Audio giant Spotify announced that it will be the lead sponsor of Pod Live Sport, the first-ever live show event from The Sports Podcast Group with a line-up of key names in sports podcasting.
The week-long festival event held by the independent organisation will take place at Kings Place in London - which previously hosted the London Podcast Festival in 2022 - and will run from 8 February until 12 February.
As part of the partnership, five of Spotify’s original and exclusive sports podcasters will take part in the festival, including live shows with award-winning podcast The Rugby Pod and a mash-up session combining the hosts of The Ringer’s top football podcasts Wrighty’s House, Stadio, and Counter Pressed on 9 February and Fozcast with former professional footballer Ben Foster later on 10 February.
“We’re absolutely buzzing to be playing our first ever live show and bringing the Fozcast live to our fans for the first time,” said Foster. “Who knows what might happen when we try this live, so it should be eventful whatever happens.”
Sports is the third most popular podcast genre in the UK according to a survey conducted by OnePoll for Vodafone on podcast listening and consumption habits in the country - with 23% of respondents saying that they favoured it. This is in comparison to the US, where Sports was the fifth most popular genre in the between Q4 2021 - Q3 2022 based on weekly listener reach, according to Edison Research’s Top Podcast Genres Report.
“Sport is massive for us at Spotify, and The Ringer boasts some of the best sports podcasts in the UK,” said The Ringer senior partnerships manager Alex Adey. "We're looking forward to showcasing these at Pod Live and being a part of the first ever live sports podcast festival to be held in the UK.“
Other sports podcasts that will feature at the festival include BBC Radio 5 Live’s Fighting Talk, The Socially Distant Sports Bar, Sports Podcast of the Year 2022 winner Morning Kombat, The Race F1 podcast, and The Cycling Podcast.
