1. It never mentions gambling or fantasy sports, which makes me suspect it’s a native ad for the NBA. I bet that a good percentage of the 745 Patreons are really into gambling on the NBA, in some form — how could the article not mention that!? https://www.patreon.com/DuncanLeroux
2. It starts off with some headline listener stats (e.g. “hundreds of thousands of listeners”) and later admits the hard truth that listener stats are not reliable. You only know if people have downloaded a podcast — not if they listened.
3. It perpetuates the myth that Serial is the most successful podcast. I also used to believe that, until I learned otherwise at the LA Podcast Festival.
4. It mentions, but doesn’t properly emphasize, that the $7 Patreons get to download a spreadsheet (which, again, they probably use for gambling). So, really, these guys are both podcasters and data providers. The podcast is how they market their data service.
5. It classifies them as a financial success, without saying how much they make. We know they get about $5,400 per month from Patreon (split 2 ways). I’m not sure how much they earn from Blue Apron, etc. I know $2,700/month doesn’t go too far in San Francisco. Also, they don’t divide $2,700 by the number of hours they spend watching NBA games, compiling their data spreadsheet, and producing the podcast.
6. Gives the obligatory main stream media reference to Gimlet Media, calling it “successful.” Does Gimlet make money? How much? How much does Gimlet pay its employees?
7. The headline is unnecessarily snarky, implying that podcast listeners are looking for vanilla, short, mainstream content. In reality, niches are the biggest areas for opportunity in podcasting. The headline should not start with “Even This...”