Sports Podcast Awards Reaction Episode
Well somehow we have managed to defy expectations and actually win an award for this show so why not come together and talk about it for an hour to really try and come to terms with it?! That's right, we can officially call ourselves an 'award winning Olympics podcast' and the OG gang is back together to talk about what it means for the show, just why we're still in shock about it and also properly commend our fellow nominees in our category. We also go over some of the more memorable moments we've enjoyed in our 6 year journey so far, reflect on some of our amazing guests and wonder just how 'Hollywood' this will make us moving forward. So if you're still in shock that we are apparently award winning, then this is the episode to help you digest it a little more! Enjoy!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.
BEN WATERWORTH: It is Off The Podium, an award-winning Olympic podcast. As we come to you today for a special bonus episode, a reaction episode for us winning an award. Yes, as Colin said, it is a self-appreciation episode, one that I'm on, so therefore it's going to go for a long time. So thanks, Colin. It's an honour. There we go. That's it, the end. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate your time. We don't even know why we're doing this episode, so bear with us. We'll see how this goes. Speaking of that man who said that comment, it is Winnipeg's only award-winning podcast host. We think, we're not sure. At the time of recording this, we don't know the other winners. Let's just try this out. Joining Chris Jericho as a Winnipeg podcast winner or beating Chris Jericho as a Winnipeg podcast winner, Colin Hooding. Hello Colin, welcome back.
COLIN HILDING: Hello, and I'm hoping I'm not going to get kicked off of this interview slash podcast slash award acceptance today. Because my track record hasn't been good in the last week.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, very brutally kicked off, by the way. I'm feeling a bit sorry for you that day. And joining us is a guy who is too cool to be on acceptance speech interviews, because he just doesn't talk to the media. He's just Jarrod Loobeek. Welcome back, Jarrod.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, you know, just another award in my life. You know, the only award-winning podcaster from Emu Plains. But that doesn't mean much when you're the only podcaster from Emu Plains. Just try not to get a big head over everything, you know?
BEN WATERWORTH: The Meryl Streep of podcasting.
COLIN HILDING: I mean, by this time next year, Emu Plains is going to have their own award called the Lubik.
JARROD LOOBEEK: When it's the podcast capital of the world.
BEN WATERWORTH: Next year, welcome to the inaugural Lubi's. The Emu Plains Podcast Awards presented by Telstra. So hopefully they'll get some better hosts than those hosts of the Australian Podcast Awards last year who I'm still recovering from. So, yes, anyway, this is, yeah, why are we doing this episode? To talk about us, of course. But for those who didn't see all the posts we probably shared on social media by now, we won a sports podcast award. Yay, we won something. All those Olympians that suck can't win gold medals after they come on this show. For Jack Wallace and Charles Hamilton, they're a bunch of legends. The rest, you guys suck. What do we do? We enter a sports podcast award that we win in the first year. So come on. Good to see we're getting some Olympians on in the future now in this show. But it's exciting. I'll start with you, Colin. How are you feeling? I mean, look, let's be honest, we've done it for a couple of weeks. We're obviously recording this about nine days before it actually gets announced. So that's why, again, we don't know the other awards. But yeah, it's pretty exciting, Colin.
COLIN HILDING: It's very exciting. And I now feel so bad knowing that we have cursed so many Olympians to not win, and we're on the podium, and they're not. I wish you hadn't said that. Now I just feel terrible.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, hang on. Before that, before they came on the show, we weren't an award winning podcast. Now that we're an award winning podcast, it might be different. Yes.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah. This is your guarantee for a goal next time. And this show can float for another three and a half years.
BEN WATERWORTH: Come on, Michaela, you can do it. You can come on. You can win that gold. You can do it. Stop crashing. Get on off the podium.
COLIN HILDING: We know we're not. Even we can't help Michaela.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, congrats. Should you just win the Crystal Globe? So well done for Michaela. You did something good. So well done.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, I'm sure she loves that over Olympic medal. But I think that we have entered through our various podcasts. We've entered many of these things before. And I'm pretty sure every time you're like, hey, I'm thinking about entering this one. Do you want to split the fees? It always comes down to we're probably not going to win. And we're probably not even going to be nominated. And I think that this is the only time we actually got nominated or we did get nominated last year. That was sort of the precursor.
BEN WATERWORTH: Australian Podcast Awards. Hello to them.
COLIN HILDING: But of course, Australian podcasts are so much bigger than the Worldwide Sports Podcasts.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, Australian Podcast Awards. Australia doesn't like us, but the world does.
COLIN HILDING: What was the competition on that one? Were they nominated for a Sports Podcast Award? I don't think so. But getting nominated for that one is sort of like, wow, we got nominated? We're so used to entering these things and being ignored and deleted.
BEN WATERWORTH: Off the podium.
COLIN HILDING: Reply to, please never reply to us again.
BEN WATERWORTH: No, Ben, you're not that good. Stop talking about yourself.
COLIN HILDING: But the last one was a surprise, and I think this one was an even bigger surprise because when it came out, we were like, wow, this one looks big, this looks official. This is covering everything. The NBC is on this one. We're competing against official networks, NBC and BBC and all the other ones people have actually heard of. So it definitely caught me off guard to even be nominated, let alone to actually win this thing. I mean, that was crazy. And I'll say, I said it, I think on our last episode, that the greatest success of this is that my wife has finally realised that this isn't just me talking to Ben and Jarrod and Noah and whoever else in a basement for a couple of hours a week, that people are acknowledging, you guys are decent. So she's listening to the show now. Now that we're an award-winning podcast, we have one more listener.
BEN WATERWORTH: Good to see that your wife finally appreciates your work. It only took you winning an award to do it. So she's not shallow at all. Oh, no, it's not. You go off about me being that way. Let's be honest, I think the only reason why we probably got nominated for this one and won is because I actually put Jarrod's name on the entry this time. So they were straight away like, Jarrod Lubick? They're absolutely winning. Of the Lubicks?
COLIN HILDING: Of the Emuplanes Lubicks?
BEN WATERWORTH: Jarrod, how did you feel? How are you sitting with this one, Mr. Streep? I mean, again, it's just a casual Sunday for you winning an award. But how did you react to the message I sent that day that I got an email saying that we had won?
JARROD LOOBEEK: That's pretty awesome. I mean, I was pumped, I think, acknowledging the huge amount of effort that I put into this show.
BEN WATERWORTH: Calm down, Jarrod. I told you to take a step back with that.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, yeah. Vindication for all those interviews and the time chasing up athletes that I spent. No, I think it's huge. It's exciting. It's official. Like Colin said, it's a legitimate podcast award. Yeah, it's just fun. It's nice to know that there's people out there listening, that the show is appreciated, that the fact that it is a bit more casual and humorous, that people appreciate that, that we don't have the budget, obviously, that some of those other nominees have. But still, you know, the people love it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, just to clarify, the Australian Podcast Awards are a real podcast award. We're just bitter we didn't win one. So, yeah.
COLIN HILDING: Did Moon Man win?
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't think... No, he didn't. No, it was that... Yeah, there you go... . from where we came or whatever it was. But again, we got beaten by at least a somewhat famous guy. He's on the feed or whatever it's called, Jarrod. You know the guy I'm talking about, that guy. Yeah, cool. Good for him.
