As we near the launch of the 2023 amateur seasons (yes, some have already kicked off), I thought I’d take a second to talk about some exciting developments in our family of podcasts. While we strive to produce daily written content on this site, focusing on a variety of American lower leagues, we are also pushing podcasts on a near-daily rate. If you aren’t subscribed to our feed, I’d highly suggest you give it a listen!

Currently we have four weekly (or near weekly) podcasts in rotation: Knights Who Say NISA, One League Under the C, The W Show, and USL League 2: The 2how. Outside of those shows, we also release The Protagonist Podcast as often as needed to include content that might not fit into our existing categories. That means, on most weeks, you’ve got a fresh podcast focused on lower league soccer every weekday morning you wake up.

Some have complained about our expanded focus on USL leagues and I think it’s important that I respond to those complaints. While in the past many of our staff, including myself, have criticized USL for a variety of points, it would be foolish to ignore the growth, impact, and professionalism of its operation. We are striving to give coverage to many leagues, but we couldn’t pretend to be focused on American lower league soccer and not cover the leagues within the USL system. We believe that the USL is doing some amazing things in soccer and will cover it as we have covered every league - with integrity, accountability, and a focus on the facts. As I often tell critics, if you’d like to see more coverage of another league, reach out, we’re always taking more volunteers!

On that note of expanding coverage, I’m excited to announce two developments in our podcast operations. First, we’re excited to announce a new partnership with The USL Show to grow coverage in several areas. The USL Show is one of the best outlets for USL Championship and League One coverage and we’ll be working to cross promote our podcasts. Their podcast will remain on their own feed (which we recommend you follow), but expect to hear guest spots from their cast on our shows and vice versa. We also have plans to include written articles from their team on Protagonist Soccer in the future. Expect more announcements regarding this partnership moving forward.

Secondly, we’re also getting set to begin a new podcast project in the next couple of weeks. Hosted by longtime lower league soccer hype man Dennis Pope and myself (because you definitely needed to hear more of this voice), the show will be focused on one of the most important parts of the national pyramid, regional soccer. With interviews, match recaps, and table updates, our weekly show will tap into the growing network of regional leagues across the country. I’m extremely excited about this project and can’t wait to see where this new coverage leads us.

As always, Protagonist Soccer continues to focus on growing the game through the best coverage available. We’re thrilled with where we’ve been but feel we have so much more to see and do. If you’d like to financially support what we do, visit our shop and buy something or subscribe to our Patreon. Thank you for your support and patronage. It means the world to us that you spend your time and money with us.

- Dan Vaughn