New Brighton, Minnesota – For the past 12 years, Jason Bryant of Mat Talk Online has been podcasting. The medium, founded in 2004, has gained wide acceptance and consumption and Bryant will host a 14-hour live stream focusing on the medium and its impact on wrestling on September 30, which is International Podcast Day.
The stream will go live at 9 a.m. Central on the morning of September 30 at mattalkonline.com/ipd2020 and the live stream can also be found via YouTube (Morning | Evening), Periscope (on Twitter) and Twitch.
The day will feature 28 scheduled guests from 26 different wrestling podcasts with a goal to provide exposure to a number of shows from small, localized wrestling content creators to producers of large, mainstream podcasts. The live stream will be broken up into two sessions, plus a post-day “recovery time” session co-hosted by wrestling photographer Tony Rotundo.
The panel of guests spans from teenagers, award-winning journalists, former Division I wrestlers, media professionals and even an Olympian.
“The podcast medium’s acceptance and growth in wrestling has really mirrored how the sport took to the internet in the 1990s,” said Bryant, who is also the President of the National Wrestling Media Association. “Our sport tried fighting for more space in newspapers, but was quick to adapt the online model of media, but with all this on-the-go technology with smartphones and things of the like, podcasts were a natural fit for wrestling fans. It’s on-demand and time-shifted content. Listen when you want, where you want.
“The goal with the wrestling edition of International Podcast Day is to celebrate that as well as share knowledge on how we can promote our shows better, get a better understanding of the tech behind the medium and answer questions and share information on how we all can grow as a podcasting community within the sport.”
Since 2008, Bryant has hosted, edited, distributed or produced over 2,700 individual podcast episodes, highlighted by the Short Time Wrestling Podcast, which launched in 2013 and is approaching 700 episodes. Shortly thereafter, Bryant returned to his roots, re-launching his original Mat Talk Online website, which initially started in 1997, to focus on the network of shows he built with the new podcasting venture.
Since that start, the Mat Talk Podcast Network has developed 37 different podcasts, with 18 shows still active on the network, anchored by Short Time, Trackwrestling’s On The Mat, Inside Virginia Tech Wrestling, the #PackMentality Pop-Ins Podcast and a number of monthly shows from outlets like The Guillotine and Five Point Move. Other clients include the National Wrestling Coaches Association, the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, MatBoss, Purdue University and the Wisconsin Wrestling Federation. A full list of shows can be found at mattalkonline.com.
A full list of active, known wrestling podcasts can be found at mattalkonline.com/directory
“Dave and Steve Lee have created a great annual celebration of the medium and for the past six years and with their global reach continuing to grow, I felt it was time for me to do something to bring the two communities together, too. We’ve gone from two guys in Western Iowa having the first known wrestling podcast in 2006 (Mat Slammers) to having over 120 shows come and go,” said Bryant. “It’s not a question now of which wrestling podcasts to listen to, but rather do you have enough time and that’s a good thing.”
Dave Lee believes that podcasting has a particular community-building power: “Podcasts expose us to people, ideas, and parts of the world we never thought we’d meet. It naturally creates international communities. Words have tremendous power to heal, persuade, damage, bring meaning, bridge understanding, mend, and educate. Words have power. Podcasting allows us to use them for good.”
An interactive live chat will be functional via the YouTube live streams, while archived audio and video will be released via the Mat Talk Podcast Network and its Rokfin channel.
Schedule of Events, #InternationalPodcastDay – Wrestling Edition
MORNING SESSION
9:00 AM Sam Eagan – VICE
10:00 AM Anthony & Gennaro Bonaventura – D3 Nation
10:30 AM Kyle Klingman – On The Mat
11:00 AM K.J. Pilcher – Pinning Combination
11:30 AM Eric Olanowski – United World Wrestling
12:00 PM Patrick Kelly – KWCA podcast & AirTime
12:30 PM Jude Swisher – Home Mat Advantage
1:00 PM Brian Reinhardt – #PackMentality Pop-Ins Podcast
1:30 PM Jacob Hewgley – Mat Geeks
2:00 PM Earl B. Smith – The Open Mat
2:30 PM Tommy Baranoski – Bloodround
3:00 PM Rob Hill & Jay Zeimet- QCA Wrestle
3:30 PM Tony DiMarco & Todd Szewczyk – Fantasy College Wrestling Podcast
4:00 PM Tony Hager – Hager's Happy Hour & Potentially Dangerous (IAwrestle)
5:00 PM Ryan Warner – Wrestling Changed My Life
5:30 PM Jeremy Barnes – The Grind
EVENING SESSION
7:00 PM Cody Goodwin – In The Room
8:00 PM Al Venz & Josh Raymond – The Al and Josh Show
8:30 PM Kevin Claunch – Bloodround & Austin Early – Changing Levels
9:00 PM Alexis Porter & Arian Carpio – Women Wrestle 2
9:30 PM Morgan O'Brien – DiploSport
10:00 PM Andrew Spey – Spey's Stupid Podcast & Ben Askren, Flowrestling Radio Live
RECOVERY TIME
10:30 PM Tony Rotundo – Wrestlers Are Warriors
About International Podcast Day
International Podcast Day™ is September 30th and is an international celebration of the power of podcasts! Founded by the father-son tech podcasting duo of Steve and Dave Lee, the celebration is a great opportunity to connect with fellow podcasters, podcast listeners, podcast enthusiasts, and leaders in the podcasting industry. Help spread the word by telling your friends, sharing the celebration on your podcasts and social media feeds, and using #InternationalPodcastDay. In 2014, National Podcast Day was celebrated with 6 hours of broadcasting. After quickly realizing the power of podcasts internationally, we rebranded into what we are today – International Podcast Day. Between 2015 and 2019, we broadcasted hundreds of hours around the globe inviting podcasters and industry leaders from 70 different countries to share their podcast journeys, personal stories, and expertise. For this year’s live stream, IPD is featuring 60 podcasters from 26 countries.