COLIN HILDING: Well, I think one other thing just to add, what Jarrod was saying, we don't have the budget of some of these other shows. We certainly don't have the budget of major networks. But even some of the other podcasts, I think that when this came out and you voted and you realised you can listen to however many minutes the entries are for the people, the montages or whatever that's put together, even listening to those, I think you sort of commented, you're like, you know, had I known that you could go all out with this, I might have put more effort into our entry. Even we were listening to it thinking, like, you know, this is very simple, but what I liked is that it wasn't just, oh, here, we're going to have a fancy production towards how we're going to present the show. We basically said, hey, and we've got this, and we played a clip of an interview. We got this and played a clip of an interview. We do this, and we do the Olympic coverage. We kind of just showed all the different sides of the show. And that's the other thing is that this, our show, not to be a pat on the back, but our show, we don't have like one consistent thing we do. We're not just doing interviews. We're doing the Olympic coverage. And sometimes it is goofy. And even with Jamie listening to some of our interviews, she's like, oh, yeah, this person was really funny. And then another one is like, oh, that was a really sad interview. Like she's listening to Jamie Suley, which that one's really sad. So it's good that we don't really know what type of show we are. And yet we acknowledge that on air. And somehow it works. But I was glad seeing the competition that we were up against and what they put out there. And to even just be considered, forget about the win, but to be considered in the same nomination category as some of those other shows. I mean, let's give a shout out to the production values of a lot of those other shows and the work that some of these other fan podcasts that were nominated as well put out there.
BEN WATERWORTH: And I think a lot of what we're doing with this, you know, Inflate Our Ego episode is obviously sort of with the announcement of the award. Like we're dropping this basically the day of the award being announced. So we don't even know what the ceremony is like or anything along those lines. And let's be honest, we are actually up for like the Podcast of the Year award now that we won a category. All the category winners go up then for like, you know, the pod... For fuck's sake, we could be the sports podcast of the year. We don't know yet. That one hasn't been told to us. Or maybe it has been told to the winner and we just don't know. But anyway, obviously we didn't win. So what a crap award this is. But you're talking about that snippet. And, you know, fun fact when it comes to entering these awards, generally you submit like, you know, hey, give us a 10 minute clip. And generally what they do is it's just like, you know, compile three clips from three different episodes. You know, there's never like a come in and give an introduction. It's just literally a clip show, right? So this one, they sort of ask you to, you know, sell your show. But like the thing that goes back to the, oh, I would have put a bit more effort into it. Like I put a bit of effort into it. Like I, you know, I thought I did okay. But I think, I think what the difference is, is that like I didn't actually know that that would like, I didn't know how this worked in terms of everyone will vote and you will play a clip of your show and then people will hear that clip. So if they had said like, hey, provide a clip, a 10 minute clip, sell your show, and this will be, you know, heard by people who vote for you, then maybe I would have been like, oh, okay. Then like people are going to hear this. I only assume the judges were going to hear what put together. So when I heard the clips of the other shows, I was like, oh, okay. So I think kind of like this episode.
COLIN HILDING: I didn't get the memo.
BEN WATERWORTH: But like literally, like I heard, and a lot of that came down to that, yeah, we're up against some podcasts that are being put together by the BBC and NBC. So they've got, you know, a little bit more, you know, they actually have producers who do this, not just one of the hosts who hosts the show. So, yeah, and I think like a lot of reason us doing this episode too is, you know, we want to sort of acknowledge and talk about the fellow nominees, whereas we put together, obviously, our short sort of one minute acceptance speech. We were interviewed. I was interviewed. And it came down that, you know, we didn't necessarily get a chance to thank each of the other, you know, nominees and talk about them and everything as well. So it's a process.
COLIN HILDING: And barely the listeners.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly, exactly. You know, it's not just an illusion of you just wake up, like, oh, Friday, oh, nominated for another award. Let's get on with it. I mean, we're not all Jarrod. But, you know, there's a bit of a process involved, but it's kind of it's interesting how it works. But did you I'll start. I mean, Jarrod, I know you obviously probably voted 500 times every day. So I'm sure you listen to each of the other nominees. But I don't know if you listen to each of the other clips of the other shows or were overly familiar, because I'll be honest with you, like I was only familiar with about three of our other sort of people in our category. There were definitely a couple of the podcast nominated alongside of us that I sadly didn't know exist, but I'm glad I know that exists now. So I mean, Jarrod, were you familiar with the others? Did you like listening to their clips? You're thinking, Ben, you put together a shit little package. How the fuck did we win?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I hadn't listened to any of the others beforehand, but listening to their clips like it was just interesting. I suppose the different perspective that each of them had, obviously, when you've got bigger networks, like we've mentioned, there's more budget and the production quality is really high, and they're obviously going for a different angle with their interviews and coverage than we are. So it's just nice to get a bit of an insight into what else is out there. And yeah, just the fact that it is, I suppose, this broader community covering the Olympics, it's nice to know that there's other people out there, like there's space for kind of multiple athletes to get interviewed across like multiple platforms. So yeah, it was just cool to see.
BEN WATERWORTH: Colin, you, I think, mentioned to me that you started listening to a couple of these, if I'm not mistaken, that you kind of heard a few of these clips. And I mean, I think you listen to them more than you listen to us.
COLIN HILDING: Almost. I do love us at least a little bit more. Exactly. Now that Jamie's telling me I have to like our show now, I never used to listen to them.
BEN WATERWORTH: You can't listen to your own show.
COLIN HILDING: But even going back before these awards and before even the Australian Podcast Awards, that mention that we got in the New York Times, we found out about several months later. I mean, also another thing, because this was, I think, for a long time, this was our third show. It was, oh yeah, and if we have time, we'll do something for Off The Podium. Just through the lead up to Tokyo, I guess a lot of it was the delay of the Tokyo Games and just really wanted to talk about the Olympics, that we started producing more content. But even with that one, I remember being like, wow, there's more podcasts out there. I think I was familiar with one other Olympic podcast, and it was Keep The Flame Alive, because they're kind enough to follow us online. But then when I started to see through the New York Times article, and then when these awards came out, seeing how many different types of Olympic podcasts there were out there, it was great to be able to listen. And yeah, I subscribe to as many of these shows that I can find. I think some of them are fantastic. I like that we're in a category with some other fan podcasts, just fans who are like, we're going to start a show. Some that are hosted by athletes, some that are the official produced ones. It is kind of weird to be competing with these official produced ones, because that's almost the bragging rights right there. We're in a category with the BBC and with the NBC and everything like that. But yeah, I think it's good to have something like the Sports Podcast Awards, because there are podcast awards out there where typically there is a sports category. And even from our category, I remember when the voting opened up and I'm like, oh, these are all the ones just on skiing. There is a skiing category. E-games. Exactly. There's so many different types of categories that they boiled it down to. And you're not getting like second rate podcasts in here. I mean, just listen to the other nominees in our category, subscribing some of the shows, just discovering other podcasts through some of the other categories outside of our own too. It's fantastic to see how much is out there.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's so fascinating to me and I'm sure both of you as well that Colin, you saw it, you and I kind of met our podcasting journey, what, like a year or two into Survivor Oz. Jarrod, I think you might have been in the same year that Colin came in. I can't honestly remember.
COLIN HILDING: A year later.
