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This summer's best sport podcasts

This summer's best sport podcasts

Week 31 Podcasts Kevin Day and Kieran Maguire

Steve Ullathorne

The Price of Football

Football finance experts Kevin Day and Kieran Maguire deep-dive into club accounts and tot up the costs of the beautiful game

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When the european football Super League story – five top European teams proposing their own elite competition – broke in April 2021, there was one man every broadcaster and broadsheet wanted to hear from: Kevin Maguire. “I did 80 interviews that week,” he tells RT. “By Friday evening, my wife said I had to turn my phone off and have dinner. Then the phone rang again and it was Gordon Brown wanting a briefing.”

Maguire, whose day job is lecturing on football finance at the University of Glasgow, has become the go-to expert, increasingly in demand not just for the sports press, but also for British and overseas league teams, hoping he can advise their highly paid young players on how they might best manage their millions. “The world of football finance is a treasure trove and I’m a nerd,” he admits happily.

Twice a week, he sits down with comedy writer and sometime sports pundit Kevin Day to reflect on all the latest news. Since 2019, as well as headline grabbers like the Super League controversy – what Maguire calls “the culmination of greed in the game” – the pair have dug into the weeds of local club accounts.

“Nobody used to have any interest in football finance,” says Day. “The local club owner was a butcher, players’ wages and transfer fees weren’t spectacular. Then huge amounts of money started flooding into the game, including from overseas investors, and people started to wonder where it was all going, while other clubs were going out of business. We hit a zeitgeist,” Day reflects 15 million downloads later. “We both describe the podcast as bafflingly successful.”

They’re not popular with everybody. “The Premier League doesn’t like us at all because we speak truth to power,” says Day. “In an ideal world, we wouldn’t exist – football finance would be distributed equally. But sometimes we’re the sole voice for small clubs that are suffering through bad owners or bad decisions.” CAROLINE FROST

Football Daily: The Commentators' View

BBC radio commentators Ian Dennis (left), John Murray (right), and Alistair Bruce-Ball lift the lid on the commentary box

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What’s the mission of your podcast?

John Every week, Ian, Ali Bruce-Ball and I commentate on several football matches, we’ll travel to Europe and sometimes farther afield, so each week we have new experiences to talk about. We are familiar voices in the fabric of people’s lives, so to offer something extra that they don’t get on the radio is why we’re doing it.

How is it different from your other work?

Ian I struggled with the concept at first because I thought we’d tell funny tales from our careers and what would happen when those tales dried up? But we’ve hardly touched on the funny tales because we’ve been talking about our day-to-day lives, and the week-to-week experiences we’ve had.

Do you have a USP?

John It’s probably unique having three working commentators in conversation. As well as the three of us, we have Conor McNamara or Vicki Sparks, plus younger commentators and local voices. It’s quite a community.

Are you often recognised in strange places for your voice?

John I asked for a cup of tea at Malton railway station, and the man behind the counter said, “Are you that football commentator?”

Ian I was checking into a hotel in Newcastle and all I said was, “I have a reservation,” and the guy said, “I recognise your voice, you’re Ian Dennis and I listen to you on the radio!” DAVID CRAWFORD

Week 31 Podcasts Ian Dennis and John Murray

Ian Dennis and John Murray. Tom Sunderland

The Grade Cricketer

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Among dozens of podcasts dedicated to all things leather on willow, this remains the giant, with a slot on TV and live shows around the world. Hosted by Australians Sam Perry and Ian Higgins, who met playing district-level cricket, the tone is more Shane Warne than Ricky Ponting, with their respect for the game matched by their larrikin irreverence for everything else. CF

The Game Changers

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The bad news is that in 2025 “women’s sport” still needs its own podcast. The good news is that, with host Sue Anstiss (co-founder of the Women’s Sport Collective), we meet athletes, coaches and administrators, all trailblazers who have broken down barriers, and shifted the needle on equality in sport. Inspiring stuff, even as Anstiss waits for the day when we have to call it “the Men’s World Cup”. CF

Sir Bradley Wiggins' Café Aficionado

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If you’re going to have a podcast about professional cycling, then who better to host it than Bradley Wiggins — the first Briton to win the Tour de France and a man who’s not short of an opinion or two. He’s joined by his friend, the velo-obsessive journalist Graham Willgoss, to run the rule over the latest action from the cycling world. DC

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