Internal Programming Note

This time it's an actual program!

Okay, so apparently I will be doing a lot of soccer work in the future. Not necessarily here, but I've decided I want to do a soccer podcast. I missed the World Cup window I was really hoping to hit on the book, and I figure my odds of success just took a hit because of that, so I want to parlay things into something more immediately consumable (and monetizable, hi advertisers!) just in case. A lot of research prep work is pre-done, so there's that at least. I've yet to give it a name, but I'm going over the basic concept of what I'm attempting to do with a potential co-host. I'm hoping to take an expansive view of the sport- not just the major leagues, though I certainly won't turn my nose up at suitable material out of them- and while I'm perfectly fine recapping a game or making day-to-day sports talk, I'm more comfortable discussing the bigger picture. The state of soccer in a given location. Histories of clubs or players or the places in which they play. The myriad ways in which the antics of 22 men and a ball permeate large swaths of the world in which we live, very often in areas of that world that aren't likely to win or even qualify for the World Cup anytime soon.

I went over topics that I might have wanted to do for a fictional sample episode a few days ago, and the things I, at least, gravitated towards were:

*The upcoming MLS All-Star Game, how it compares with other soccer all-star games (yes, they exist), and the use of a league-spanning team playing a marquee overseas opponent when individual clubs are playing them themselves.
*This match-fixer in Singapore being jailed for offering prostitutes as bribes to referees from Lebanon, and a 99-cent-version overview of Singapore's role in match-fixing.
*This suite of rulings from UEFA, regarding events in Russia, Ukraine and Israel, and the various matters and stories surrounding each, one of which I've already brought up on this blog.

I imagine lighter fare would be coming in other episodes, but it's a pretty heavy sample group. And of course, this leaves out anything my co-host would want to tackle, as it'd be his show too.

We have both vowed that what we are not going to do is turn this into one more sports-jock screamfest. I think we've all seen quite enough of those. Discussion's fine, disagreement is fine, that is what talking sports is built on after all, but it's not like disagreement has to exist or even be a relevant concept when bringing up a topic. There's nothing wrong with merely stating fact and providing context.

You know. News.

This, though, all assumes I learn how to operate audio equipment, as I have zero experience with audio and this is a hell of a way to get an education on it. All I can say about that is I'll do my best to not make us both sound like staticy alien robots. Wish me luck. Well, wish us luck, anyway.