Good Seats Still Available

Tim Hanlon
  • 4.7 (107)
  • Sports
  • Weekly

"Good Seats Still Available" is a curious little podcast devoted to the exploration of what used-to-be in professional sports. Each week, host Tim Hanlon interviews former players, owners, broadcasters, beat reporters, and surprisingly famous "super fans" of teams and leagues that have come and gone - in an attempt to unearth some of the most wild and woolly moments in (often forgotten) sports history.

  1. 4d ago

    The Many Acts of John Madden - With Scott Howard-Cooper

    Few figures in American sports ever reinvented themselves as completely — or as successfully — as pro football's John Madden. After a Hall of Fame coaching career with the Oakland Raiders that included a Super Bowl championship and one of the highest winning percentages in NFL history, Madden walked away from the sideline at just 42. What followed became an even larger legacy: groundbreaking television work, a transformative role in the rise of Fox Sports, an enduring video-game franchise, ubiquitous advertising campaigns, and a place in American popular culture that extended far beyond football. Sportswriter and author Scott Howard-Cooper joins us to discuss his new book, "BAM!: John Madden, the NFL Explosion, and the Video Game That Changed Sports," an exploration of Madden's remarkable second act and the many ways he helped expand football's reach. Howard-Cooper recounts Madden's reluctant entry into broadcasting, the natural teaching ability that made him uniquely effective on television, his partnership with Pat Summerall, and the enormous credibility he brought to Fox when the upstart network stunned the sports world by acquiring NFL rights. He also traces Madden's unlikely relationship with Electronic Arts and the development of a video game that introduced generations of younger fans to football strategy — and often to Madden himself. The conversation also explores a less-publicized side of Madden: the profound impact of Darryl Stingley's devastating 1978 injury, Madden's lifelong concern for player safety, and his willingness to challenge the NFL on issues ranging from youth tackle football to Thursday-night games. It's a look at how a football coach became a broadcaster, businessman, teacher, pop-culture icon — and one of the most universally beloved figures the NFL has ever produced. + + +   SUPPORT THE SHOW: Buy Us a Coffee: https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable The "Good Seats" Store: http://tee.pub/lic/RdiDZzQeHSY BUY THE BOOK:  "BAM!: John Madden, the NFL Explosion, and the Video Game That Changed Sports": https://link.amazon/B0ing3z4D SPONSOR THANKS:  Royal Retros (10% off promo code: SEATS): https://www.royalretros.com/?ref=SEATS Old School Shirts.com (10% off promo code: GOODSEATS): https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats FIND AND FOLLOW: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/GoodSeatsStillAvailable Web: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/goodseatsstillavailable.com X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable Threads: https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailable Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/good-seats-still-available/

    The Many Acts of John Madden - With Scott Howard-Cooper

  2. 4d ago ·  Bonus

    You Might Also Like: The Next Five

    Introducing Sovereignty, Data and Code: Who's in Control? from The Next Five. Follow the show: The Next Five Throughout history, statecraft was defined by borders, battlelines, and territory. In the 20th century, global power shifted to financial capital and energy reserves. Today, with the digital revolution well underway, does real authority now belong to those who control our data and code? And what does sovereignty now mean in a fast changing AI landscape? Back in the day it used to mean keeping data in a local server room. But today, frontier AI models are advancing at pace, some argue at a speed we can’t control and regulatory lines are being redrawn across the world to try and keep up. Governments and boardrooms now face a fundamental question: who’s controlling who? And what can we do about it? Joining host Tom Parker is Charlie Giancarlo, Chairman and CEO of Everpure, Sana Khareghani, Chief Strategy Officer at Era4, Professor of Practice in AI at King’s College London, AI Policy Lead for Responsible AI UK and Former Head of UK Government Office for Artificial Intelligence and Clare Schramm Fergus, Managing Director, Transaction Banking Technology Platforms, Lloyds Banking Group and Board Member of OpenUK. Sources: FT Resources, Wired, TAIDE, Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, UK GOV Sovereign AI Fund, Politico This content is paid for by Everpure and is produced in partnership with the Financial Times' Commercial Department. The views and claims expressed are those of the guests alone and have not been independently verified by The Financial Times. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. DISCLAIMER: Please note, this is an independent podcast episode not affiliated with, endorsed by, or produced in conjunction with the host podcast feed or any of its media entities. The views and opinions expressed in this episode are solely those of the creators and guests. For any concerns, please reach out to team@podroll.fm.

