Backpass: HTHL Behind the Scenes
What do Matt and Mark talk about before we hit the record button?
Matt and I are incredibly frank on this podcast about what we think - you all, unfortunately, get my exceedingly honest and unflinching opinions about MLS and the Colorado Rapids; the good and the bad. Matt is also pretty much the same guy on the podcast and off.
There is just one notable exception to this rule - a thing we don’t share on-mic - and that is a meta-discussion of the overall North American ecosystem. Generally, that’s because we think it’s both boring and whiny. But at least for my part, I’ll share my own side of that conversation with you all, the HTHL hardcore; the folks who keep us writing and talking soccer because we love to do it.
There are precious few lunatic human beings who will take upon themselves the responsibility of writing or podcasting about MLS at all. The number of those lunatics shrinks considerably when you ask about staying power: few podcasts about any given MLS team survive more than a year - and entire websites have gone through their star life cycles of birth, maturation, supernova, blackhole in under one measly MLS season1. And, of course, that’s due to the unfortunate fact that there isn’t much glory or money in writing about and talking about soccer - so as a natural consequence, few bloggers, writers, or podcasters will churn out content for free or almost free for very long.2 I wrote for free for a while - because I loved it and it was fun - and then I wrote for a very small amount of money, and … well that’s pretty much where things still stand today.
Within that larger group of part-time writers, fan-bloggers, and citizen soccer journalists3 that cover domestic soccer, there is an exceedingly small subset cadre of professional, full-time and full-time-ish MLS writers - so few I can name them all off the top of my head.4
The relatively tiny size US soccer media landscape is a double-edged sword. Because there are so few MLS writers in the US, it affords all of us a tremendous amount of access. I’ve spoken to fellow sportswriters who worked NFL games where anyone who wasn’t a seasoned pro with a major outlet wasn’t issued a press credential at all; and even those who did get a press pass had to accept being the 300th reporter at the press conference in which only 3 of them got to ask Von Miller a question. By comparison, when I covered the Rapids CCL match against Toronto FC in 2017, I finished my Q&A session with Tommy Smith and pivoted to leave… and found myself so close to Michael Bradley in a packed hallway that I had no choice but to hang out till his TSN interview was over. How close? I was ‘he’s got nice pores’ close.
The flip side of the tiny number of soccer reporters is the minuscule opportunities for actually making a living at it, and the overall lack of respect the universe has for the position. Or, as notable soccer player Landon Donovan once said:
The problem with that tiny number of writers and podcasters is that the quality varies. There are always a few writers who just aren’t that good in any media scrum - they ask dumb questions or write not-great things. One of the side conversations Matt and I and some of the other long-tenured Rapids-beat folks have had over the years has been ‘my God that was a bad question.’ Every soccer reporter in America has been subjected to a Bastian Schweinsteiger ‘will the Chicago Fire win the World Cup?’ level bad question - some of us hear a question that bad almost weekly. It feels bad when it happens - it makes a bunch of us think ‘my God, THAT GUY got a press pass too? What am I doing with my life?’ It’s like the old Groucho Marx line: “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.”
The number of writers and podcasters, of course, reflects interest and profitability. There’s an appetite for soccer in this country, but it’s not a very large appetite: a few hors d’oeuvres, maybe some tapas, but not an entire meal. And that of course means that it’s not a field for the faint of heart - or it is a nice stepping stone to something better in journalism. The last three Denver Post Rapids beat writers - Daniel Boniface, John Meyer, and Jake Shapiro - all moved on to something else at the first opportunity. Many other soccer writers never really found a stable living in soccer writing and now do something else. In addition to being a bummer, it is a massive brain drain - think of all the smart soccer acumen and history that gets obliterated when somebody covers the league for a few years and then moves on. Matt’s been working on this project of a podcast documentary of the 2010 Rapids MLS Cup victory, entitled ‘Memories from Toronto’, and one of the surprising things to learn is how many of former Rapids have told Matt ‘you know, it’s amazing, nobody ever asked me that’ or ‘here’s a story that no one has ever told’. Every writer that departs from MLS soccer takes with them dozens of stories that’ll never be read by voracious MLS supporters - and isn’t around to get the story the next time it takes place.
