Drive north past downtown Phoenix on Interstate-17, past the Arizona Cardinals’ stadium out to your left, past the Piestewa mountain range on your right.
Just before you exit the Phoenix basin for good, you hit a suburban town called Deer Valley. In a nondescript office park just off the freeway, The Fantasy Footballers record their long-running hit podcast. I’ve lived in the Phoenix area my entire life and have rarely ventured out this far.
The only thing that might tell you that one of the most popular podcasts in the world records here is a single, embossed logo on the metal front door. The office is where Andy Hollway, Mike Wright and Jason Moore, better known as the ‘Ballers, let me into their studio in early November to watch a Monday episode of the show.
The show’s continual success, signified by its nearly 60,000 “FootClan” members and millions of podcast downloads per week during the NFL season, is vast compared with its meager presence on the outskirts of America’s most tragically underperforming sports market. Inside the studio, I find the machine that the ‘Ballers have built through creative force and patient investment.
“The best decisions we’ve ever made, a lot of them have been ‘No,’ not ‘Yes,’” Holloway tells me. “It’s been selective yeses, very thoughtful and careful decisions.”
The Fantasy Footballers started a decade ago. The hosts, a trio of buddies from a video game startup in Phoenix’s West Valley, started the show as a goofy way to talk about their office fantasy league. They thought they were late to podcasting.
The rest of their story is typical of the early internet, where passion and technical ability could turn regular people into celebrities. The ‘Ballers had an entrepreneurial mindset, production capacity and an impressive depth of football knowledge. As real-life actual friends, the chemistry came easy.
The trio entered what was one of the first and only crowded podcasting niches back in those days, competing against corporate networks like ESPN and CBS, which already had established fantasy football podcasts. The ‘Ballers seemingly stood about by being regular guys, and soon by realizing they were not in fact late to the game, but instead early enough to chart their own course.
The biggest no since that point has been to deter acquisition bids, staying true to the spirit and business model they crafted originally. The most prominent factor in what makes fans love the show and what has made it a business success is the same. This three-man band marches to the beat of its own drummer.
“Their love for the game is what makes millions of people tune in every week,” says David Fish, a moderator on the show’s popular sub-Reddit. “It’s not because they have the best advice. It’s not because their daily fantasy picks are the best. Or that they’re bulletproof.”
On Apple and Spotify, where Barstool, The Ringer and SiriusXM reign, the ‘Ballers hold the distinct honor of being one of the only independently produced podcasts to routinely appear in the top 10 or 20 on the charts. The daily, hourlong show doesn’t stand out from a formal or tonal standpoint. Like most big sports podcasts, it is a group of guys goofing around about sports.
The company now has about a half-dozen full-time staffers and some contractors around the country. The show launched a successful tour in 2024 and is planning another live show in Phoenix next year. The ‘Ballers were the first sports pod to partner with Spotify and now maintain a multiyear sales and distribution deal with SiriusXM.
But when I sit down after a Monday recording in the Deer Valley offices, the crew tells me their independent streak is merely another extension of their passion. They feel SiriusXM really gets their show and its audience, and have grown their video presence significantly in recent years. The reason they have issued so many careful nos is because they are driven to keep building.
“We always joke about what we would do if someone came in here and wrote us a big, giant check to take the business away,” Holloway says. “We probably would come in here and start a business. We’re already doing the thing we love doing.”
In the jumble of daily sports information, The Fantasy Footballers is like a funny uncle in the backyard making the kids laugh. One person close to the operation described the show as the Disney of the sports information cottage industry.
Fish has listened to the show for eight years, and fantasy football is a huge part of his life. At his peak, he was in 11 leagues, and the main league he manages for him and his buddies has been a huge part of how he has bonded with his wife during their marriage. She ran a team in the league until this year. In Fish’s telling, many sports content companies have co-opted the popularity of fantasy to make money. He lists a certain curly-haired ESPNer as one example of the corporatization of fantasy coverage.
The ‘Ballers are a respite from the sharps, the numbers guys and the best bets you get everywhere else.
“I don’t feel like we talk like high-level ESPN people. We don’t speak like them,” Wright says. “And because we’re independent, we can say what we actually believe.
“I think people connect with that because it’s personal. It’s not just a mask we’re wearing. It’s a show but it’s not performative … we say what we mean and we mean what we say. And people want connection with other people and friendships.”
The guys bond over fatherhood, their mutual misery as fans of the Arizona Cardinals, and trying to make each other laugh. They host a spinoff show, The Spitballers, that they have branded a comedy podcast. In a world where comedians are the biggest hosts in America and fans flock to the laid-back energy of athlete-hosted shows, the ‘Ballers fit right in.
Of course, they also are trying to help people win their leagues. The membership program gives the “FootClan” access to proprietary data, analysis and community features.
The ‘Ballers know the fantasy business is increasingly made up of whales and professionals looking to get a leg up. One of the other big “Nos” they’ve repeatedly given in their history is to resist the temptation of big gambling deals, including huge offers from offshore operators in the early years.
While the podcast includes PrizePicks and FanDuel ads, their daily fantasy show is informally titled “DFS For the Rest Of Us.” The hosts want all of their content to be family friendly and lighthearted.
“You have the people that go for the show, like me,” Fish says. “And then you have the people who go for the advice.”
“But between those two groups of people, the core of the audience is the people who are there for the journey. Who aren’t necessarily there for the end result. The people that are going to play next year even if they finish in last this year.”
“(The ‘Ballers) play the way we play.”
Some time, maybe soon, the show will likely say yes to the latest evolution of the industry. They, like just about every other big sports podcast, have held talks with streaming services about moving their video content from YouTube to a new platform.
Because they are still growing the video side of the podcast network and value it strongly, the ‘Ballers worry about moving behind a paywall too soon. They do not want to “betray” their audience by selling too quickly to a paywalled platform, nor do they want to jeopardize the discoverability that comes from algorithmic, free sites like YouTube and Spotify. In-show advertising on a platform like Netflix is also far different than a free, more widely used service. The ‘Ballers aren’t in a hurry give up exclusive licensing rights to anyone, even as rival shows strike massive deals.
But given how rapidly nearly every production network has made the leap to Netflix in recent months, it would be hard to imagine that Holloway, Wright and Moore aren’t bowled over by an offer from the streamer or its competitors soon.
The show will also continue to find new audiences through SiriusXM, which offers a strong tie-in with the NFL and live opportunities on radio. SiriusXM is assisting with monetization across the company’s entire network of shows and content offerings as well, continuing its incursion into digital audio and video.
“We’re uniquely positioned to help Andy, Jason, Mike and the team grow both their audience and their business. The Fantasy Footballers are a standout example of a podcast that authentically connects with fans across audio, YouTube, and social media,” says Jared Fox, SVP of SiriusXM sports programming.
Even from out here in the shadow of the Phoenix mountains, a world away from the league office or any corporate network, the ‘Ballers are doing just fine.
All the nos and a few well-timed yeses have the show in prime position to remain dominant amid the ongoing podcast explosion.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.