8 ms·

A Very Long, Super-Nerdy NBA Podcast Is Making Money

114 points by pmcpinto 9y ago

dogruck 9y ago
As an avid podcast listener, and a recent attendee to the podcast festival in LA, I think this article has several flaws. 1. It never mentions gambling or fantasy sports, which makes me suspect it’s a native ad for the NBA. I bet that a good percentage of the 745 Patreons are really into gambling on the NBA, in some form — how could the article not mention that!? https://www.patreon.com/DuncanLeroux https://www.patreon.com/DuncanLeroux 2. It starts off with some headline listener stats (e.g. “hundreds of thousands of listeners”) and later admits the hard truth that listener stats are not reliable. You only know if people have downloaded a podcast — not if they listened. 3. It perpetuates the myth that Serial is the most successful podcast. I also used to believe that, until I learned otherwise at the LA Podcast Festival. 4. It mentions, but doesn’t properly emphasize, that the $7 Patreons get to download a spreadsheet (which, again, they probably use for gambling). So, really, these guys are both podcasters and data providers. The podcast is how they market their data service. 5. It classifies them as a financial success, without saying how much they make. We know they get about $5,400 per month from Patreon (split 2 ways). I’m not sure how much they earn from Blue Apron, etc. I know $2,700/month doesn’t go too far in San Francisco. Also, they don’t divide $2,700 by the number of hours they spend watching NBA games, compiling their data spreadsheet, and producing the podcast. 6. Gives the obligatory main stream media reference to Gimlet Media, calling it “successful.” Does Gimlet make money? How much? How much does Gimlet pay its employees? 7. The headline is unnecessarily snarky, implying that podcast listeners are looking for vanilla, short, mainstream content. In reality, niches are the biggest areas for opportunity in podcasting. The headline should not start with “Even This...”
- lghh 9y ago
  Now I realize that I'm not necessarily the norm, but I'm a long time listener and subscriber to this podcast and a Patreon donor and I don't gamble. I just really like basketball and really like their content. Also, Danny writes for a few different places pretty regularly and has a book out, so I'm sure he's doing okay from that. He's also the host of a RealGM podcast. Nate is the actual host of the podcast and not every single episode includes Danny (though 95% do) so there's a chance it's not an even split.
  - ccorda 9y ago
    I can’t recall the pod ever talking about gambling lines, or fantasy value. Not to say listeners don’t use the info for those purposes, but it’s not a value proposition they even hint at IMO.
    - lghh 9y ago
      And covering games after they happen really doesn't help at all for fantasy. I just think the top comment is making assumptions without understanding the landscape.
  - retsibsi 9y ago
    > so there's a chance it's not an even split The Patreon page says that "we are each taking home half of what we bring in". In context that could be limited to the Patreon subscriptions, but it seems to indicate a 50/50 split of all revenue.
- NHQ 9y ago
  What did you learn about #3 Serial vs ??? at LA Podcast Fest?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- SyneRyder 9y ago
  You can do some quick estimates of ad revenue. (TLDR: their ad revenue likely crushes their Patreon by at least 5x.) The article says they get between 50,000 and 140,000 listeners per episode. They publish 5 shows a week. Episodes start with a 10 second pre-roll, 90 second mid-episode, and 30 second post-roll. The rates calculator at AdvertiseCast [1] suggest industry averages of $6/CPM for the pre-roll, $15/CPM for the mid-episode ad, and $11/CPM for the post-roll. That's $32/CPM total, or $1600 ad revenue. 20 episodes a month at $1600 per episode gets you $32,000/mth in ad revenue. [1] https://www.advertisecast.com/podcast-advertising-rates https://www.advertisecast.com/podcast-advertising-rates Edit: As a bonus, the Entrepreneur On Fire podcast has some similar math about CPM rates for their show, with the hint "now you can see why I love doing a daily show": https://www.eofire.com/podcast-sponsorships/ https://www.eofire.com/podcast-sponsorships/
  - dogruck 9y ago
    How do you get listener stats for a podcast?
    - eropple 9y ago
      You can't, but obviously the podcast can, and a major reason why podcasters use third-party sites for hosting (podbean, etc.) is because advertisers trust their metrics. If you share your podbean/libsyn/whatever data with an advertiser, it's more well-regarded than "well, we pulled this out of our butts". The downloads-to-listens ratio is, of course, largely bullshit in one direction or another.