Matt and I occasionally will lament ‘the dream job’ that doesn’t exist - a world in which he or I actually *could* quit our day jobs and cover soccer full time. It’s never entirely beyond the realm of possibility - lighting strikes, lottery tickets are won, yaddayaddayadda. He and I write and podcast because we are fanatics. We do it because the Colorado Rapids deserve to have a few thoughtful comments said about them, and our voices, along with some of the other regulars - Abbie Mood, Marco Cummings, Brian Jennings - are valuable.
We are grateful, too, for the respect we have earned along the way, slight as it may be. There was a time when I first started writing about soccer when the MLS media environment was old school - only interested in ‘traditional media outlets’ like mainstream newspaper and television outlets or local sportscasters. Everyone else would colloquially be derided as ‘bloggers’, and with that came the assumption that we were dorks, living in our moms basements and shouting into the ether about our particular area of interest.
But as our American media landscape becomes more diffuse, MLS teams have become more understanding that they are likely to reach their audience through a soccer website or podcast than a 15-second blurb appended to the end of Channel 9 sportscast - “And in other news, the Colorado Rapids won a 1-0 match in Commerce City. Ulysses Nambly scored on a pass from Kaiden Rostenburry.” It is slowly becoming the under 30 set can probably name a dozen YouTubers and Instagram influencers, and may not be able to tell you who anchors the local news. Heck, I’m 44 and I can’t name a single person that anchors ESPN’s Sportscenter ; twenty years ago, I used to tune in twice a day and could quote a dozen different Stu Scott of Chris Berman catch phrases. Things have changed. Non-traditional outlets get more respect from MLS Comms teams than 10 years ago
There’s still a ways to go, of course. Soccer writing and podcasting will hopefully keep growing along with the league, and will mature and improve in quality and financial opportunity.
Behind the scenes, Matt and I will still occasionally complain though. It’s what writers do for each other.
My only complaint these days, of course, is the same as yours - it seems like the beginning of the MLS season is still a billion light years away.
Pour one out for former podcasts ‘Flakoglost’, ‘The Current/C38’, and ‘Rise and Blaze’; and the ‘Around MLS’, ‘Current of Colorado’ and ‘Rapids Republic’ websites.
I once had an aside with a guy that covered the Rapids as a podcaster, and he expressed that his ultimate goal was to grow the podcast and make it his full-time job. Never in my life did I have to stifle the urge to literally yell ‘don’t quit your day job’. Thankfully he did not, to my knowledge, quit his day job.
One could call me a ‘soccer blogger’ but, eek, that just stings. I really like the concept of ‘citizen soccer journalist’, although I’m perhaps the only person that uses it. As an aside, my general belief is that the press box sucks, and that traditional journalism errs towards being soul crushingly dull. My main writing influences are Hunter Thompson, David Foster Wallace, and Drew Magary. That’s why I prefer to report from the supporters section while slightly inebriated and I like using footnotes waaaaaay too much.
Grant Wahl, Stephen Goff, Kevin Baxter, Doug Robertson, Jonathan Tannenwald, Michael Lewis, Paul Kennedy, Matt Pentz, Pablo Maurer, Paul Tenorio, Sam Stejskal, Ives Galarcep, Felipe Cardenas, Jeff Rueter, Alicia Rodriguez*, and Jeremiah Oshan*. I did not include writers who work for MLS because … they write for MLS. Several of these writers cover additional beats. Rodriguez and Oshan write about MLS teams but in addition to serving as SBNation editors. And it’s possible I missed writers too. Oops. I am also only including domestically-based English-language MLS writers. I mean, maybe there are dozens of Greek-based MLS scribblers, who knows.
Love the coverage and appreciate what y'all do for the Pids. Looking forward to a fun season.