    You Might Also Like: The Next Five

  3. Oct 19

    "Miami Before Messi" - With Joe Shaw

    Long before Lionel Messi turned South Florida into the center of the soccer universe, another Miami team was making history — and disappearing almost as quickly as it arrived. The Miami Fusion lasted just four seasons (1998–2001), a turbulent, often exhilarating Major League Soccer experiment that began with Colombian icon Carlos Valderrama, found an unlikely home at Fort Lauderdale's renovated Lockhart Stadium, and ended shortly after winning the 2001 Supporters' Shield. Led by the wonderfully unpredictable Ray Hudson, that final Fusion squad played some of the most dazzling soccer of MLS's early years. Then it vanished. Author and podcaster Joe Shaw revisits the franchise's extraordinary rise and demise in his new book, "Miami Before Messi: A South Florida Soccer Tale," an ambitious oral history built on interviews with the players, coaches, executives, supporters — and, crucially, owner Ken Horowitz — who lived it. In a revealing conversation, Shaw retraces South Florida's earlier soccer adventures with the NASL's Miami Gatos, Toros and Fort Lauderdale Strikers; the frantic transformation of Lockhart into a pioneering soccer-specific venue; the Fusion's star-crossed beginnings; and the remarkable collection of castoffs and characters who nearly captured an MLS championship. Along the way, Horowitz's previously untold account challenges conventional wisdom about who actually pulled the plug — and why — as MLS itself teetered on financial collapse. Packed with forgotten innovations, colorful personalities, painful what-ifs and surprising historical connections, it's the story of a franchise that helped shape American soccer's future without surviving to enjoy it. 25 years later, with Inter Miami's success built partly on the foundations of its forgotten predecessors, the Fusion's brief, brilliant existence deserves another look. + + +    MORE ABOUT "MIAMI BEFORE MESSI": https://miamibeforemessi.com/   SUPPORT THE SHOW: Buy Us a Coffee: https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable The "Good Seats" Store: http://tee.pub/lic/RdiDZzQeHSY BUY THE BOOK:  "Miami Before Messi: A South Florida Soccer Tale": https://amzn.to/4i9cGSo SPONSOR THANKS:  Royal Retros (10% off promo code: SEATS): https://www.royalretros.com/?ref=SEATS Old School Shirts.com (10% off promo code: GOODSEATS): https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats FIND AND FOLLOW: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/GoodSeatsStillAvailable Web: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/goodseatsstillavailable.com X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable Threads: https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailable Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/good-seats-still-available/

    "Miami Before Messi" - With Joe Shaw

  4. Oct 12

    "This One Will Be Different": The Stadium Subsidy Game - With J.C. Bradbury

    Publicly financed stadiums have been sold for generations as civic investments, economic engines, and catalysts for growth. Yet again and again, the promises change while the underlying economics stubbornly refuse to cooperate. This week, sports economist and longtime baseball fan J.C. Bradbury joins us to explore the arguments behind his new book, "This One Will Be Different: False Promises and Fiscal Realities of Publicly Funded Stadiums." Drawing on decades of research — and his own front-row view of the Atlanta Braves' move from Turner Field to Cobb County — Bradbury examines how stadium financing has evolved from publicly built "concrete donuts" to today's luxury-heavy, mixed-use developments. At the center of the discussion is Truist Park and The Battery Atlanta, widely promoted as a new model for sports development. Bradbury explains why the surrounding restaurants, apartments, offices, and year-round activity still do not necessarily translate into net new economic growth, and why substitution — local spending simply moving from one place to another — remains the central problem. The conversation also digs into hotel taxes, stadium districts, hidden infrastructure costs, luxury suites, political incentives, commissioned impact studies, the decline of local scrutiny, and the now-familiar 30-year stadium replacement cycle. Bradbury argues that the buildings themselves are rarely obsolete; the economics of novelty and revenue extraction are what keep the cycle moving. It's a wide-ranging look at how sports facilities became public policy, why elected officials keep approving deals economists routinely question, and why every new generation of stadium boosters remains convinced that, somehow -- this one will be different. + + +   MORE ABOUT J.C. BRADBURY: https://jcbradbury.com/   SUPPORT THE SHOW: Buy Us a Coffee: https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable The "Good Seats" Store: http://tee.pub/lic/RdiDZzQeHSY BUY THE BOOK:  "This One Will Be Different: False Promises and Fiscal Realities of Publicly Funded Stadiums: https://amzn.to/4yFl8zL SPONSOR THANKS:  Royal Retros (10% off promo code: SEATS): https://www.royalretros.com/?ref=SEATS Old School Shirts.com (10% off promo code: GOODSEATS): https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats FIND AND FOLLOW: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/GoodSeatsStillAvailable Web: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/goodseatsstillavailable.com X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable Threads: https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailable Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/good-seats-still-available/

