Something strange is happening to me. At 35, for the first time in a decade, I don’t care about (non-Philly) sports. And I’ve replaced most of my sports-podcast-junk-calories with something maybe even worse… political-podcast-junk-calories.
I’ve been a sports podcast consumer for 10 years.
2016 – May 2019: I was your run-of-the-mill mid-20s Pardon My Take listener. The sports were less important than the entertainment, but I liked being loosely informed and feeling like I was in on the joke.
May 2019 – June 2019: The Blazers and Warriors played in the WCF. For some reason I decided I wanted to consume as much NBA content as I could. Bench rotations, back-up centers, coaching staff, etc. I did that for a month until I snapped out of it wondering what the fuck I was wasting my time for.
June 2019 – 2026: I landed on what I’d call slightly-above-average-sports-fan level. I listened to NFL recaps every week; which teams are looking good, which quarterbacks are struggling, mostly shows from The Ringer. I found personalities I liked. They made for pleasant rides to work.
These days, the NFL weekly recaps pop up in my Spotify feed and I feel zero inclination to listen about what’s wrong with Drake Maye or how the Vikings are a surprising 4-0 team.
That said, I do still find the stories of power-dynamics and money interesting. I can listen for an hour about Ballmer & the Clippers, or the forces behind college football playoff expansion, or the pending MLB lockout, which I think is an important distinction. But the literal substance of the sports do not interest me any more.
Instead, all of a sudden I am IN on these political mid-terms.
I find the potential blue wave fascinating and am drawn into, for example, the Talarico vs. Paxton Texas Senate race. I think Trump is terrible and am interested to see if the country is actually coming around on that (in some cases the Dems even have good candidates!).
Polls aren’t always reliable but given Trump’s awful approval rating and how bad some of the Republican candidates are, like Paxton, the swing could be significant and it’s a fun time to pay attention.
Podcasts on the midterms as well as general politics have replaced the day-to-day sports chatter for me.
Maybe every middle-aged dad takes this turn eventually. I don’t have time to watch non-Philadelphia sports. I was in bed by 8:30 each of the past two nights. I do not care that the Panthers beat the Lions while I was asleep. Wait. The Lions?
The political stuff could be a fad. I’m leery of ever becoming the too-political person. Four years from now if Trump has faded away and republicans are re-defining the party I will certainly not be as tuned in to the 2030 midterms. Or maybe he’ll be serving his third term and I’m storming the capital, who knows.
But this feels like a notable shift from my previous habits that’s worth documenting. It was probably predictable, but I did not see it coming.
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