Here at the Sport Social Podcast Network, it’s been another amazing year filled with downloads, partnerships and incredible growth.
But what’s on the horizon?
The team have been gazing into their crystal balls to predict what 2025 might hold for the podcast world.
Here’s what they’re saying:
Stefan Doyle, Head of Sport Social
"Women’s Football Podcasts will BOOM!"
Roll back the clock to July 2022 and England as nation was at boiling point with Euro’s fever and record-breaking temperatures. Sarina Wiegman’s Lionesses made history when they clinched their first UEFA Women's Championship title against Germany and what has followed since Chloe Kelly wheeled away in celebration on the Wembley turf has been a huge influx of interest in the women’s game.
Many players past and present have gone on to launch their own podcasts since the tournament win. We’ve seen ‘The Tooney & Russo Show’ on the BBC, ‘Boots, Balls & Bras’ with the Lionesses most capped player ever, Fara Williams, and former England captain Steph Houghton teaming up with Ian Wright for ‘Crossways’. Separately, long time players in the game such as ‘The Offside Rule’, ‘The Women’s Football Podcast’ and ‘Upfront’, have been joined by ‘The Guardian’s Women’s Football Weekly’ and ‘Big Kick Energy’ to name just a couple.
This season, Women’s Super League (WSL) figures have more than trebled following the decision to make YouTube the streaming home of the competition, and this month, the Guardian reported that every Women’s Championship match next summer will be available on the platform too.
The appetite from fans for more and more content in the sport is growing and this could be great news for content creators and brands alike in 2025. I expect to see more of the podcast industries big hitters expanding into this space in preparation for next year’s UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 Championship and for existing podcasts in this space to also receive a long-term audience boost another. All of this will create more opportunities for brands to reach female audiences outside of comedy, lifestyle and true crime podcasts.
Nicola Lynch, Business Development Director
"There will be further development in the podcast advertising space."
From the conversations we’ve been having, key for commercial activity this year is a much more integrated approach to advertising in podcasts. At a basic level I think we will see huge growth in simulcast buys for those podcasters who are on YouTube. Whilst this brings some exciting opportunities, I think we need to be mindful that these placements command a premium as there is limited inventory within each episode.
The other area we’re confident will evolve further is long-term partnerships using podcasts and their hosts as a content engine. These kinds of partnerships require real buy in from both the brand and the creator but the opportunities are endless. Creative executions can be delivered on social channels, YouTube, at events and on the brands own channels but can also fuel a wider media buy to amplify the reach of the partnership. We’ve seen great examples of this this year on our network from many brands including Sky Bet, Visit Barbados, Hickory’s and DAZN.”
Andrea Day, Head of Platform
"Hosting platforms will offer more sales solutions to podcast creators."
More hosting platforms will create enterprise solutions fit for rapidly growing podcast networks. They will create tools to enable networks to sell their aggregated niche audience directly whilst still being able to tap into bigger group programmatic buys.
I also expect platforms to favour the creation of their own sales exchanges using RTB tools, filtering all deals through these more closed ad exchanges which they have full control of, and remove support for legacy and more open, VAST based technology.”
Jim Salveson, Director of Sport
"Spotify won’t woo video creators"
Video podcasting is here to stay, as is audio podcasting...but Spotify’s attempt to bring both, distinct mediums under one roof may not be!
Spotify were always going to face a challenge to convert its audio-consuming audience into a video-consuming one, but the platforms big video announcement at the end of 2024 also seems to have added further challenges when it comes to creators wanting to host their video on the platform at all.
They are planning to offer a cut of subscription revenue in four territories (USA, UK, Canada, Aus) to podcast creators in return for removing all dynamic ad space from video podcasts – which for many just doesn't add up. By sacrificing your video ad space in these core territories in favour of Spotify's subscription cut, you are limiting your ability to add a 360 sell across audio and video to your podcast, and thus potentially limiting its commercial appeal. Not to mention how it might impact Patreon-style models build of an ad-free offering.
From an audience perspective - just as YouTube Podcasts’ attempt to integrate audio into its platform has failed to gain traction, I think Spotify’s attempt to add video will also struggle with audiences stubbornly refusing to alter their habits of prioritising audio-only content.
Visualised podcasts will continue to thrive on YouTube (both on a commercial and content basis) and likewise audio podcasts will continue to thrive on Spotify, Apple et al. However, with an unappealing monetisation model and a lack of audience - its hard to see Spotify’s attempt to bring them together working.
This is no bad thing as it allows creators to continue treating each medium with the care and nuance it deserves, maximise its commercial potential and, importantly, also preserve the use of RSS and the core podcast delivery technology.”
Marley Anderson, Head of Social Media
"BlueSky will fail (for podcasters at least)"
Ever since Elon Musk spent $44bn on buying Twitter and promptly turning it into a cesspit of politics, pornography and promoting his own dad jokes on everyone’s feeds, there seems as though there’s a need for a ‘new’ social media platform, which allowed BlueSky to announce itself.
A quick look at it will bring back memories of the early days of Twitter, minus the “Rio, do you want picking up in the morning pal?” tweets sent by Wayne Rooney.
But the problem is it seems too ‘nice’ to last. I’ve seen people shot down for challenging other points of view, with the narrative of ‘this isn’t a place like Musk’s X’ coming to the fore.
Working in social media for almost 10 years has taught me that people crave debate, they love arguing (even if it is through a faceless account), and keep coming back to platforms like X/Twitter to convince the world that they’re right and everyone else is wrong.
For that reason I can’t see BlueSky really catching on, despite many users announcing via their X account that they’re leaving the platform and will be switching to BlueSky instead (more an exercise of narcissism than anything else).
Podcasters already have plenty on their plates when it comes to promoting their work via social media, and most already have an established way of reaching their audience. That’s why I can’t see podcast creators taking on a new platform without the guarantee that it’s going to be there for the long term.