    "This One Will Be Different": The Stadium Subsidy Game - With J.C. Bradbury

  5. Oct 5

    The WNBA At 30 - With Tamryn Spruill

    For nearly three decades, the Women's National Basketball Association has survived expansion, contraction, indifferent media coverage, shaky ownership, low salaries and repeated questions about whether women's professional basketball could ever become a sustainable American sports business. And yet, here it is. Journalist and author Tamryn Spruill joins us to discuss her essential new book, "The W: A History of the WNBA," which traces the league from its roots in the wildly successful 1996 U.S. Olympic team through its current cultural and commercial renaissance. Spruill takes us back to a moment when the WNBA wasn't even the only new women's league in town. We revisit its early rivalry with the American Basketball League, the rapid expansion to 16 teams, the financial strains that followed, and the many franchises that disappeared, relocated or were simply forgotten along the way. We also explore the league's long struggle for visibility. Spruill explains how limited television exposure, uneven media treatment and an inability—or unwillingness—to understand the WNBA's actual audience kept generations of elite players largely outside the mainstream sports conversation. Eventually, streaming, social media, changing cultural attitudes and more aggressive sponsorship helped players and fans build something traditional sports media often failed to create for them. And, naturally, we spend plenty of time with the teams that "used to be" - including the Charlotte Sting, Orlando Miracle, the newly-concluded Connecticut Sun and, of course, the original Houston Comets dynasty. + + +   MORE ABOUT TAMRYN SPRUILL: https://www.tamrynspruill.com/   SUPPORT THE SHOW: Buy Us a Coffee: https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable The "Good Seats" Store: http://tee.pub/lic/RdiDZzQeHSY BUY THE BOOK:  "The W: A History of the WNBA": https://amzn.to/3TnDeHe SPONSOR THANKS:  Royal Retros (10% off promo code: SEATS): https://www.royalretros.com/?ref=SEATS Old School Shirts.com (10% off promo code: GOODSEATS): https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats FIND AND FOLLOW: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/GoodSeatsStillAvailable Web: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/goodseatsstillavailable.com X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable Threads: https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailable Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/good-seats-still-available/

    The WNBA At 30 - With Tamryn Spruill

  6. Sep 28

    Baseball's First All-Star Game? - With Scott Reich

    On September 27, 1917, some of baseball's greatest stars descended on Fenway Park for a game that has largely disappeared from the sport's collective memory. Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Walter Johnson, Tris Speaker and others came together not for a pennant or championship, but to honor Tim Murnane — a former player, manager and baseball executive who became one of the sport's most influential early journalists. After Murnane died suddenly that February, leaving behind a wife, six young children and significant debts, baseball rallied around his family. The result was the Tim Murnane Memorial Benefit Game, an extraordinary afternoon featuring the powerhouse Boston Red Sox against a hand-picked team of stars from both major leagues. Players left their own teams during the season and traveled to Boston at their own expense. Before the first pitch came skills competitions that look remarkably familiar today: a home run derby, throwing contests and a race around the bases. Will Rogers rode onto the field on horseback, Fanny Brice hawked programs in the stands, and former heavyweight champion John L. Sullivan coached first base. Author Scott Reich joins us to discuss his book "One Day in September: Baseball, Brotherhood, and the Birth of the All-Star Game," which resurrects Murnane's remarkable life and makes the case that this forgotten gathering provided a blueprint for baseball's modern All-Star Game — sixteen years before the first official Midsummer Classic. Along the way, Reich takes us inside baseball's unruly formative decades, explains how Murnane became one of the game's most trusted voices, and explores what this remarkable afternoon revealed about the sport in 1917 — when ballparks doubled as civic gathering places and baseball's biggest stars could put pennant races aside for a cause larger than the game. + + +   MORE ABOUT SCOTT: https://www.scott-reich.com/   SUPPORT THE SHOW: Buy Us a Coffee: https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable The "Good Seats" Store: http://tee.pub/lic/RdiDZzQeHSY BUY THE BOOK:  "One Day in September: Baseball, Brotherhood, and the Birth of the All-Star Game": https://amzn.to/3TnDeHe SPONSOR THANKS:  Royal Retros (10% off promo code: SEATS): https://www.royalretros.com/?ref=SEATS Old School Shirts.com (10% off promo code: GOODSEATS): https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats FIND AND FOLLOW: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/GoodSeatsStillAvailable Web: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/goodseatsstillavailable.com X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable Threads: https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailable Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/good-seats-still-available/