      - SyneRyder 9y ago
        On the downloads-to-listens, Apple is apparently working on that metric for people using their Podcasts app (announced at WWDC 2017). They're considering per-minute tracking, so podcasters can measure if people are skipping over ads, and what percentage of listeners finish the podcast. (If only 50% of listeners finish an episode, then an ad placed at the start will be worth more than one at the end.) https://www.recode.net/2017/6/10/15774936/apple-podcast-analytics-wwdc https://www.recode.net/2017/6/10/15774936/apple-podcast-anal... For other metrics, some podcasts take listener surveys, like the annual TWIT Audience Survey: https://twit.tv/survey https://twit.tv/survey
- FireBeyond 9y ago
  I think the challenge to your comments, which are well thought out, is that in the admittedly few (10 or so?) episodes of this, the amount of discussion of "games coming up" is approaching none. It's all reviews of games. Now, certainly, people have memories and pay attention and start to draw their own inferences, but I think the target market feels more like "Basketball Nerds" than gamblers or fantasy players. Is there a benefit to the latter two to listen to this podcast? Undoubtedly. But I just don't "feel" (yes, subjective) like that's the push they're making.
  - dogruck 9y ago
    Yeah, sounds like I was wrong about an association between this podcast and gambling.
- PascLeRasc 9y ago
  So have you ever been to the LA Podcast Festival?
kenjackson 9y ago
As a hoops nerd this is one of my favorite podcasts. I think people underestimate how much demand there is for just good discussion. And since you don't need high production, you can just crack out out near daily.
- ajwp904 9y ago
  I listen to this podcast almost every day. These guys are great at breaking down why certain trades/contracts are a good value or (most of the time) not. They've also given me a more critical eye when I watch basketball games for what makes certain players good at what they do and why certain players are playing poorly. I'd say Dunc'd On and Lowe Post are my two favorite podcasts for following the NBA these days.
southphillyman 9y ago
Never listened to these guys but what's described sounds like your typical NBA podcast nowadays. NBA discussion on message boards and forums has changed a lot in recent years with fans being very knowledgeable about the salary cap, trade provisions, and other general management intricacies. in fact there is a derogatory term for fans who don't know about the nuances of the CBA or how to calculate effective field goal percentage...we call them "casuals". The NBA has done a good job developing an intelligent involved fan base which remains engaged even when games aren't being played
- baldfat 9y ago
  That it is MUCH easier to follow NBA than Baseball and Football due to sheer numbers of people is also a big plus. You actually can easily know every regular player (Usually 10 players or less) very quickly. It is also very easy to understand the impact of different players subing in and out. Basketball is the most played sport in the world for the past 20+ years (Arguably) and I think in 30 years NBA will be the second biggest sport in the US and it already is 2nd in the world.
  - teej 9y ago
    There’s simply no way that a sport that requires a court and a hoop is going to beat Soccer as the most played sport in the world.
    - kasey_junk 9y ago
      Soccer definitely has the breadth of places played locked down. Nothing is likely to overtake that any time soon. But basketball has a surprising advantage in potential players in that China is mad about basketball. The last time I was there the enthusiasm I saw for the sport, especially with young players rivaled anything I’ve seen outside of my own basketball obsessed childhood home of Indiana. Which leads to another conclusion. If I were betting the most popular sport globally I’d probably bet on Ping Pong, just based on Chinese school children participation.
csallen 9y ago
It's difficult to find out how much money podcasts make, so here are some data points about my podcast, which I started in February of this year. I released 5 episodes of the newly-created Indie Hackers podcast[0] in March and made about $1000 from sponsors. That's one sponsor per episode at ~$200 each. Today new episodes get over 20k downloads within their first week, but back then each episode got about 2-3k downloads, tops. One could make the argument that a business/tech podcast like Indie Hackers can land more lucrative advertisers than a basketball-focused podcast. But on the flip side, I was also completely new to selling sponsorships, editing and promoting the show, etc., and the podcast was just one of many things I was doing on my own. Regardless, if they're doing multiple episodes per week, each receiving 50k downloads at minimum, and each with multiple sponsors, I'd guess they're making a much more comfortable living than their Patreon numbers suggest. [0] https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast
- grecy 9y ago
  Do the sponsors pay you cash, or free product? Did you actively reach out to them, or did they contact you when you got big enough?
  - csallen 9y ago
    Cash, and I reached out at first.
    - ryanx435 9y ago
      How did you reach out to them? Like, did you reach out to their marketing department? Hoew did you get their contact info?
      - csallen 9y ago
        Yep, marketing departments. No one trick to finding the right person: research, asking around, very polite cold emails, etc. I also made it clear in my newsletter and on my website website that I was looking for advertisers. I've written about various parts of the process in a few of my month-in-review posts here: https://www.indiehackers.com/blog https://www.indiehackers.com/blog
yalogin 9y ago
This is a great podcast. There are many people that don’t care about all the theatrics in a show. They just tolerate it. Podcasts like dunc’d on just go straight to the point. This started with Bill Simmons’ grant land which had very lengthy detailed articles with analysis that never got done before. It was a huge success. Nate Duncan just continues that. I believe a sports fan invariably will gravitate towards a nerdy analysis given time, no mater what the sport is.
SapphireSun 9y ago
I'll be very disappointed when podcasting becomes fully metricised. The large scale introduction of advertising will be toxic and do to this beautiful indie space what has happened to the web.
- eropple 9y ago
  Would you rather the people who make quality podcasts have to spend the not-inconsiderate amount of time researching, rehearsing, performing, and editing alongside a full-time job? Would you rather they do that instead of making it a better thing? Podcast advertising has been around for a decade and somehow, just somehow, it has not been as "toxic" as you imply.
  - izacus 9y ago
    I would rather keep the current state where I can pay for podcasts and still listen to them on any device and any form I wish.
    - eropple 9y ago
      And when that state probably isn't economically tenable for the creators? Are you paying for everything you're listening to (you're almost certainly not)? For those you are paying for, are you paying enough to make up for everyone who isn't? Like...podcasts are a lot of work for not a lot of return in the current environment. That's why advertising happens: because making a few hundred bucks an ep off of a preroll and a midroll, for a show with ten thousand active listeners or so, makes the argument for continuing to do it. Metrics are gonna keep mattering because it's the only way to make it a creative work that can at least pay for its time. It sucks, but hey. We say we like capitalism.
  - SapphireSun 9y ago
    It really depends. The problem is that once advertising become the primary drip of financial resources, the content begins to revolve around the needs, goals, and preferences of advertisers. Content that isn't seen as monetizable gets shown the door. Content that rails against consensus opinion or is anti-corporate gets shut down. Things that earn money get promoted at the expense of all else. You can see this lucidly in the case of Bill O'Reilly. People had already known his deal for over a decade, but it wasn't until his ad dollars were pulled (after a public pressure campaign) that he was dethroned. That's an example of the kind of media system that is fostered by advertisement. EDIT: changed 'decades' to 'over a decade'. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/a-timeline-of-bill-oreillys-vileness-w477663 https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/a-timeline-of...
elorant 9y ago
Is there any way to verify that downloads of any given podcast aren't just bots?
- eropple 9y ago
  Not really. The various podcast hosting services provide analytics that you hope are providing anti-bot measures.
Touche 9y ago
What's surprising about this is that people find it surprising. I'm surprised that so few podcasts have figured out the formula is: pick a subject and talk about that subject. It's really not hard! So many people in the media seem to feel that what people want is interviews. Bill Simmons is a great example, he has very good podcasts when he just sits around and talks to his friends/coworkers about sports (or pop culture or whatever). But he seems to want to be a talk show host and do interviews... and very few people can do interviews well. And even fewer people make a good interview.

