rapids.

We aspire to make Rapids fans more informed and give those in other markets articulate takes on the club. We don’t sugar coat anything. Homerism and recency bias are not our thing. We saw a need for a ‘March to the Match’ style program in the Rapids audio space and filled it.

HTHL’s mission statement is to be a well-informed podcast that asks tough questions, criticizes and compliments when warranted, and provides context and annotation to all things Burgundy and Blue. But we’ll settle for being group therapy by quantifying just how bad this team is when they’re inevitably eliminated from playoff contention in September.

What’s your favorite thing about having a weekly podcast?
We love talking soccer and bringing together the Rapids community. Fans read our work individually for years and we think we’re better together on air. HTHL provides insight into the club through a unique lens and gives fans a platform to share their opinions and bring up deep and fascinating discussion topics. If we only got three listens to a show, but all three people engaged us with an Ask HTHL or follow up email expanding the conversation, we’re happy. If we get one obsessed Rapids fan excited about the tiniest change in Hudson’s tactics, we’re ecstatic.

When do new episodes come out & where can people find you?
HTHL is a weekly podcast. We usually record on Tuesday or Wednesday and the show comes out the next morning on our RSS feed. Most weeks, we schedule shows for 5 am MST.

We’re on all the major podcatchers—iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and Spotify— and a bunch of other smaller podcatchers as well. Here’s a full list. If we’re not on your preferred platform, get in touch and we’ll do our best to get on there so you can listen to us. You can also find us embedded in most of the Rapids articles in the Denver Post.

Covering soccer all around Colorado: Footy at 5280

How long has your pod existed?
This season is the first season for the Footy at 5280 podcast and my first season covering the Rapids.

Who are you and why did you start your podcast?
My name is Pat Radigan, and I just finished up a master’s in journalism at Nebraska, where I started my own sports media brand as the thesis of my master’s project. I’ve worked so long on figuring out what a ‘sports brand of the future’ might look like that I left my real-world job four months after moving to Colorado and started working on new media projects—Footy at 5280 is the first brand I’m bringing to market.

What do you focus on besides the Rapids?
We focus on the Rapids and specifically on their games and interviews with Colorado players and staff, but we also want to use our platform to talk about all soccer in Colorado. We’re also going to devote a lot of energy to the Switchbacks and the rest of the Rapids organization, rather than zoom out to MLS or other international soccer topics.

What makes your podcast different?
My favorite part about working on my Nebraska sports project was covering Husker soccer, and so we’re going to do our best to talk about the CU women’s soccer team, the University of Denver’s squads, and even smaller schools like Metro State. A good number of youth soccer players have the chance to play at the college level, and we want to tell their stories—that’s what we’re hoping will set us apart.

What’s your favorite thing about having a weekly podcast?
I love the interaction side of having a podcast and a social media brand, and being able to create conversations and see that play out. Sports fans are the best, and when you follow a team as close as a lot of fans do, the sports media brands start to feel like friends. My favorite part of what I do is getting to see people interact with and enjoy the work I put out there.

When do new episodes come out & where can people find you?
Each of our main episodes comes out on Wednesday, and we also put out a game preview and a match report on either side of each Rapids game.

We are coming soon to all major Podcast platforms (already on Google, and we’re working our way through the pipes with iTunes and Spotify), but you can always keep up on our show on our website.

Perspectives from fans, Rapids’ personalities, and media: The Endline

How long has your pod existed?
The Endline just kicked off in the 2019 pre-season!

Who are you and why did you start your podcast?
I’m Jeff Casimir and I’ve been an MLS fan since the inaugural season and started following the Rapids when we moved here in 2013. Over the years I’ve gotten interested in how to grow the fan community. I want to see the tailgates boisterous and the stands packed for every game, and I think building better connections between the team and the fans is one of the ways to do that. I started asking around to see who might be interested in joining a panel-style podcast and people kept saying yes! So we’ve got a pool of about eight folks who are team insiders, reporters, and fans. Each week I pull together five of us with a mix of perspectives.

What do you focus on besides the Rapids?
We want our podcast to be accessible to every fan or potential fan and explore the higher-level observations, outcomes, and prognostications. We’ll talk about the Rapids every episode, of course, but fold in the stories we think fans should be paying attention to like the USWNT/USMNT, CCL, and the big stories in the MLS. We also like to include interviews with folks from the team and the rest of US Soccer/MLS world.

What makes your podcast different?
Podcasts are definitely “different strokes for different folks.” Some people can tolerate Joe Rogan rambling and others expect every episode to be as tight as a TED Talk. We like to emphasize an agenda-driven conversation that moves quickly and values multiple perspectives combined with top-shelf audio quality that’s easy on the ears. We’re not trying to finish conversations; we’re trying to start them.

What’s your favorite thing about having a weekly podcast?
It’s been a ton of work so far—about 22 hours of human labor for each episode. I hope that people enjoy listening to it and we’ve gotten great feedback so far. But, honestly, just the opportunity to sit and talk with people who really care about the team has been the most fun.

When do new episodes come out & where can people find you?
Our goal is to record Tuesday, edit Wednesday, and release early Thursday. We’re also experimenting with releasing some longer interviews on their own when available.

Most of our listeners come through iTunes or Spotify, but we’re available on other platforms and our own website, too.