Second Captains: the Irish sports fanatics changing the podcast game “Steve Staunton just snorted derisively and said: ‘Second captain. First captain. Whatever.’” Who could have known that one of the […]

“Steve Staunton just snorted derisively and said: ‘Second captain. First captain. Whatever.'”

Who could have known that one of the Republic of Ireland’s most unpopular managers would help name the country’s most popular podcast?

And Second Captains is a lot more than a hit podcast. It’s a trailblazer.

What makes the podcast – created by the quintet of Eoin McDevitt, Ken Early, Mark Horgan, Ciarán Murphy and Simon Hick – stand out from its rivals, is that it has reduced its free-to-listen content to two podcasts per week, with the rest going behind a paywall.

And their listeners have followed them.

“You need a hardcore support to go with you on this kind of thing and you need to build it up over a large number of years,” Eoin explains to i.

“So after 14 years or so of building this up we thought we were in a strong position to give this a shot and to be the first podcast, as far as I know in Ireland, to try to go down the membership route.”

Eoin, who relays the Staunton anecdote at the end of our half-hour chat, discussed the podcast’s origin, rise and what the future holds in an ever-changing landscape.

“Long story short, we thought it would be something new and exciting,” he says.

The origins

Based in Dublin, the Second Captains team have worked with each other for around 15 years. They produced a sports show together for a decade on traditional radio station Newstalk, before moving into the podcast game.

The extras “We’ve always been striving for this kind of independence where we can decide ‘okay, if we want to do a politics podcast we’ll put in a politics podcast’,” says Eoin. “We have also started something recently called ‘The Player’s Chair’ with Richie Sadlier. Richie is a former Millwall player and former Republic of Ireland international. He’s a big, big media star over here and we’ve got him in interviewing people.”

On top of that outlay, which equates to less than 30 pence per episode, subscribers receive access to a number of extras.

“In 2013 we decided to branch out on our own,” explains Eoin. “We set up our own company and tried to adapt to the changing ways of media, because it is changing every year or so.”

In a media partnership with The Irish Times, they produced four podcasts a week. That was until February, when they decided to go it alone.

Every Monday they put out two free shows, one football, one non-football, and for the rest of the week, Tuesday to Friday, they release a podcast a day which can only be listened to by subscribers who pay a minimum of €5 a month – roughly £4.20.

“We wanted to find a way that was viable and also that was something we could buy into ourselves and enjoy doing,” says Eoin.

“Delivering more podcasts and having full independence over what we produce. Not that we didn’t have that with The Irish Times, they were very good to work with in that they gave us free reign.

“It seems like there is an appetite out there now for – it seems arsey to say it – but good quality content.”

‘Humbling’ support from listeners

More than 2,000 signed up on the first day with the subscriber count now at 7,301 at the time of writing.

“It’s amazing,” Eoin exclaims. “To be honest, those first few days I was certainly nervous because we’d done all we could do, we had everything set up, we built a new website for the purposes of the launch and we felt we put in place, as much as we could, a good plan.

“But, equally, you never know.”

“It’s been quite humbling the way people are not just becoming members but also really getting behind the project.

“It feels like people are connecting more strongly and we are getting more feedback, more emails in and tweets about what we’re doing, than when we were doing four free podcasts.

A sports-mad nation

For a nation of less than five million, Ireland has a deep, rich and passionate sporting culture.

Domestic sports such as Gaelic football and hurling attract the attention of thousands, while – from rugby to football, golf to UFC – the country has been a breeding ground for some of the very best.

None more so than Conor McGregor.

“You mention Conor McGregor over here and people have strong feeling one way or another,” says Eoin.

The Conor McGregor effect “Ken is particularly interested in the McGregor phenomenon,” explains Eoin. “He’s been to a couple of fights in Vegas and seen close-hand the kind of impact that guy has, particularly on young men in their early-20s. “He might say the same sentence and the pro-McGregor supporters will rip him apart for insulting him, and the anti-McGregor people rip him apart for being too nice, too positive towards him. “I remember the first time I interviewed McGregor he was very early on in his UFC career. He had a bit of a swagger but he didn’t quite have the certainty he has now. I did think ‘god, this guy is confident, this guy certainly thinks he’s going to go a long way’.”

“That was a completely unforeseen phenomenon in Irish sport media over the last couple of years. Nobody could have known that talking about McGregor on any podcast would have the kind of impact it has.

“So you have the more traditional stuff over here like the GAA, hurling and Gaelic football which are indigenous sports and something, particularly in the summer time, people go crazy for.

“That’s always giving us plenty of content to talk about, and more than anywhere else, the Premier League is a goldmine for most of the year.

“There’s always something stupid happening or some breaking story, whatever it may be.”

The quintet have also branched into television, producing five seasons of Second Captains Live as well as publishing, with the Second Captains Annual.

This summer they will have a radio show on RTÉ1, interviewing famous people who are not involved in sport but have an interest in it.

Second Captains on Catastrophe While they have produced and presented a live show for five seasons on national broadcaster RTÉ2, they’ve also been seen on Channel 4 show Catastrophe. Or at least one of their t-shirts has. Mark Horgan is the sibling of Catastrophe writer and star Sharon – as well as international rugby player Shane. In one scene Sharon’s character is wearing a Second Captains t-shirt while masturbating.

The team

There’s no secret to their success. It’s an amalgamation of skills built up through hard work over more than a decade.

“I definitely think there is that chemistry, Eoin says. “I think it’s a well-produced show, we’ve got a tight five-person team. We know how to work together, we have a good working relationship both on air and off air.

“We’re comfortable in the same studio together, we know which buttons to push and we make each other laugh. We are pretty self-deprecating, that’s the way we are in the office together so it is a natural extension to walk upstairs into our studio and be the same way.”

The name The infamously media-unfriendly Steve Staunton treated Ken Early’s question about the return of Shay Given providing the Republic of Ireland with a second captain. It provoked the response at the top of the article. “People loved it because it was so dismissive,” says Eoin. “That was the genesis of the name.”

And then there is the question of choosing what to talk about, and who to talk about it with.

“It’s a serious echo-chamber type situation if its just us sitting here in front of microphones spouting nonsense at each other.

“I know that’s how other shows do things, there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s maybe a throwback to our radio background that we would always get guests involved as well.

“You want to talk to somebody who knows more than you about a given thing.”

The future

With such a new and previously unexplored venture – a “shot in the dark” Eoin calls it – there is always an element of risk about its long-term viability.

It’s something which Second Captains recognise.

However, their back catalogue suggests they’re a team which is adaptable and innovative, but with a touch of dogma to follow their own path.

“I guess all we can do is look at ways of continuing to add a few more where we can and keep the listeners,” Eoin says.

“While it has been great for the first couple of months, we have just got to keep an eye on it, and how the landscape changes over the next 12 months.

“But the number one thing is producing high quality shows.”