114 points by pmcpinto 9y ago

As an avid podcast listener, and a recent attendee to the podcast festival in LA, I think this article has several flaws. 1. It never mentions gambling or fantasy sports, which makes me suspect it’s a native ad for the NBA. I bet that a good percentage of the 745 Patreons are really into gambling on the NBA, in some form — how could the article not mention that!? https://www.patreon.com/DuncanLeroux https://www.patreon.com/DuncanLeroux 2. It starts off with some headline listener stats (e.g. “hundreds of thousands of listeners”) and later admits the hard truth that listener stats are not reliable. You only know if people have downloaded a podcast — not if they listened. 3. It perpetuates the myth that Serial is the most successful podcast. I also used to believe that, until I learned otherwise at the LA Podcast Festival. 4. It mentions, but doesn’t properly emphasize, that the $7 Patreons get to download a spreadsheet (which, again, they probably use for gambling). So, really, these guys are both podcasters and data providers. The podcast is how they market their data service. 5. It classifies them as a financial success, without saying how much they make. We know they get about $5,400 per month from Patreon (split 2 ways). I’m not sure how much they earn from Blue Apron, etc. I know $2,700/month doesn’t go too far in San Francisco. Also, they don’t divide $2,700 by the number of hours they spend watching NBA games, compiling their data spreadsheet, and producing the podcast. 6. Gives the obligatory main stream media reference to Gimlet Media, calling it “successful.” Does Gimlet make money? How much? How much does Gimlet pay its employees? 7. The headline is unnecessarily snarky, implying that podcast listeners are looking for vanilla, short, mainstream content. In reality, niches are the biggest areas for opportunity in podcasting. The headline should not start with “Even This...”

lghh 9y ago
Now I realize that I'm not necessarily the norm, but I'm a long time listener and subscriber to this podcast and a Patreon donor and I don't gamble. I just really like basketball and really like their content. Also, Danny writes for a few different places pretty regularly and has a book out, so I'm sure he's doing okay from that. He's also the host of a RealGM podcast. Nate is the actual host of the podcast and not every single episode includes Danny (though 95% do) so there's a chance it's not an even split.
- ccorda 9y ago
  I can’t recall the pod ever talking about gambling lines, or fantasy value. Not to say listeners don’t use the info for those purposes, but it’s not a value proposition they even hint at IMO.
  - lghh 9y ago
    And covering games after they happen really doesn't help at all for fantasy. I just think the top comment is making assumptions without understanding the landscape.
- retsibsi 9y ago
  > so there's a chance it's not an even split The Patreon page says that "we are each taking home half of what we bring in". In context that could be limited to the Patreon subscriptions, but it seems to indicate a 50/50 split of all revenue.
NHQ 9y ago
What did you learn about #3 Serial vs ??? at LA Podcast Fest?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
SyneRyder 9y ago
You can do some quick estimates of ad revenue. (TLDR: their ad revenue likely crushes their Patreon by at least 5x.) The article says they get between 50,000 and 140,000 listeners per episode. They publish 5 shows a week. Episodes start with a 10 second pre-roll, 90 second mid-episode, and 30 second post-roll. The rates calculator at AdvertiseCast [1] suggest industry averages of $6/CPM for the pre-roll, $15/CPM for the mid-episode ad, and $11/CPM for the post-roll. That's $32/CPM total, or $1600 ad revenue. 20 episodes a month at $1600 per episode gets you $32,000/mth in ad revenue. [1] https://www.advertisecast.com/podcast-advertising-rates https://www.advertisecast.com/podcast-advertising-rates Edit: As a bonus, the Entrepreneur On Fire podcast has some similar math about CPM rates for their show, with the hint "now you can see why I love doing a daily show": https://www.eofire.com/podcast-sponsorships/ https://www.eofire.com/podcast-sponsorships/
- dogruck 9y ago
  How do you get listener stats for a podcast?
  - eropple 9y ago
    You can't, but obviously the podcast can, and a major reason why podcasters use third-party sites for hosting (podbean, etc.) is because advertisers trust their metrics. If you share your podbean/libsyn/whatever data with an advertiser, it's more well-regarded than "well, we pulled this out of our butts". The downloads-to-listens ratio is, of course, largely bullshit in one direction or another.
    - SyneRyder 9y ago
      On the downloads-to-listens, Apple is apparently working on that metric for people using their Podcasts app (announced at WWDC 2017). They're considering per-minute tracking, so podcasters can measure if people are skipping over ads, and what percentage of listeners finish the podcast. (If only 50% of listeners finish an episode, then an ad placed at the start will be worth more than one at the end.) https://www.recode.net/2017/6/10/15774936/apple-podcast-analytics-wwdc https://www.recode.net/2017/6/10/15774936/apple-podcast-anal... For other metrics, some podcasts take listener surveys, like the annual TWIT Audience Survey: https://twit.tv/survey https://twit.tv/survey
FireBeyond 9y ago
I think the challenge to your comments, which are well thought out, is that in the admittedly few (10 or so?) episodes of this, the amount of discussion of "games coming up" is approaching none. It's all reviews of games. Now, certainly, people have memories and pay attention and start to draw their own inferences, but I think the target market feels more like "Basketball Nerds" than gamblers or fantasy players. Is there a benefit to the latter two to listen to this podcast? Undoubtedly. But I just don't "feel" (yes, subjective) like that's the push they're making.
- dogruck 9y ago
  Yeah, sounds like I was wrong about an association between this podcast and gambling.
PascLeRasc 9y ago
So have you ever been to the LA Podcast Festival?