    Baseball's First All-Star Game? - With Scott Reich

  7. Sep 21

    Fort Wayne's Forgotten Sports History - With Logan Wiening

    Fort Wayne, Indiana has spent more than 150 years quietly accumulating one of America's richest—and strangest — collections of sports history. The city hosted what is widely regarded as professional baseball's first league game in 1871, became home to the celebrated Fort Wayne Daisies of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, fielded industrial and semi-pro clubs backed by some of the city's biggest employers, and produced a seemingly endless procession of minor-league teams whose names, logos and stories have largely disappeared. Old Fort Baseball Co. founder Logan Wiening is trying to make sure they aren't forgotten. A Fort Wayne native, former NBA D-League/G League Mad Ants staffer and self-taught graphic designer, Wiening launched Old Fort in 2021 after noticing that other cities had embraced their vintage sports identities while much of Fort Wayne's remained buried in archives, attics and old yearbooks. What began as an apparel project has evolved into something closer to a local sports-history laboratory—using carefully researched designs, storytelling, pop-up retail and community events to reconnect people with teams they remember and introduce them to ones they never knew existed. Wiening helps trace Old Fort's unlikely evolution and explore the remarkable sporting history underneath it: the 1871 Kekiongas, the Daisies, the GE Voltmen, the delightfully named Fort Wayne Huggie Bears and Scouts of professional slow-pitch softball, the Zollner Pistons' industrial roots, and more. Along the way, he explains the research rabbit holes behind resurrecting forgotten identities, the trademark complications surrounding defunct teams, why nostalgia can become civic history, and why he considers Old Fort a storytelling company whose medium happens to be apparel. + + +   SUPPORT THE SHOW: Buy Us a Coffee: https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable The "Good Seats" Store: http://tee.pub/lic/RdiDZzQeHSY BUY FORT WAYNE SPORTS HISTORY:  Old Fort Baseball Co. (15% off promo code GOODSEATS): https://www.oldfortbaseballco.com/?ref=seats SPONSOR THANKS:  Royal Retros (10% off promo code: SEATS): https://www.royalretros.com/?ref=SEATS Old School Shirts.com (10% off promo code: GOODSEATS): https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats FIND AND FOLLOW: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/GoodSeatsStillAvailable Web: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/goodseatsstillavailable.com X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable Threads: https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailable Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/good-seats-still-available/

    Fort Wayne's Forgotten Sports History - With Logan Wiening

  8. Sep 14

    The Original American Soccer League - With Mark Franek

    A century before MLS, decades ahead of the NASL, and long before American soccer became a regular part of the sports landscape, the United States already had a thriving professional league capable of attracting big crowds, paying real salaries and even luring talent away from Europe. Author Mark Franek, whose new book "American Soccer Nation" traces 150 years of the game's often-overlooked U.S. history, joins us to revisit one of its most remarkable chapters: the rise and fall of the original American Soccer League, launched in 1921 and at its peak during the Roaring Twenties. Backed by companies such as Bethlehem Steel and other industrial powers of the era, the ASL featured colorful clubs, deep-pocketed owners and some of the best players American soccer had yet produced — including prolific scoring star Archie Stark. At its height, the league was successful enough to raid European rosters, prompting British newspapers to warn of an "American Menace." But prosperity gave way to infighting. Franek helps untangle the ASL's increasingly bitter battles with U.S. soccer's governing body over cup competition, scheduling, money and control — tensions that erupted into the so-called "Soccer War" just before the Great Depression devastated the league's ownership base and working-class fan communities. Along the way, we discuss how the ASL helped lay the groundwork for the U.S. team's surprising run at the inaugural 1930 World Cup, why so much of this history has slipped from popular memory, and how many of the sport's century-old arguments still echo today. We also explore Franek's work teaching soccer history at Philadelphia Union-affiliated YSC Academy, the educational roots behind "American Soccer Nation," and why he believes the current American game may finally have the infrastructure to break its long cycle of boom, bust and rebirth. + + +   SUPPORT THE SHOW: Buy Us a Coffee: https://ko-fi.com/goodseatsstillavailable The "Good Seats" Store: http://tee.pub/lic/RdiDZzQeHSY BUY THE BOOK:  "American Soccer Nation: The Remarkable 150-Year History of Yanks on a Roll, from Mob Football to the Modern Game": https://amzn.to/4xlODFm SPONSOR THANKS:  Royal Retros (10% off promo code: SEATS): https://www.royalretros.com/?ref=SEATS Old School Shirts.com (10% off promo code: GOODSEATS): https://oldschoolshirts.com/goodseats FIND AND FOLLOW: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/GoodSeatsStillAvailable Web: https://goodseatsstillavailable.com/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/goodseatsstillavailable.com X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodSeatsStill YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@goodseatsstillavailable Threads: https://www.threads.net/@goodseatsstillavailable Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodseatsstillavailable/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodSeatsStillAvailable/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/good-seats-still-available/

    The Original American Soccer League - With Mark Franek
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4.7
out of 5
107 Ratings

About

"Good Seats Still Available" is a curious little podcast devoted to the exploration of what used-to-be in professional sports. Each week, host Tim Hanlon interviews former players, owners, broadcasters, beat reporters, and surprisingly famous "super fans" of teams and leagues that have come and gone - in an attempt to unearth some of the most wild and woolly moments in (often forgotten) sports history.

Information

  • Creator
    Tim Hanlon
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2026
  • Episodes
    508
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Good Seats Still Available
  • Show Website
    Good Seats Still Available

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