Huddle and Flow’s objective is to bring listeners unfiltered, enlightening and entertaining conversations about the important issues involving the NFL both on and off the field. Steve Wyche and Jim Trotter call on their platform and experience as two black men with 40-plus years combined covering the league to inspire ongoing, positive and engaging dialogue that addresses the current state of sports, society, and social injustice.
Since its inception, Huddle and Flow has made its mission to use its platform to attract a wide and diverse audience and to highlight the social justice activism and community philanthropy players are involved in that the broader public may not be aware of.
While most existing podcasts in the NFL Media portfolio successfully target avid fan segments, the portfolio lacked strong programming targeting consumer groups identified as growth opportunities. According to our internal consumer research team, fans in the “emerging” category are likely to proactively take a stance on issues such as race and gender inclusion, express a deep interest in learning about players and their stories off the field, and are motivated by people’s commitment to a cause.
NFL Media’s multichannel media portfolio and the large social media platforms of Steve Wyche and Jim Trotter are key components of our distribution. Each podcast is cut into video segments for release on NFL.com, while short bites are shared on social media. Full video episodes are available on the NFL Podcasts YouTube Channel. Newsworthy items are often packaged into NFL Network programming. These elements direct users to the original podcast that provides listeners with a complete, immersive experience.
Wyche and Trotter call on their years of reporting experience and outstanding rapport with interview subjects to create engaging dialogue with high-profile guests from football and beyond. Past guests and topics include:
Interviews are recorded using a combination of vMix and StreamYard digital recording technology as well as individual audio recording through our hosts’ NFL-provided home studios. Content is mastered and distributed through multiple audio and video channels.
Opening to a relatively small audience, Huddle and Flow has grown several times over. Its December download totals outperformed its debut month of September by 242%. Spotify demographic data tells us that this audience is a unique subset of NFL Media listeners. Huddle and Flow reaches an audience that is 14% female and 48% composed of individuals 35 years old and up. This differs greatly from our portfolio average of 5% female and 28% aged 35 and older.
With the continued growth and success of the show, we have recently launched a live-streamed video version of Huddle and Flow airing across multiple platforms. The November 5 episode featuring Patrick Mahomes was honored by Spotify as one of the “Best Sports Podcasts of 2020.”