BEN WATERWORTH: Year later maybe, but like this was still very fresh in podcasting. Like when I got involved in podcasting, it wasn't, you know, that common. It was still kind of just like, oh yeah, podcasting, what's that? You'd always have to explain what the fuck a podcast was. Now, since we started this episode, you know, every single person listening has started their own podcast. Like it's kind of like it's, everyone has a podcast now. But it's what's great about these awards is that, yeah, as you're saying, the diversity of how many different sports podcasts there are, the fact that pretty much in what, like about 20 or 30 categories, there's like eight nominees in every single one. You know, as you said, there's no disrespect to skiing, but like there's a skiing category. I mean, there wasn't like a lacrosse category or like a, you know, a botchy category, maybe next year, guys. Oh, let's start it. It's like sort of the only podcast I actually listen to. I don't listen to this crap that you're listening to right now, but I listen to a Formula One podcast because I'm a big Formula One fan, and the one that I listened to was nominated. I don't know if it won. It wasn't leading on the leaderboard for the entire time, so I assume it didn't. But, you know, the fact because like that's produced by Formula One. That's like an official Formula One podcast. So it's kind of like to see that you're going up against some of these other shows and categories. Like Michael Johnson didn't get nominated for his podcast for the Olympics. Like, he was, I think, maybe in the, not the equality category. Because he does like something where I think he like talks to athletes about mental health and things like that. So like to see that it's like, well, Michael Johnson's getting nominated for award. You talked a lot about Chris Jericho, Colin, you know, and all these other categories where you've got these big names in the sports getting nominated. It's kind of, it's pretty cool to just, yeah, even be nominated. And, you know, it's a little unique because the Australian podcast was, we didn't get nominated for a sports award. We got nominated for like creativity, which is cool in itself. It was a category that I don't think we knew existed. And so when they're reading out the nominees, and it's like, wait, we didn't enter that. Why are we being nominated for that? But like, all right, we'll take it. But yeah, I think the other nominees in our group, like as you said, Keep The Flame Alive, very familiar with them. You know, we've interacted a lot with them on social media. I mean, they just literally went to Beijing. So like they were going there, kind of doing media stuff in Beijing. They produce their own pins. I don't know if you saw that, but like they were, they had their own pins that they made that they were trading over there. Like, I mean, God, we don't have a budget barely to like afford Zoom. So I don't think we're going to be in like Paris in a few years, but we'll talk. Well, maybe we'll put some pennies together. We're an award-winning podcast now. Maybe we'll get invited. Hello, Mr. Jamie will sign up.
COLIN HILDING: Jamie will sign up on our Patreon or something.
BEN WATERWORTH: Maybe Jarrod can sell some of his trophies and help us get there or something along those lines. But yeah, like it's fascinating to see the different ones. I mean, we're just trying to brag that we beat the NBC and the BBs. Oh, fuck it, we are bragging. Like, come on, guys, pick your game up. You're spending all your money broadcasting the Olympics. Make your podcasting better. But like we had Apollo Ono on obviously early in the year. And then recently he was actually on. So the NBC podcasts were up against My New Favorite Olympian. He actually was on that in the lead up to Beijing. And just literally even seeing their social media of how they're putting out a clip of like, hey, he's out chat with Apollo Ono. Like, remember how big he was like in the Olympics and all that sort of stuff. And I'm sort of reading that going like, what? What's so funny about that? Am I fat shaming Apollo Ono?
COLIN HILDING: It almost sounded like a backhanded compliment. Hey, remember when Apollo Ono was famous?
BEN WATERWORTH: They've got like, it's American. They've got so many Olympians, you know. But it's just little things like that where you go like, OK, like, these are some pretty cool podcasts. And I literally go, how the fuck did we beat these people? Like, I mean, it's it really is that I don't know if I had a question out of all that. I was just going on and talking and self appreciating myself. Colin, it's it's it.
COLIN HILDING: Well, I think I kind of get where you're going with it before you forgot where you're going to say. I don't know if that's the case, but, you know, it's not like you expect to hear six or seven other shows that are exactly like yours. I think what we found that's great is that all these shows are completely different and not just the way that they cover, you know, during the Olympics, but in the build up, the types of focus that they have on the shows. There was one show that wasn't nominated. I remember finding and I think I even told you about it back during last summer when we just got the mention in The New York Times. It was an entire podcast just dedicated to the gymnastics event during the Australian, the Sydney Olympics. And it looks like they're gearing up for a season two where they're going to do. We're going to focus on one event of an Olympics and just tell the dramatic story about that. I mean, there's so many different types of podcasts out there that can even cover something obscure as an Olympics category. Because I think if you were to tell people, oh, yeah, I have an Olympics podcast. It's kind of like, you know, your joke when when you told people about, oh, yeah, you know, I got a podcast that covers just film and movies survive or Oz Network. I got a podcast that does the Olympics and then about the podcast. It does James Bond. And of all things, they're like the James Bond one is like, well, what do you have to talk about? You think the Olympics would be the one you'd struggle, but there's there's no struggle to come up with Olympic content, apparently.
BEN WATERWORTH: It does fascinate me. By the way, listen to Double R7, great show that people question. How do you talk about James? I'm like, it's been going for 60 years, right? Like, I mean, it's, you know, like I would like, would you question if I was doing an MCU one? Like, I mean, that's been going for like 15 years. It's got about the same amount of movies. But it's actually, it's funny, because sometimes when I mentioned doing an Olympics one, people, their first question is like, just during the Olympics, like, what do you do in between the Olympics? And really before Tokyo, not much, apparently. But it's because it's interesting, too, like you're saying about how you've kind of got your real niche Olympic ones. Like, I know, for example, at the Australian Olympic Committee, sort of, I don't know if they still do it, but they did obviously like their Sydney 2000 reflective one when it was the 20th anniversary. I know that Matt Denny was kind of doing some interviews with some winter Olympians in the lead up to Beijing. So it's a bit more sporadic. And then even Channel 7, so they had Lydia Lassler doing a whole bunch of, you know, interviews in the lead up to Beijing as a side podcast. And I think they had, I think Dave Colbert was doing one back during Tokyo and the lead up to Tokyo last year. So they're kind of more sporadic and only really care about it when the Olympics are on. So it is kind of interesting to see these other ones going there. But like, I want to mention each of the ones we were up against because I think it's kind of people who are listening to this going like, oh my god, they're so up themselves. They're doing an episode on them winning an award. We'll go listen to these other seven then, because I don't know if they're doing the, hey, we lost an award episode. Let's talk about how good we still are. And they should. Each of you should. So destination Tokyo, the Olympic Mile, my defining moments are off the podium. That's pretty good. My new favorite Olympian, Keep The Flame Alive, a winning mindset, Lessons From The Paralympics, and equal to achieving disability equality. I look at those last two, and I'm thinking, like, they're legit podcasts with legit messages. Like, these are the ones that should be winning this. Like, I want to know lessons from the Paralympics. I want to know about achieving disability equality. Not three idiots sitting in their bedrooms, basically, bagging out Michaela Schitt for an arm. Like, I mean, come on. How do we win awards? Jarrod, were those two any that you sort of... Well, any, I mean, you just mentioned about listening to them. But, I mean, are you on board a winning mindset? Did you learn any lessons from the Paralympics or achieving disability equality? And why should they have won over us?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I mean, the fact that there's a whole podcast space on the Paralympics where we dedicate kind of one episode for the entire event, I think speaks for itself.
BEN WATERWORTH: Had like two guests from the Paralympics on in SCG, so yep, yep.
JARROD LOOBEEK: It's nice for them to have coverage. I mean, it's better than Channel 7's coverage. Shout out to Channel 7. Thanks for letting us bag you out, and I think that helped.
