Seahawks Chats podcast: Discussing the Brandon Marshall signing and its impact

The podcast is back with a new episode! It’s Rob Staton of SeahawksDraftBlog.com once again joining me for the show, but instead of just 3000 NFL Mock Draft, we obviously had to discuss the signing of Brandon Marshall by Seattle on Tuesday.

In addition to Marshall, we discuss Tyler Lockett, Amara Darboh and the rest of the receiving corps, rookie Jamarco Jones (pictured above, is obviously not Brandon Marshall), Poona Ford, Cliff Avril and other veteran comments about Pete Carroll this offseason, and more. It’s an episode full of a wide range of topics surrounding the Seahawks and I’m sure another episode will be coming soon.

But I’m not sure if future episodes will be able to live in front of a paywall anymore.

About five years ago I pitched doing a podcast to and with Danny Kelly and so Real in the Field Gulls was born. We did that for awhile and then Danny went off to The Ringer, so I had to figure out ways to re-jigger the podcast with guest co-hosts and featured guests and more episodes of 3000 NFL Mock Draft, the second podcast endeavor I took on simultaneously with Rob over these last four years. Last season, I also started doing a third podcast — Seaside Chats — in which I tried to fold in arts and comedy with the world of the NFL in talking to people about their favorite teams. It may not all be for everyone, but it has been a lot of work. A lot of rewarding work and I’ve gotten out of it what I intended to get out of it: a shitload of experience.

But financially speaking, it doesn’t make a ton of sense anymore. I’ve poured well over 1,000 hours into Seahawks podcasting and paid for equipment and hosting on Soundcloud. I’m grateful to the Patreon subscribers who have helped along the way but they are very few and far between, especially when compared to the 2,000-4,000 listens we get per episode of the show. As of today, I have 19 Patreon donors.

That’s one donation per 100 listeners on the 2,000 end and one per 200 on the 4,000 end.

And I get it. I don’t pay for any podcasts. There are movies and TV shows I haven’t paid for. Nobody has done anything wrong in this equation, it’s just that I have to be more diligent in what I’ll spend any 4 hours per week doing and the podcast ends up costing me valuable time without a reasonable return on that investment. I enjoy talking to my friends about the Seattle Seahawks and I’m glad that up to 4,000 people enjoying listening to those conversations.

If you are interested in donating to the podcast and seeing if that helps get it closer to a rate that won’t keep it behind a paywall, our donor site is: Patreon.com/FieldGulls

If you are interested in sponsoring the show and reaching 4,000 mostly-Seattle area residents in order to keep it from going behind a paywall while also advertising your product or whatever-it-is, you can reach me via email, twitter, something I’m sure.

Otherwise, I’ll have to test out the Patreon paywall model within the next couple of episodes. Thanks so much for your support over the years and continued support (even in spirit) as this is something I enjoy doing and want to continue doing for as long as I have a voice and knowledgable friends with great things to say about the Seahawks.

Enjoy the show!