Handing out the 2020 Podcast Awards, Part 2: The Random, Fun Awards
Last week I came out with my main podcast awards for 2020. Thanks to all the winners who kindly interacted with the story either on social media or here on Medium — that was honestly very cool.
In part two of this award show we’re going to slouch into our seats, loosen our belts, and hand out some more fun, relaxed, incredibly made up awards. Hope you enjoy!
Podcasts That Need to Return: Cannonballz, Cut4Cast, Rembert Explains
I will keep banging the drum for these podcasts until their hosts acquiesce and return to the incredible podcasts they created. (Yes, this is a totally entitled take. I do apologize. But I still want them to come back.)
The episodes that are in existence for each of these shows make for great listening for those who are yet to discover this literary podcast; baseball podcast; and well, Rembert Browne podcast.
Best Vaporizing of a Controversial Guest: Rich Lowry, Left, Right, and Center
For anyone who has listened to LRC for a while, Rich Lowry was long the representative from the right, and he often brought strong and fair-minded critiques to the show. However, the podcast in the immediate aftermath of the George Floyd murder was one of the most tone-deaf and downright disgusting displays of privilege and cluelessness I’ve ever heard. I was in shock after, and I think the show as a whole felt the same way. Lowry, to my tracking, has not been back on the show since, and while I would be all right with him coming back in the future — and maybe just having a different pundit from the right on when there are topics regarding race — the banishment has felt appropriate in the last few months.
Best Director: Gabe, Dunktown
Ok, I won’t belabor this point too much, because I actually feel bad at times about how much love Gabe gets in the feedback to Dunktown, but he gets the ‘Dunkie’ here.
Best Podcast Your Uncle Listens To: Advisory Opinions
Worst Podcast Your Uncle Listens To: Bill Simmons/Ryen Russilo/Any of the endless number of white dudes talking sports on The Ringer Podcast Network
I would read an entire dissertation on why, in February of 2017 when I last handed out Poddies, I had an entire section fawning over Bill Simmons, but now, in 2020, he’s pretty painful for me to listen to.
I think it’s a little bit him, a little bit me, and a lot bit the times having changed. It’s like how most comedy has about a five-year expiration date on it.
Regardless, maybe I will look back in four years and say the same thing about Advisory Opinions, the conservative-leaning podcast from The Dispatch, and there are certainly cringe-y moments on the show even here in 2020. But overall, there seems to be a level of self-awareness that French holds (even if his co-host Sarah Isgur seems to lack that gene more frequently) that the Sports Bro world of Simmons, Russilo, et. al lack, that is the differentiator.
Case in point: The brutally awkward, mid-racial reckoning laudits that Russilo laid upon Simmons for his incredible devotion to diversity at The Ringer. Go check the masthead if you’re wondering why the cringe was so intense…
Host I Will Miss Most for the Foreseeable Future: Sam Miller, Effectively Wild
One of the sadder public lay-offs this year was ESPN’s Sam Miller, the best baseball writer for my money, a decision which also meant the EW co-host could not join the podcast while he was being paid his severance by ESPN. Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley do a respectable job with the podcast still, but there’s just nothing like Sam Miller’s baseball mind, and the show just won’t be the same until he’s back.
Best Rapport: Aja Wilson and Napheesa Collier, Tea with A & Phee
I thought about including this award in the first article, as I realllly wanted Wilson and Collier included in that article, but in the end a great rapport is just the type of part two award that we’re going for here.
These two WNBA megastars (and I truly mean megastar) have all the latest league gossip, while also being able to carry a more serious tenor when necessary. I was already a fan of the Lynx thanks to my time in Minnesota, but this pod definitely got me more engaged with the Aces and Lynx, especially any time the two co-hosts played each other on the actual court. One of the best athlete-hosted podcasts, hands down.
Other nominees: Andrew Sharp and Ben Golliver, Greatest of All Talk; Anastia and Agata, Dunktown; Bryan Curtis and Michael Shoemaker, Press Box; Lynsey Hooper, Kait Borsay, and Hayley McQueen, Offside Rule; Michael Schur and Joe Posnanski, Poscast; Christy Winters-Scott and Gabe Ibrahim, Her Hoops Podcast
Podcast I Always Really Want to Love But Can’t: Binge Mode
Harry Potter! Marvel Cinematic Universe! Game of Thrones (I guess). Binge Mode dives into some of the most fun and, to create a word: dive-into-able cultural universes, but I just can’t do the actual podcast. Mallory Rubin just remains a little too extra for me, personally.
Other nominees: How Did This Get Made, Conan Needs a Friend
Best Recurring Segment: Burn Pile, Burn It All Down
The best part of the best show. Well, “best.” Even though the premise is a list of gets-you-shaking, infuriating, shitty, shitty, way-beyond-shitty things that have happened in the world of sports in the past week, it is both one of the most necessary and motivational moments of the week.
The hosts all come prepared with the full story and enough indignation that it’s impossible to not feel motivated to try to make some change in the world. It also, in a somewhat perverse way, is a very grounding and humbling section every week.
Other nominees: Entrepreneurs perpetually showing up on Comedy Bang Bang; Most Points, Dunktown; the Championship Belt, The Watch; The Podium, Greatest of All Talk
Best podcast I discovered this year: Potterless
There’s nothing that will make you feel more like time is just a construct more than looking at content you binged almost a full calendar year ago. I discovered Mike Schubert’s Potterless podcast in which he, as a grown man, reads Harry Potter for the first time, right around the beginning of quarantine, and boy oh boy does that feel like about a decade ago.
Regardless, “Schubes” is a personality that takes a minute to grow on you, but by the end you’re listening just as much for the host as you are for re-living the HP story for the two hundred and forty-ninth time.
Best podcast I’ve been listening to for half a decade plus: Greatest of All Talk
The inverse of the last award, it was quite fun going back to the last podcast award article I did in 2016 and seeing what I was still listening to. There was lots of turnover, especially among the tippy top tier of my favorites, but Sharp and Golliver’s basketball takes remain one of the absolute highlights of my week whenever their new pods drop.
Sure, they were together under a different title (Open Floor) when I first started listening, and Andrew has even gone off to an entirely different career, but there’s really no podcast duo like Sharp and Golliver — not just in the world of sports podcasts, but really in the world of podcasting writ large.
Podcasts are such a unique medium in that it truly, truly feels like you’re getting to overhear two friends talking at a party. In the case of G.O.A.T., it sometimes feels like you’re overhearing not just two friends, but an actual old married couple, but that’s the beauty of the show, and the clearly incredible friendship of these two basketball fiends. Come for Ben’s corny words of wisdom (the best ability is availability) and Andrew’s greased pig takes; stay for the Eddie Gaedel laughing fits and surprising effective Lantern advice.
Probably my favorite podcast over the longest stretch of time. Team Sharp forever.
Other nominees: Ear Hustle, Comedy Bang Bang, The Watch, Poscast
Podcaster most likely to be president in 2050: Pepper Persley
When I was nine years old, I was busy picking my nose and reading baseball magazines all day. (Things never change, I guess…)
At her own precocious nine years of age, Pepper Persley runs one of the most popular and successful WNBA podcasts! She has hosted numerous All-Stars on the show, and she’s a staple in post-game press conferences throughout the season.
Here’s a casual photo of her and the G.O.A.T.
Remember her name because Pepper Persley is going places.
