Friends, I’ve accepted that I am never going to have time to do #AsForDynamite, my would-be AEW podcast built on the As For Football model. I spent some time pondering the idea on the train the other day, and I think I -- finally -- know how to actually do the show and make it work. Absent the time and effort to full-on create this thing, let’s at least talk about how it might work.
General Podcast Thoughts, Goals, & Timing
Podcasts work when they have structure. We want to have a plan and avoid rambling.
You want a host who manages the conversation and one of two folks to sound smart about the topics. The host is like the podcast’s quarterback. His job isn’t to score points, it’s to distribute the football to the podcast’s playmakers.
With that in mind, if you’ve had the mic for more than maybe a minute or so, it’s time to pass the mic back to the host and move on to the next play.
This post is therefore about designing our mythical show’s structure. Our show isn’t going to recap Dynamite and/or Collision. We’re going to assume that our fans are AEW fans, and that therefore already watched both shows. We’re going to try to help them relive the things that they enjoyed and hopefully provide some context where appropriate for why things happened.
At the end of the day, we’d like to make people excited to be fans of AEW by enhancing their fandom. We want to bring people up. We do not want to bring them down. They’ll get enough of that elsewhere.
With this in mind, we’d probably like to release this show on Monday mornings. We’ll discuss Dynamite, Collision, and PPVs and preview what’s coming up. This is important. We want to make people hopeful and excited heading into the week.
Part 1: Introduction
Start with a stinger, i.e. “Moxley bled, Hangman and Osprey proved that they could co-exist, and now we’ve got an Anarchy in the Arena set for Double or Nothing.”
Introduce the team, tell where they're from, and get a little early banter going.
Initial thoughts, i.e. “So, how are we feeling this week?”
Your guys give quick thoughts or otherwise do some intro stuff.
Example: “Busy week for me. It’s interesting that we got a potential team finisher from Hangman and Osprey in a match that also furthered their feud. Excited to see where that’s going…”
Part 2: Commercial
Finding sponsors for your show is a whole other discussion. If you have sponsors, though, stick your first commercial here. Otherwise, use this space to discuss your patreon, website, whatever.
“As a reminder, this show is brought to you by…”
Part 3: Show Review
The hardest part of this theoretical project is figuring out how to discuss the show without straight-up recapping it and/or getting bogged down in details. Ideally, you’d like your show to run between 25 and 45 minutes. That does not leave time for a lengthy discussion here, and that’s doubly true if you decide -- as I would -- to try to take in both Dynamite and Collision.
I finally decided to have my host use Cagematch.Com to list all the matches, times, and winners and then kick it back to the panel with something like, “Your thoughts on any of this?”
I let my guys talk from there.
As an aside, this is where the Golden Rule really matters. If you’ve had the mic for more than about a minute, it’s time to pass the mic. With that, you need a host who’s comfortable distributing the football and making sure that everyone talks and no one dominates the overall discussion.
Remember: the audience are fans. They also saw these shows. You don’t need to recap or tell them what happened. Tell them why it happened or why it was cool.
I probably end this segment with, “Okay, so what was your favorite thing on the show?” or “What was your favorite thing this week?”
All of this is going to work best when it’s a bunch of quick thoughts on several topics with the very important note that if we don’t cover absolutely everything, no one will ever know or care.
Part 4: Recap Fact or Fiction
This is where we discuss our predictions from the previous week. We’ll talk about that a little bit down below.
Part 5: Commercial #2
Having sponsors is good. Having a commercial between segments also lets your audience reset and prepare for a different discussion.
Part 6: Preview
Along similar lines to the above, you want to run through what’s been announced for next week’s Dynamite, Collision, PPV, etc, and you want to invite discussion from the team about any and all of this. Again, I would have the host run through this as a list and then invite comment/discussion from the team.
In my show, this part is at least as important as the review section was.
Part 7: Fact or Fiction
Each team member makes a prediction about upcoming content, and the others say whether that’s Fact of Fiction.
Example: “Fact or Fiction: Osprey and Hangman eventually challenge the Hurt Syndicate for the Tag Titles.”
We record these and go back through them during the next week’s show.
Part 8: 3rd Commercial
This is where As For Football hits Patreon and tells folks to sign up for our mailing list. Creating a mailing list is a whole other discussion, but trust me, if you do ONE THING, you should make a mailing list.
Part 9: Final Thoughts
Close out the show on a high note and get the Hell out of there.
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