BEN WATERWORTH: Give me a job? How did that happen?
COLIN HILDING: Are they gonna take you back now that you're an award winner?
BEN WATERWORTH: They did offer me a job to the Commonwealth Games, so I mean, I mustn't have been that bad. But, yeah, Colin, did you listen to, were those two ones that you listened to, again, the real ones, the real messages?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, no, I couldn't find those. On the Stitcher that I use, I couldn't find those ones on there. The Olympic Bile is an interesting one, and Keep The Flame Alive, I find those ones are interesting. I just had a revelation, though, when you were talking about, oh, we've only done one episode and interviewed two Paralympic athletes. So we're at like 50% success now with Paralympic interviews.
BEN WATERWORTH: True. Well done, Jack.
COLIN HILDING: There we go. I mean, that's our problem. That's the curse. The curse is we're talking to too many Olympians, and we need more Paralympians on there. We can guarantee a gold. If you're a Paralympian and you want a gold, come on our show, 50% chance.
BEN WATERWORTH: In old Venice, Joanie was the flag bearer back in Pyeongchang. She just got injured in training. I mean, she was bookie favourite to win. She just got injured before she could compete. Again, flag bearers, pretty bloody good chance of being a flag bearer if you come on this show. I mean, we've got a very good success rate of that. That counts. And shout out to Jack Wallace too. He saw his social media at the time of recording this. He's already into training mode for Canoe. He's getting ready for Paris. He obviously didn't quite make Tokyo, so we'll see how we go. The thing that I find really interesting is that you talk about there, Colin, about pre-Tokyo. We very nearly didn't do anything during Tokyo. There was moments there where it didn't look like we were even going to be back for that. We went a good year and a bit without doing an episode. I think it was after our Commonwealth Games back in 2018. We didn't really come together until... I think we did a Tokyo preview-ish one. But then there was a good... I think until Tokyo got postponed, we hadn't done anything in about a year, hadn't even done any interviews. So it was kind of like we went very silent there for a while. And then now, you know, we're obviously in a nice little pocket where we've got interviews and, you know, we had pretty much daily interviews in the lead up to Beijing. So it's kind of interesting how, like I think you mentioned it too, Colin, that of all the shows that we do, there was definitely a period of time where Off The Podium wasn't really a priority for most of us. Like, you know, Oz Network obviously has always keeps us busy. Double Oz 7 was good for a while. I'm just naming all the shows here that people can listen to everything else that we do. You're Oz Vision Jarrod, again, I guess we can't really talk about that, can we?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Now that's the ugly stepchild, isn't it?
BEN WATERWORTH: I want to do one this year, don't worry. America's Song Contest has started. I don't know if you've watched it, but anyway. So it's kind of like it's interesting how that was there, because yeah, you said in the before, Colin, you said in our acceptance speech about how this was something that we just kind of put together and did. I don't know where I'm going with this. I'm just giving behind the scenes stories of Off The Podium, the tell-all story from the award-winning podcast coming to NBC this fall.
COLIN HILDING: Well, I mean, it should be mentioned. We don't want to come across like we're lazy or anything. Ultimately, what it is is kind of. I'm moulding out this. When the show started, the original idea was that we would only talk about this during the Olympics. And I don't even think that the original idea was we would do a daily show. It was just, oh, we'll do an episode or two on the Olympics. And then it's like, well, let's do a daily thing. And it wasn't even supposed to be its own show. It was supposed to be a segment on another podcast. So it's sort of just a happy accident that we even had a title of the show Off The Podium by the time the Rio came along. And I'm pretty sure it was during Rio that we basically said, you know, it would be fun to talk to some of these people. And again, that just sort of came together after. So a lot of what we've done over the last, let's say, year and a half since the postponement of Tokyo is where things really started ramping up. It all sort of just slowly built over a few years of, oh, you know, this is kind of cool. We can interview some of these people now. And I will say the postponement of Tokyo was a big thing because I think we were just excited about the Olympics. And suddenly that you had a lot of these athletes that we were getting ready to talk to after the Olympics. That's one of the other things you should say is a lot of the absences we've had online is that, well, we're waiting to see the next group of athletes that we need to talk to, you know? And then when Tokyo was postponed, it almost was like a gift from the gods. All these people are sitting at home now, and they really want to talk about what's going on. They want to talk about whether or not they're going to make it in another year if the games are delayed. And that sort of started to get a lot of people back on the show again. And I'll also say after Tokyo, the amount of guests that you somehow lined up was insane. And we're still going off of ones that have been recorded before Beijing now. And we're well removed from Beijing. And let's also throw it out there. And I'm pretty sure in my 20 seconds I had, as I was counting down the clock during my acceptance speech, I mentioned the support of the athletes, I think, has been huge, as well as just listeners. But just the athlete support we've had over the last couple of months has been fantastic. You don't really expect a lot of these people, when you do the interviews, to even care about the interview. You know, sometimes you get those athletes where they're like, this is just another interview. I'm going to forget your name, and I'm going to forget the name of the podcast when it's over. And we've had so many, all the way from the beginning, you know, some of these people were re-interviewing now. It's amazing when we do the second interview to realise that they remember you three or four years later, you know? Yeah. A lot of these athletes that support us, even while Beijing was going on, they're liking our social media posts. We're getting people who are sending us pictures now as part of our questionnaires at the end. A couple days later, they're like, here, I wanted to share this with you.
BEN WATERWORTH: Appropriate pictures, by the way. It's like, hey, I'm bored, what are you up to?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, exactly. You know, I mentioned it several times, the fact that John Montgomery fulfilled a promise that he had on the interview three or four months later and sent me an email. And it's like, hey, I finally found this, and I wanted to show it to you. A lot of the athletes that have gotten behind our show, I mean, I think that's been a huge part of it because it's not only helping to get our name out there, but it's showing the people that this show is about that they generally are, you know, excited to talk to us in some of these cases and then just want to support the show as well. The way we want to support these athletes, they're supporting the show. And I think that's been the biggest surprise is the athletes that are actually getting on board and saying, hey, good job, guys. Pat on the back.
BEN WATERWORTH: A Happy Accident, by the way, was our secondary title for this show, so nearly came back. Jarrah, before I question for you, like, yeah, I agree with everything you said, and it's interesting because I don't know about you, Colin. You do all these podcasts as well, but like it's sort of people often ask that, what's your favourite to do? And let's be honest, it's not Eurovision because we apparently don't do that enough. It's the qualifying lap, rebooted and coming soon in 2027. But like often I will say Off The Podium just because we're an award-winning podcast now, clearly. But it's a fact that, you know, for a lot of 2021, I sat in my bedroom and interviewed Olympians. You know, like I sat in my bedroom in my pyjama pants and some sort of decent shirt and interviewed Kieran Perkins. Like, you know, it's cool. It sounds pretty cool.
COLIN HILDING: Occasionally we wore pants.