kenjackson 9y ago

As a hoops nerd this is one of my favorite podcasts. I think people underestimate how much demand there is for just good discussion. And since you don't need high production, you can just crack out out near daily.

ajwp904 9y ago
I listen to this podcast almost every day. These guys are great at breaking down why certain trades/contracts are a good value or (most of the time) not. They've also given me a more critical eye when I watch basketball games for what makes certain players good at what they do and why certain players are playing poorly. I'd say Dunc'd On and Lowe Post are my two favorite podcasts for following the NBA these days.

southphillyman 9y ago

Never listened to these guys but what's described sounds like your typical NBA podcast nowadays. NBA discussion on message boards and forums has changed a lot in recent years with fans being very knowledgeable about the salary cap, trade provisions, and other general management intricacies. in fact there is a derogatory term for fans who don't know about the nuances of the CBA or how to calculate effective field goal percentage...we call them "casuals". The NBA has done a good job developing an intelligent involved fan base which remains engaged even when games aren't being played

baldfat 9y ago
That it is MUCH easier to follow NBA than Baseball and Football due to sheer numbers of people is also a big plus. You actually can easily know every regular player (Usually 10 players or less) very quickly. It is also very easy to understand the impact of different players subing in and out. Basketball is the most played sport in the world for the past 20+ years (Arguably) and I think in 30 years NBA will be the second biggest sport in the US and it already is 2nd in the world.
- teej 9y ago
  There’s simply no way that a sport that requires a court and a hoop is going to beat Soccer as the most played sport in the world.
  - kasey_junk 9y ago
    Soccer definitely has the breadth of places played locked down. Nothing is likely to overtake that any time soon. But basketball has a surprising advantage in potential players in that China is mad about basketball. The last time I was there the enthusiasm I saw for the sport, especially with young players rivaled anything I’ve seen outside of my own basketball obsessed childhood home of Indiana. Which leads to another conclusion. If I were betting the most popular sport globally I’d probably bet on Ping Pong, just based on Chinese school children participation.

