It’s a quiet morning in the Orlando bubble after the Miami Heat took
a 2-0 lead over the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals. Ben Golliver just woke up from a long night of reporting, but he mustered the
strength to wake up early and get back to work. Golliver, a national NBA reporter for The Washington Post, had no complaints. In a black hoodie, black headphones and his signature glasses, Golliver is sitting in his hotel room – the same one he couldn’t escape from for a seven-day quarantine when he first arrived at the bubble.
Those four white walls (and a photo of cacti framed in the left corner when you walk in) have become the new headquarters for his new podcast: “Greatest of all Talk.”
In less than a year, it has become a sustainable business, bringing in over $100,000 in revenue and listeners all around the world.
But let’s wind it back to how this came to be.
Golliver hosted the Sports Illustrated podcast “Open Floor” with his co-host Andrew Sharp. They had built tens of thousands of listeners that tuned in twice a week. Suddenly, SI made massive layoffs in October 2019, and Golliver suddenly found himself without a co-host and thousands of emails from upset fans.
This became an incentive for him to take a risk and start an independent podcast with Sharp, who was laid off by SI.
“When everything fell apart at SI, we knew we wanted to keep the podcast going one way or another,” said Sharp. “It was just a matter of how we’d keep it going. We had interest from several outlets, so that was encouraging. Then it was just a matter of meetings, talking to Ben, and taking enough time to find the right approach.”
It not only became a question about how to turn this new podcast into a business, but how to satisfy the people who listened to their previous podcast.
“Ultimately, we decided we could do the subscription model sustainably since we had a community of die-hard listeners who were willing to buy-in,” Golliver said.
Partnering with Supporting Cast, a membership-only podcast platform by Slate, GOAT’s monthly subscription fee is $4.99, with no long-term obligation. The podcast is entirely behind a paywall, but the listening experience is ad-free.
“We had no idea what to expect when it came to subscriptions,” Golliver said. “In the first hour of our launch, we got more than we expected to even get in the first month.”
Lindsay Barenz, vice president of business development at the National Women’s Soccer League, has been a listener from the beginning.
“When the Ben and Andrew era of ‘Open Floor’ was truly over, I was genuinely upset,” Barenz said. “When (they) launched GOAT as a subscription model, I signed up immediately. I happily pay them $5 a month. It felt like the return of an old friend.”
Three months into launching GOAT, the pandemic hit.
Golliver was left with a podcast that only talks about basketball, with no basketball happening.
So, he spoke about his nature walks and argued about his favorite players of all time. It became a group therapy session for people who were obsessed with basketball, who just wanted to hear something about the sport to feed their cravings while there were no live games.
“So, we saw a very modest increase from March to July,” Golliver said. “Just very slight uptake. We lost a few people; I imagine because they probably lost their jobs and couldn’t spend money on the podcast anymore.”
This brings it all back to Golliver’s new headquarters: the bubble.
When basketball came back in July and Golliver moved to Orlando, there was an explosion of interest. Hundreds of people began subscribing in a short period of time.
“Ultimately people can cancel at any time,” he said. “So, we have to make sure that each show is good enough so that we are still worth their money. There's a lot of pressure with this particular model we have because it’s very transactional. Every day is kind of like a Game 7.”
Golliver handles the promotional and business side and Sharp focuses more on content. They knew that going to a subscription model would be a challenge in a world where most people don’t want to pay for content – and certainly don’t have to – since there are so many free podcasts available.
But the podcast duo has distinguished itself from the others by not only gaining new paid subscribers but keeping most of the day one listeners from “Open Floor.”
GOAT’s retention rate, which is the percentage of subscribers who stick around from the start, is 97%.
“The thing that’s unique about Ben and Andrew’s podcast is that they build their episodes around listener submitted questions and comments,” said Barenz. “It starts to feel like a real conversation. There are inside jokes and long-running gags that you only get if you listen for a long period of time. It feels familial.”
For Barenz and many others, podcasts are an intimate form of media.
“Podcast hosts accompany listeners to places we don’t take a lot of people,” said Barenz. “So even though hosts and listeners are strangers, it seems like a friendship. We’d been through so much together; cross country moves, career changes, relationships.”
A fan from the Philippines tattooed their podcast logo on his arm.
Photo Courtesy of Paul Gonzales from the Phillippines.
Besides having a very loyal community of listeners, very few small businesses make $100,000 in revenue within the first year. GOAT’s profit is high because the production costs are low, so the profit margin is significantly higher than it would be for most podcasts.
Golliver is focused on turning that profit into charitable giving by reinvesting in causes he cares about.
GOAT sponsored a class of special-ed students in Memphis, Tennessee to buy them all computers for distant learning during the pandemic. Now, Golliver is raising money for the Oregon Wildfire Relief, since he’s from Oregon.
“We encourage people to donate directly if they want to,” said Golliver. “But we’ve set up methods to give to us. If they give to us, we will match and bundle everything they give. If you donate a dollar, we donate a dollar. That way your money goes twice as far.”
Not only are they matching for charity – 50% of GOAT merchandise proceeds go towards charity as well.
Merchandise available at www.greatestofalltalk.com/store
A problem most media talents find themselves in, especially at bigger companies, is that they get entangled by their contracts so they can’t work on other products.
“I’m very very lucky that The Washington Post allows me to do this, a lot of companies might not,” said Golliver. “I like this business because it doesn’t inflict on anything else I do, it’s a stand-alone product.”
Ultimately, it also worked out well for Sharp, who transitioned into a legal career after SI. He was in law school throughout the time he recorded the “Open Floor” podcast.
“It quickly became clear that law would be a better place for me to work full-time,” Sharp said. “The dream scenario was finding a firm that would allow me to continue recording the podcast, doing what I loved most about my past few years in media.”
His firm, and Golliver, were really supportive of this.
“It’s one big family where everybody wins,” Golliver said.
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