BEN WATERWORTH: Jarrod never does. He doesn't need to with all the awards that he's won. But it, like, for example, spoiler alert, in a couple of weeks, we will be having back on the show Dean Hewitt and Tarli Gill. You know, who, let's be honest, we made a thing. We had on before anyone else did. I actually looked that shit up, and like, you cannot find an interview with them on a podcast before we did. And then they were on a few more in the lead up to Beijing. And now, Jesus Christ, podcast coming left. Everyone cares about them. But like, that was one of my favourite interviews I did last year. And not to pump up the tyres of this interview in a couple of weeks. It's even better, you know, now that they're Olympians. So maybe this show will get better now that we've won an award. I don't know. But it's just, it is things like that where I definitely appreciate the fact that you can have people like that who, you know, let's be honest, when you get them on, not many people know, people are learning about them, and then they become somewhat a little bit more known. And they're still, like, literally that was just flick, you know, them both a message on Instagram. And they're just like, absolutely, we're free this Sunday. You want to do a chat? Like, it was that simple. Whereas, you know, like, oh, God, don't get us started. I'm like, Allie Lutie now. Like, now that she's won a medal, like, oh, she doesn't even want to associate with us.
COLIN HILDING: She won't have time for us.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hello, Allie, I know you're listening.
COLIN HILDING: Just along those lines, I think that's interesting that is this the exciting show for us because we get to talk to so many people that maybe your average person on the street doesn't know who some of these athletes are, except Jarrod.
JARROD LOOBEEK: That's my favourite part of it.
COLIN HILDING: Exactly. But it's funny when we first start, it's like, oh, you know, I can't believe we just interviewed this person, just interviewed Charles Hamlin. And during these Olympics, it was weird every once in a while where I'd be like watching it. And I'm like, you know, sometimes I forget like how many of these people I've actually talked to. Like, it's a huge number that we've interviewed. And I'm not saying it's just like, oh, now it's just nothing at all. But what's interesting is that sometimes it is those athletes that you haven't heard of that are the ones that turn out to be the best interviews. You know, Jamie's listening to the show now, and she's like, give me a couple. This is really good. Like, give me a couple more interviews that I should listen to. And I'm finding some of the ones are ones like, you know, obviously, even even somebody who doesn't follow the Olympics in Canada is going to know Mandy Bujold because of her story, but they're not going to know Allie Lute, you know, but yet that is one of the best interviews that we've had on the show. And sometimes it is just discovering these athletes that when you're you're emailing off the the Federation of whatever or the Canadian Fencing Board or whatever, and you find a Max von Haster that they just say, here's the guy. And you're like, oh, you have to Google him before the interview. And then they turn out to be so fantastic. You know, those are some of the best interviews and some of the best athletes who've had on.
BEN WATERWORTH: And legitimately, the majority of our ski jumping and Nordic combined people that we had in the lead up to Beijing, they were all those ones because like, again, it all like. And that just came down to me being like a Pokemon collector where it's like, fuck, the only sport we haven't had on is ski jumping. And like you would interview like you would contact so many people you'd contact, and no one would reply like, fuck, like I really want to get a ski jumper on. And all of a sudden, when it rains, it pours. And then just kind of everybody came and we got very lucky. Yeah, bobsled. Yeah. You know, it sort of happens that way. Jarrod, I was going to ask you sort of going back to Colin's point about, I guess, when we first started this and we thought it was just going to be a segment and we didn't even know it was going to be daily. It turned into daily. And now that I still like as much as I love the interviews. Of course, I love the interviews. To me, the bread and butter is still during an Olympics. Like, I love doing it daily. Like, it's a fucking marathon. But it's like, it's fun. Like, I love being able to do that during an Olympics. It's just, it's there. But do you, I think we talked about this maybe in our hundredth episode that we did. But like, Jarrod, do you remember when we started and kind of thinking like how this was going to turn out? And like, do you kind of regret that we're daily during an Olympics? Something like, I just want to sleep, like these guys have weird times that they want to record. Fuck Colin for being in Canada. Like, I mean, I don't know how you sort of felt and how it's sort of grown now. Which again, this is kind of our thing we do during an Olympics.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, I do remember starting out thinking, okay, this will be like a one-off or like a recap maybe. Maybe one episode each week during the Olympics. But I'm glad that it turned out to be more. It's just I love just talking about like the events and stuff. But I think there's also it's just fun picking up on stuff that like you would have missed if I was just watching it. The fact that there's like two other people watching it to talk about it, like I get so much more out of those that like two weeks of Olympics than I would otherwise. So as much as like, yeah, the time zone sucks. But I mean, I'm a night owl anyway, so it kind of works. Yeah, it's just it's just fun. I feel like it's fun. I think and I hope that people understand that when we're paying people out, it is very tongue in cheek.
BEN WATERWORTH: Mostly.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Except for whatever country we're hating on this week, you know. But it's just it's it's fun from that point of view of of I think not being an elite sports person, not knowing kind of that environment and then and then putting your two cents in and acting. And it's that whole like armchair expert angle that's just it's just fun. And it's fun to learn about new sports, to to try and figure out how they work. And I think the interviews help with that as well and the exposure. And yeah, it's just it's just a great two weeks of content. And it rolls around so quickly, particularly between I suppose, like between like the winter and just the Summer Olympics, two years, obviously. But just even between like summer games, like the whole like four years just goes so, so fast, so quickly.
BEN WATERWORTH: We've we've done four now. Hard to believe that obviously with Rio, Tokyo, Pyeongchang and Beijing, do you have a favourite Jarrod of those four that we've done?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I feel like the nostalgia factor is heavy for Rio.
BEN WATERWORTH: Bat horse.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, but then Pyeongchang as well because of moguls, you know, I think it's just like it probably wasn't as great at the time, but looking back, it's just fine on the hair montage. I mean, I just feel like Rio, we were in our element bagging out Channel 7, painting on the French, you know, it was just it was a good time.
BEN WATERWORTH: The good times when I wasn't employed by them and I could say what I wanted. I couldn't find that hair montage by the Jarrod. I looked through all of my Rio footage and I just I could not find it. So maybe I never recorded it. Colin, do you have a favourite of the four that we've done?
COLIN HILDING: You know, I would lean towards Rio just because I think it was the only one where I wasn't completely exhausted. The one thing we should mention, which I'm sure people can work out the math is like we're in different time zones. And I remember coming into Tokyo, being excited that knowing we would have to work out some type of accommodation where we record the same time Jarrod. But originally, when Tokyo is going to happen, you know, we would be in the same time zone. And then turned out we weren't. And I always end up being the guy who's setting his alarm for five in the morning while he's on vacation. But the funny thing is, that's not the part that bothers me. Like I if I go back to Pyeongchang, we recorded all over the place. We didn't have a set time. There were some days we would record and it would be four thirty five in the morning for me. And then there were other days we'd record and it would be five five thirty six o'clock in the evening for me. But but I think with Rio, it was the fact that I got to watch everything in its entirety because I told Jamie, I'm so excited for Paris because it's going to be somewhere in the middle for us as far as when the events are taking place. And the more exciting thing being, I'll get to watch the events because during the last two Olympics, Tokyo and Beijing, it was a lot of scrambling for me to watch an hour or two in the evening if I had time and then wake up an hour or two before we record to actually watch the events. Otherwise, I got nothing to talk about. But Rio was like the perfect time zone for me. So I knew between all three of us, I was going to have the best chance at catching everything and being informed. But I will also say Pyeongchang, I think, was fun despite the fact that it was so chaotic for the scheduling. And I think being the first Winter Olympics, and I can't remember, Jarrod, if you're on the same page. But, you know, Ben and I have both said like the Winter Olympics to us is the Olympics. The summer is like the step brother of the Winter Olympics. The Winter Olympics is kind of the real deal. And it was so much fun doing that. And also being the first time that we were able to root for athletes and ruin athletes' careers through bad luck.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hello, Brit Cox.