csallen 9y ago

It's difficult to find out how much money podcasts make, so here are some data points about my podcast, which I started in February of this year. I released 5 episodes of the newly-created Indie Hackers podcast[0] in March and made about $1000 from sponsors. That's one sponsor per episode at ~$200 each. Today new episodes get over 20k downloads within their first week, but back then each episode got about 2-3k downloads, tops. One could make the argument that a business/tech podcast like Indie Hackers can land more lucrative advertisers than a basketball-focused podcast. But on the flip side, I was also completely new to selling sponsorships, editing and promoting the show, etc., and the podcast was just one of many things I was doing on my own. Regardless, if they're doing multiple episodes per week, each receiving 50k downloads at minimum, and each with multiple sponsors, I'd guess they're making a much more comfortable living than their Patreon numbers suggest. [0] https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast

grecy 9y ago
Do the sponsors pay you cash, or free product? Did you actively reach out to them, or did they contact you when you got big enough?
- csallen 9y ago
  Cash, and I reached out at first.
  - ryanx435 9y ago
    How did you reach out to them? Like, did you reach out to their marketing department? Hoew did you get their contact info?
    - csallen 9y ago
      Yep, marketing departments. No one trick to finding the right person: research, asking around, very polite cold emails, etc. I also made it clear in my newsletter and on my website website that I was looking for advertisers. I've written about various parts of the process in a few of my month-in-review posts here: https://www.indiehackers.com/blog https://www.indiehackers.com/blog

yalogin 9y ago

This is a great podcast. There are many people that don’t care about all the theatrics in a show. They just tolerate it. Podcasts like dunc’d on just go straight to the point. This started with Bill Simmons’ grant land which had very lengthy detailed articles with analysis that never got done before. It was a huge success. Nate Duncan just continues that. I believe a sports fan invariably will gravitate towards a nerdy analysis given time, no mater what the sport is.

SapphireSun 9y ago

I'll be very disappointed when podcasting becomes fully metricised. The large scale introduction of advertising will be toxic and do to this beautiful indie space what has happened to the web.

eropple 9y ago
Would you rather the people who make quality podcasts have to spend the not-inconsiderate amount of time researching, rehearsing, performing, and editing alongside a full-time job? Would you rather they do that instead of making it a better thing? Podcast advertising has been around for a decade and somehow, just somehow, it has not been as "toxic" as you imply.
- izacus 9y ago
  I would rather keep the current state where I can pay for podcasts and still listen to them on any device and any form I wish.
  - eropple 9y ago
    And when that state probably isn't economically tenable for the creators? Are you paying for everything you're listening to (you're almost certainly not)? For those you are paying for, are you paying enough to make up for everyone who isn't? Like...podcasts are a lot of work for not a lot of return in the current environment. That's why advertising happens: because making a few hundred bucks an ep off of a preroll and a midroll, for a show with ten thousand active listeners or so, makes the argument for continuing to do it. Metrics are gonna keep mattering because it's the only way to make it a creative work that can at least pay for its time. It sucks, but hey. We say we like capitalism.
- SapphireSun 9y ago
  It really depends. The problem is that once advertising become the primary drip of financial resources, the content begins to revolve around the needs, goals, and preferences of advertisers. Content that isn't seen as monetizable gets shown the door. Content that rails against consensus opinion or is anti-corporate gets shut down. Things that earn money get promoted at the expense of all else. You can see this lucidly in the case of Bill O'Reilly. People had already known his deal for over a decade, but it wasn't until his ad dollars were pulled (after a public pressure campaign) that he was dethroned. That's an example of the kind of media system that is fostered by advertisement. EDIT: changed 'decades' to 'over a decade'. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/a-timeline-of-bill-oreillys-vileness-w477663 https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/a-timeline-of...

elorant 9y ago

Is there any way to verify that downloads of any given podcast aren't just bots?

eropple 9y ago
Not really. The various podcast hosting services provide analytics that you hope are providing anti-bot measures.

Touche 9y ago

What's surprising about this is that people find it surprising. I'm surprised that so few podcasts have figured out the formula is: pick a subject and talk about that subject. It's really not hard! So many people in the media seem to feel that what people want is interviews. Bill Simmons is a great example, he has very good podcasts when he just sits around and talks to his friends/coworkers about sports (or pop culture or whatever). But he seems to want to be a talk show host and do interviews... and very few people can do interviews well. And even fewer people make a good interview.