“It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that The Athletic is at the pinnacle of sports journalism. Its brand is synonymous with excellence, professionalism and love of the game. Although, I do find the vessel of these values doesn’t quite come across in a podcast format.
My two biggest issues with this show is:
1) Audio quality. With most of the guest appearing on this show being employees of The Athletic - coupled with the fact that a lot of them appear semi-regularly - I find it odd that these guys don’t have, at the very least, half decent USB microphones. The show being mostly recorded online, I think having a USB mic should be prerequisite for talking on this podcast.
On top of that, I find that the audio levels vary greatly based on who is talking. To listen to this show, you need the volume on max to hear everything clearly but also have to worry about loud outbursts blowing your ears. Using a compressor (or a better one) would mitigate this. You can hear this clearly when the show cuts to ads and the ads a significantly louder than what you’ve been listening to.
2) I think the Match Preview show - in it’s current form - can be entirely skipped by anyone listening. It sounds more like my mates and I predicting results and chatting Fantasy League instead of journalists paid to talk about this. That being said, there are some things that my mates would pick up on, in terms team news, tactics, form etc, that these guys tend to miss.
On a more positive note, Ayo I think has been an excellent host since being brought on. He works extremely well as an intermediary between sometimes multiple guests but I do just wish there was a bit more freedom in terms of making these episodes less methodical and more conversational. With some episodes being wholly Ayo question -> guest answer -> Ayo question -> other guest answer.”
Nathan_robbo via Apple Podcasts ·
Australia ·
04/27/24