COLIN HILDING: Exactly.
BEN WATERWORTH: He will definitely win a gold.
COLIN HILDING: Brit Cox, I still can never, I can never apologise enough to Brit Cox or Andy Noddy for ruining them. And that's on me. Ben didn't do those interviews. That was on me. But like all four of them kind of have their own, you have your own memories of them. And I think what's been most interesting is that I remember when Rio started, seeing the amount of downloads we were getting during the Rio Olympics and being surprised when we first started this show to see there is an audience out there, which kind of, you know, let's give a hand to the people, the listeners who actually keep us on the air and voted for us to win a sports podcast award here. We were shocked at how many people wanted to listen about Olympic coverage during the Olympics. And I think the most interesting is we do the interviews, and that's some of the more fun stuff for us. But a lot of the downloads you'll get for interviews will depend on that athlete. How much they're willing to promote the interview sometimes is the factor. How big of an athlete they are, how big of a name. The people who listen during the Olympics, though, they don't care what we talk about. They're there for 16 days straight, and our downloads are consistent for 16 days straight. And as big of an athlete as we have on, with the exception of Tessa Virtue, who's going to get more downloads than, I think, there are humans on the planet, I don't think we have any interview as big as the athlete is that gets as many listeners as we get during those 16 days during the Olympics. So, I mean, the people out there who just want to listen to people talk about random sports every single day, some of which they are definitely not experts on, I mean, that I think is the most surprising thing about doing this show. And that's one of the reasons that we love covering everything daily during the Olympics, because people actually want to listen to us.
BEN WATERWORTH: And it's always interesting seeing the spike in listeners and seeing the graphs of everything when you look at our stats. And what's been great is that Tokyo really was like, well, okay. And then I was thinking, I don't think we're going to reach those highs of Tokyo, because we were mentioned in the New York Times and Blogspot and all those kind of things. Whereas Beijing was an increase in listeners from Tokyo. It was actually quite surprising, so it was nice. But I think I agree with both of you. Each of the four that we've done definitely has had their moments. I mean, Rio does have that real charm about it, because, again, we didn't really know what we were doing. It just flowed through like all that stuff. Colin, you muted.
COLIN HILDING: I muted. I was just saying.
BEN WATERWORTH: A one-way podcast right here. Colin's still muting himself. There we go.
COLIN HILDING: I mean, the audience would have never known if you hadn't called it out, Ben.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, we've won an award now. Until one of us tests positive for drugs, we've got this. So it's fine.
COLIN HILDING: The only thing we test positive for is COVID on this show, except for Jarrod. He's the one clean one. But no, we literally had no clue. I don't even think we came up with. We just had like a loose format, and the first day of the Olympics, it was winging it, and everything we've done since then is, well, day one of Rio worked pretty well. Let's keep it up.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, and like segments and things like that, it just kind of flowed. The one thing I think I regret from any of our Olympics, which looking back doesn't really hold up well, was Ben's wife of the day, or whatever the hell that was, back in Rio. Not our proudest moment. You know, just while we're being honest. So, yeah, that maybe was a bit cringe, but yeah, Pyeongchang was definitely a blast, just because again, winters, it was a bit all over the place. Kind of just a unique experience, I think, for that. Tokyo, obviously, was just hilariously fun, and just like the element of all the extra commentary that we went out of our way to do. And just, sorry Colin, I know we bring this up all the time, but Colin's reactions to half of the things were brilliant. Throwing a chair, you know, I mean, come on. Brilliant. And yeah, even Beijing just was great. On so many levels, breaking the curse, the official gold curse before Colin has a bit of a chat about that. Getting COVID, all the fun stuff.
COLIN HILDING: The COVID games.
BEN WATERWORTH: The COVID games. But even like some of the other things that we've added along the way, like the interview is great, but like it's, you know, doing that Paralympics episode for Tokyo was great. The Commonwealth Games episodes that we did back during Gold Coast, you know, was unique. And then sort of looking ahead like to doing what we're doing this year. And then even some of the rankings episodes, like I love like ranking the medals and like, you know, talking about the sports episode that Jarrod would always sort of talk about doing. And then talking about the Hobart Olympics was brilliant. You know, and then the fact we got to be on an episode where Australia won an Olympics. So like we've got an Olympics in 10 years, and hopefully we'll be able to do the same if Vancouver wins it in like 2030 or 2034. So it's kind of, yeah, we've grown, we've grown, boys. Come on, look at us, you know, growing up along the way. One thing, though, I think, Colin, you mentioned it. We did this in our thank you speech. We did this in our, well, my interview, Colin got kicked off. I want to talk about that quickly in a second. But like to our listeners and to people who voted, like I jokingly said, if we win, we will thank everybody individually. And that's because I thought like three people would vote for us and we'd know. So I can't thank you, people who voted. Thank you for doing it, Jarrod, every day when you jumped on there 50,000 times. Good job. But it's like it does it does mean a lot to us. You know, like here we are sitting for an hour talking about how amazing we are. But it's, you know, thank God they didn't just like go for us. And now, thank you speech. Like, yeah, as long as you want, guys, we'd be screwed.
COLIN HILDING: Did you guys have to do multiple takes of that?
JARROD LOOBEEK: To get it in 20 seconds?
BEN WATERWORTH: What are you talking about? Jarrod's first time Jarrod, first take Jarrod. I honestly, I like, I don't know if you guys like wrote things down. I just kind of said like, OK, this is in my head. What I think I'll say. Yeah, I probably took about like 10 takes. I'll be honest.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, yeah, completely. Same with me.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, except for Jarrod. Jarrod's Mr. Smart. But yeah, like to our listeners, to everyone who voted, like, seriously, it's fucking awesome. I can't say that in a thank you speech, but like, there you go. It's pretty, pretty crazy to think that this can happen. Colin, just quickly. So the interview with Colleen, which I just love the fact that her name was Colleen, and I've often jokingly called your female version Colleen. So I'm thinking like, OK, like, what's going on here? So basically what happened with that? So the reason why it was just me. And again, I don't even know how much of it they could air with me, because then I started having technical issues when Colleen got kicked off. So not to ruin the illusion of the Sports Podcast Awards interviewing people for, I don't know if we're meant to be talking about this. Did we sign an NDA? I don't know. But basically, so it's all like, hey, guys, come on here, let's talk. And Jarrod was like fast asleep or getting ready for work. Some excuse. He just he doesn't do any work on the show. So they're about to start recording. They're about to start interviewing Colleen and I. And then for whatever reason, Colleen's like internet or something just doesn't work, even though you were like in a really good spot. So then basically the producer guy is just like, Colleen, you suck. We'll just interview Ben.
COLIN HILDING: I mean, in all fairness, they gave it a couple of tries. Yeah. Yeah. Like it honestly, it was it was ridiculous because typically when we've done tons of recordings, sometimes with athletes and something goes wrong, you're still trying to figure out how you're going to avoid that going forward with your current recording setup.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hey, so far Touchwater hasn't done anything. So like it's going to fuck up now that we've said it.
