On the Bleachers

I like a Taylor Swift’s music and started listening to this podcast because I was interested in her relationship with Travis Kelce. However, I keep listening because Zan and Sarah (and their guests) provide nuanced takes on sports culture and pop culture. I have been able to have conversations with friends about sports because of this show. And it’s entertaining!

If you’re going to cover hockey, please get basic things like player names and the name of the PWHL right. Being familiar with the league and hearing very basic info be flat-out wrong makes me suspect that I can’t really trust any of the other coverage to be particularly accurate either. I actually enjoyed the show until these last few episodes, and now I’m realizing that’s probably just because I don’t follow the NFL closely enough to catch more of these mistakes.

I have been listening and The fact that you say “perform her relationship” in these podcasts are saddening. And saying when is “a good time to breakup” for the duration of the pod is just weird from a “writer”.

despite approx one trillion words already written about the couple, hosts Sarah and Zan find new and insightful ways to talk about Taylor and Travis and their worlds. I got worried the podcast might end if they break up but it’s grown to tackle (heh) the intersection of sports and fan culture more broadly. They do a great job adding context if you’re not as deep as they are on, say, the backstory behind a random coach or a niche fan conspiracy. I will follow these two down any rabbit hole. Requests include: more on effect of sports betting on fandom, the whole celebrity NBA courtside thing, rise of media training / decline of journalistic access in sports and pop culture