The podcast business continues to boom, and the industry’s growth was reflected in ESPN’s numbers for this year. Data from Podtrac shows that coming into December, ESPN sat at 8.48 million unique monthly podcast listeners across 101 active shows. Looking at December '19, that figure was 6.89 million across 63 shows. “It was a crazy year on so many levels,” said ESPN Senior Dir of Digital Audio Programming Pete Gianesini. “We were as nimble and flexible as we could have been, and better than I ever thought we would be.” The latest ESPN offering -- “March 11 2020” -- launched yesterday under the “30 for 30” umbrella. The podcast examines the day the NBA shut down and the pandemic became real for so many across sports. Gianesini said, “That week was sort of, ‘How do we keep things going?’ The numbers during April and May weren’t what you would have liked, but I think the fact that we were there still mattered.” One such shift was creating an aftershow for “The Last Dance” when the 10-part documentary was moved up to April from a planned June rollout. “That did really big numbers for us (4 million downloads). But then we also had the halo content where just about every title we had, we charged them with, ‘Hey, what’s your Michael Jordan story?’”
READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL: The NFL season did not have its normal buildup, and that was felt within a show like “Fantasy Focus” and its download figures. “We were nervous early because the lack of a preseason killed our August numbers,” Gianesini said. “Then the games came and the September numbers started rolling in and we had the most-downloaded month in the history of the podcast. … It was up like 27% from the previous September.” Meanwhile, the “ESPN Daily” weekday morning podcast also made a significant talent shift on Aug. 3 as Pablo Torre took over hosting responsibilities from Mina Kimes, who moved to “NFL Live,” as well as hosting her podcast. Gianesini called it a “pretty seamless” transition. He also noted that Kimes’ weekly football podcast, which has been averaging 100,000 listeners a month, “has grown really sharply” this year (+200%). “The people that were in it for Mina, and only Mina, stayed with her and hung with her football show."
LET ME TELL YOU A STORY: ESPN also doubled down on podcast storytelling this fall, launching “ESPN Investigates” to complement “30 for 30.” But the new brand dealt with not just a crowded sports calendar, but election season. “You started competing with a massive volume of news and political podcasts that had a lot to talk about in October and November. We also align with FiveThirtyEight and I know their politics podcasts did massive numbers at that time.” Beyond a new brand, ESPN also allowed personalities like Adrian Wojnarowski to do storytelling in their eponymous podcasts (Woj’s sit-down with Giannis Antetokounmpo from the Orlando bubble had around 115,000 listeners). “We didn’t create a storytelling title or execute it under a storytelling umbrella. We did it within the existing ‘Woj Pod’ and I thought that worked really well. … So we’ll kick the tires on that more in the coming years.”
COMING ATTRACTIONS: Some things ESPN listeners expect to see in ‘21? Expect more original content from “Jalen & Jacoby,” which started as a podcast. While the TV show will continue to be offered as a podcast, the duo wanted to do more podcast-only material. Gianesini said, “We’ve done a couple of ‘em here in December and we’re going to roll out in January fairly regularly.” Gianesini also noted ESPN will ramp up the frequency of “The Lowe Post” podcast during the NBA season. That pod is currently coming off its best month on record. To boost NFL Draft content and conversation, Field Yates will be added to Mel Kiper and Todd McShay’s podcast. ESPN also will look to launch new podcasts that connect with a more diverse audience, reflecting existing efforts from Kimes, Julie Foudy, Katie Nolan and Sarah Spain.