COLIN HILDING: But like we kind of joked afterwards, like, yeah, they were just determined to get me off of that thing because you know when something's going wrong typically, because when, for example, when you start freezing up, you'll probably see me start freezing up, you know. But like I'm testing my internet speeds as this is going on and it is flawless. And my laptop is not lagging. It's responding perfectly. And the funny thing is I had no clue what was going on for a while because you guys sounded perfect. And typically, you will get that if there's a problem on your side, something's going to be choppy. And the only thing I was seeing was the producer's feed had completely cut out and everything else was fine. You and Colleen, completely normal. So I'm trying to wrap my head around still like, was this, did they just not want the Canadian on there? I mean, is this a blame Canada thing? Like, what's the problem?
JARROD LOOBEEK: But in this time, you're on mute, everything was fine.
COLIN HILDING: Exactly.
BEN WATERWORTH: It was secretly me. I just wanted to talk about myself. So I'm like, oh, fuck off, Collin.
COLIN HILDING: Fuck off, Collin. Of course, Ben's and I kind of said that to Jamie afterwards. I'm like, what are the odds that if somebody was going to go wrong on this interview, it wasn't Ben for a change. And then, of course, it happened. You messaged me as soon as it was over. And you're like, the second you were off, it started happening to me too.
BEN WATERWORTH: And it was weird, too, on my end, because generally, when this stupid set up I've got at the moment, they were kind of free, they'd go, laggy. It's not just Zoom, it's like the whole computer. Even if I move the mouse, it's kind of like, I'm like, oh, God, here we go. Whereas it was sort of doing the choppy, freezey thing, but I could move my mouse. I could switch between windows. Everything was going fine. So I'm like, uh-huh. So you don't usually shut me up. So I just kept talking. And then there was, again, literally at the time of recording this, we are releasing this me hours after the ceremony. So I don't know how they put the ceremony together, how the interview is even going to go. For all I know, they could just be like, Hi, I'm Colleen. I'm with Ben. Congratulations. Thanks, Colleen. All right, back to the rest of the awards.
COLIN HILDING: Just a freeze frame of your face.
BEN WATERWORTH: So we haven't seen anything. We don't know how it has all been put together at the time of recording this. So yeah, fun times. Jarrod, of course, he's like, Well, glad I didn't go on that. Kind of there.
COLIN HILDING: We should mention to Jarrod. They were like, Oh, it's really unfortunate that Jarrod couldn't join us.
BEN WATERWORTH: They open with you. They talk about you, Jarrod. The opening line Colleen is talking about is about you. So you can't even just be avoided, essentially.
JARROD LOOBEEK: We did a separate interview that will actually get played.
BEN WATERWORTH: You got interviewed by Michael Johnson.
COLIN HILDING: After Ben and I's fiasco, they were like, Let's just go straight to the source. Let's go to Jarrod, OK? We're going to finally see this, Ben. We are here with Off The Podium creator and sole host, Jarrod Lubick.
BEN WATERWORTH: He's in a room with Ian Thorpe and Dawn Fraser, Essel Ledeck is there, Michaela Schifrin is there, everyone, all these icons.
COLIN HILDING: The award ceremony is from Jarrod's living room in a tuxedo. They bring the award straight to him.
BEN WATERWORTH: And he's literally like, I don't do interviews, but look at all my besties. Oh, God, Jarrod, if you did some work, then maybe we could get these people on the show base first.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Well, these people are dainty to come over because they knew they wouldn't get cursed coming here.
BEN WATERWORTH: Do you think that now moving forward, when we actually approach athletes, we'd need to leave with like, hi, Michael Phelps, we're an award-winning podcast, Off The Podium, would you like to come? And now they're like, oh, well, now that you've won an award.
COLIN HILDING: I was going to ask if you're adding that to your signature, because when you email these athletes, you have everything you could promote the show in in your signature already, which is smart. I mean, I remember when we first started going for interviews, I didn't have an official signature, but I would put the title of the show, I would put links to our Facebook, our transistor feed or whatever in there, so people see this is a legit show. So it would make sense to add, sports podcast winner, Best Olympic Podcast 2022.
BEN WATERWORTH: When we used to approach people, I would add the line in of just the background on the show. We were named, back when all we had was at number four on the top 25 feed spot Olympic podcast, and we were fucking chuffed with that. So yeah, I think maybe we might have to try that now. Just, you know, award-winning podcast. One thing I'll say before we sort of wrap it up is, I don't know why I was thinking of this. So for all I know, we're not going to get, if there's actually a trophy, I don't know if there is or not. Who gets it? Do we just share it around? Is it like one of those things like when you win, I don't know if any of you have been in team sports and sometimes you'll get a trophy, say you each get it for a month before you kind of do it there. It'd be different when we're in three different countries in the world, but I mean, who gets it? Jarrod, obviously, because he's like...
COLIN HILDING: I'm having flashes of The Simpsons episode where Bart and Milhouse and Martin bought the Radioactyman comic. Just the three of us in a tree house. Can you check on the boys? They're fine. They're strangling each other.
BEN WATERWORTH: We'll chop it in three and we'll basically... Or maybe it's like the Oscars. Maybe because there's three hosts, they will each give us an award. But I'm not expecting a trophy sports podcast. I actually know I am. Give us something good.
JARROD LOOBEEK: In a cereal box.
BEN WATERWORTH: Let's be honest, whoever gets it, stop getting it till like the Paris Olympics anyway. So it works that way. I don't really have anything else to add. Just thank you to everyone who voted. The other nominees, congratulations. The other winners of all the other categories, congratulations. Us winning the overall Sports Podcast Awards. Yay, go us. Yeah, Jarrah, I don't know if you have anything else to add and anything that we've talked about really for the last hour or so.
JARROD LOOBEEK: No, just the same stuff, echoing what you said. Thanks to the fancy athletes. Thanks to you two, obviously, to put in a little bit extra work than I do in terms of interviewing people and organising that. So that's appreciated as well.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, and Bono on the Edge really did a good job with the interviews. So that's a U2 joke. Colin, I would like to formally apologise for that last joke on Off The Podium.
JARROD LOOBEEK: They just revoked the award.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, what's this text? Oh, that's the doping award. No U2 jokes. That was pretty shit. Come on. That joke was not worthy of an award-winning podcast. You know, you hear that sort of stuff on Eurovision.
JARROD LOOBEEK: On the scale.
BEN WATERWORTH: And if you like that type of humour, listen to the qualifying lap coming soon in 2027. Colin, anything else to add?
COLIN HILDING: I mean, really the only reason that I think that this episode needs to happen in the first place is just so that we would have more than 20 seconds to thank everybody, because we could sit here and say, oh, isn't it great that we put together this show that's now been running for six years and that we, New York Times and Award-winning now. But like, honestly, whoever out there voted for us, thank you for ignoring our stupidity. Thank you for enjoying whatever we, by complete luck, managed to entertain you on, because I'm not saying that we're not worthy of this award, but I mean, the fact that when we look at the competition we were up against and that there were that many people, and I don't even know the full numbers, but I know the sport podcast award they put out there, like, what was it, across all categories, but you're looking at 20,000 votes or something like that. So, you know, we got to have at least a thousand there. And the fact that that many, thank you, Jarrod, all Jarrod, all of Emu Plains voted, and then there were about 800 more on top of that.
JARROD LOOBEEK: So I don't have time for interviews, you know.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly.
COLIN HILDING: He's going door to door. Will you vote in the sports podcast? I did start getting to the point where I was plugging it, too, where I was telling people, you know, hey, we're up for an award, which that just shows how excited we were for this. I remember two of my nephews actually tell them we're up for an award, and they thought, oh, for the Oz Network. And we're like, no, no, no, for Off The Podium. What's that? I'm like, it's another show we do about the Olympics. You know, I sent them the links, and it's funny because I doubt they even voted. This was like right before the voting closed because I sent them the links, and then I failed to tell them where they would find us on there. I'm like, oh, we're going to be it because they didn't even know what Off The Podium was. I'm like, oh, great. They're not going to know what category they're going to be going to best soccer podcast and vote for some random thing in there. They're going to vote for Chris Jericho instead of me. But yeah, like they're obviously we we opened our show with for knows how many episodes with Vote For Us in the Sports Podcast Awards. But unless people were already listening to the show, I mean, we weren't going to have them. Whoever voted, like we can't thank you enough. And again, all the athletes that have supported the show, it's just incredible. Every time we see an athlete is liking a post, we have a social media or replying to something that we've put out there or coming on the show or sending in their pictures afterwards, all that stuff. I mean, that's kind of the biggest honour we have. And then, of course, for the Sports Podcast Awards, just creating this, because, again, you're exposing so many different podcasts out there that people wouldn't really realise existed. Or I think all these have their own niche fans, and now they can see how many other shows are out there that they can discover on the sports as well. It's fantastic. It's been an incredible opportunity to even be part of the nominations and this whole process. And to be able to come away with a win and say that, you know, we're on the podium, I think that's the biggest honour.
BEN WATERWORTH: And also a shout out to the Oz Network. Great show. Now with one Patreon.
COLIN HILDING: In all fairness, we had more that we lost along the way.
BEN WATERWORTH: And will there be an Off The Podium Patreon? Maybe, but I think the issue with Off The Podium is we don't exactly play music on the show that is not exactly copyright free. So I think we kind of have an issue if we start making money off it. And maybe we need to jump this train of winning an award. Maybe we can make some money off this now. Evil show. But yeah, maybe we'll see. Thank you for tuning in, everybody, to this self-inflation episode. Our 250th episode of Clip Show is very soon, so you'll have another one coming up. Obviously, we're sort of doing weekly episodes at the moment. This is kind of just like an additional episode, because tomorrow, literally minutes after listening to this, you're going to be hearing another episode. Sally Pearson. Like, who cares about winning an award? Sally frickin Pearson, two-time Olympic medallist, Olympic gold medallist, multiple world champion, one of Australia's brightest stars. She's retired now, one of Australia's biggest stars. So great chat with Sally. So that's going to be dropping in hours, both here on audio and over on our YouTube channel as well. But just a bit of a tease and see what we've got in a few weeks. So some big names coming up. After Sally Pearson, Stephen Bradbury, if you don't mind. Good to have connections when you work with a guy. So yeah, we plug his beer for a while, but it's also a good chat. So look out for that next week. And then as I sort of alluded to before, Dean Hewitt, Tyler Gill, our curlers, they're back. Great chat. There'll be a video version of that one as well. And then Colin, you did a couple, teaser two that you did as well, because you've done Australians and Canadians.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, and I would put both these in the categories of you got to listen to it because it's that entertaining. Sophie Ash, who kind of surprised in her placing in the moguls for Australia during the last Olympics. She was an absolute blast to talk to. And we may or may not. She kind of has a little bit of success on the side in the art realm. So I may have guilted her into sending in a picture. So we'll see if she comes through for that.
BEN WATERWORTH: And then she's not just sending you pictures.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, exactly. Autograph photo of Jakar Anthony signed by Sophie Ash. That would be what we do for Patreon. But we do do that for Patreon on other shows. But anyways, and then two of the cyclists that we talked about during during Tokyo, Kelsey Mitchell and Laurie Anjane, the both medal for Canada kind of surprise medallists that we had. Not only do we have it together, they're literally I can't wait for the video version that because literally they're in the same room. They live together. And I thought they were joking, but like, no, no, they literally live together. And they're in completely inseparable. And I think the best thing about that is having an interview with two people on the show who have no problem poking fun at each other. So that will be the thing to tease for that one.
BEN WATERWORTH: And Jarrod, who have you got coming up on your interviews after those those two?
JARROD LOOBEEK: You know, so many guests to talk to so little time. What was my podcast? Finland Is The New Orange?
BEN WATERWORTH: We remember our jokes.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Just hard at work in the in the pre-planning phases of that. So look out for that to drop in the next in the next year.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I think actually I want to tease with the Dean and Talia too, which is actually hilarious. We get into a bit of a tangent talking about like, as you know, all jokes aside about us being the ones that discovered them, they've obviously done a lot of interviews since. So like kind of we have a section where we talk about like, what are the questions you always get asked? And they're kind of like, oh, we're sick of these. The topic actually comes up of, are you guys actually together? Like, and it's actually quite a funny way that the question comes about. So I don't want to spoil like kind of how it comes out and the answer to it. But like it comes up and it's actually quite funny. So not that you need to tease it or listen to them because they're fantastic, but it's just funny. We're calling you're saying about how to have no, you know, you're too no fun of making fun of each other. This is just like a unique topic that comes up and it's sort of like, I feel this needs to be talked about more, but maybe it doesn't get talked about as much as you think it would. So, yeah, well, maybe I'm just a perv and I just apparently want to get into athletes' private lives. I'm like, so tell me what do you do outside of the Olympics? The real after dark version Off The Podium coming now that we've won an award.
COLIN HILDING: That's our Patreon.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly, exactly. Outside of those interviews, stay tuned. We've got some great stuff. We'll keep teasing it. Commonwealth Games later this year. We'll do a World Cup episode. We'll maybe do some more rankings. We'll do some stuff. We won an award now. I guess we're kind of going to remain busy. So thanks again to everyone who voted. The other nominees, congratulations to your nominations to the Sports Podcast Awards. Thank you. Thank you to everyone. Thank you to Essel Ledecker. I thank you for my thank you speech. Thanks to Chloe Esposito all the way back in 2016. BatHorse, Ryan Lochte, Michaela Shitfren, Lindsay Vaughan, all the ones that we've bagged out over the years. As Jarrod said mostly, it's all in good fun. I've forgiven the French, but fuck the British. The English, sorry, not the British, the English. We love the Scots, the Welsh and the Northern Irish. The rest, yeah, cool. But yeah, Colin, thank you. Thank you, Colin. Thank you for being on the show. You mean a lot to me. It's so great.
COLIN HILDING: Thank you for being a friend. Cue the music.
BEN WATERWORTH: You've got a friend in me. You've got a friend in me. And Jarrod, thank you for all the effort you put in. You're such a busy man. And let's do Eurovision this year, shall we?
JARROD LOOBEEK: Yeah, let's, you know. The words have been waiting. But the intentions are there.
BEN WATERWORTH: You've been waiting for me to say that. Maybe we'll get Alex back. How's Alex doing? Do you think Alex is alive? Still haven't heard from him in a while.
JARROD LOOBEEK: Who knows?
BEN WATERWORTH: You think Noah will actually show up to EurozVision for the first time in seven years?
JARROD LOOBEEK: I don't think anyone's ready for them to return.
BEN WATERWORTH: What was that? What was that first Euros Vision? You was Boggy? Bring back Boggy? Noah was on that one, wasn't he? Yeah. Noah and Euros Vision. That lazy bastard. Um, like, subscribe, do all that. Vote for it. Um, shout out to Jason Momoa. He's been involved in the last few. Um, and, uh, yeah, we'll be back. Um, Sally tomorrow and everything else. Uh, put a sock in at Mountain.
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