SECOND CAPTAINS have unveiled major plans to change their model and expand with the introduction of a paywall.
The team — made up of Eoin McDevitt, Ken Early, Ciaran Murphy, Mark Horgan and Simon Hick — have been producing Ireland’s most popular online sports shows since departing Newstalk’s Off The Ball and linking up with The Irish Times in 2013.
However, it was today announced they are cutting ties with their main partner and launching The Second Captains World Service, “a member-led, completely independent online station which gives you the chance to listen to all your favourite Second Captains podcasts everyday of the week”, from next Monday, 13 February.
The two free shows on Monday will remain, but in place of Thursday’s double bill, they will instead put out one daily podcast between Tuesday and Friday.
Regular guest Richie Sadlier is set to present one of the new programmes, while they have promised to announce further additions.
The extra podcasts will come at a small cost as there is a monthly subscription fee of €5 to listen on secondcaptains.com. All the details are in today’s show (embedded above).
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I wouldn’t neccisarily agree with anything Ken Early says about football
Isn’t that a quote from Johnny Giles if I’m not mistaken
So many podcasts out there free. Subscription model is tough.
Tough, but I like that they are maintaining the integrity of the content by not going the advertising route.
Seriously, a fiver a month? That’s only two rounds of drinks on a night out, for 5 hours of entertainment a week? I’ll be subscribing, and fair play to them for trying to make it work. Too many nae Sayers in Ireland
Ever so slightly too expensive lads, ye’re not fecking Netflix!
Well worth a fiver….I’m paying a fiver sterling a month for The Anfield Wrap and it only makes me cry at the moment. They deserve to make a living like everyone else…pay if you like them enough, don’t pay if you don’t.
fools and their money.
@paul seriously you don’t really spend £5 a month for a podcast about Liverpool mon ta fuk.
@paul £5 for the Anfield wrap? You should klopp on to yourself!
I did too until there were far too many podcasts being released and I no longer had the time to listen to them all. Beyond that, much of it was filler as they had to come up with much more material. It lost its essence I think. I hope it doesn’t happen with Second Captains.
Hmmm? So from 4 free episodes to 2 free and 4 paid for… I love the show, and yes 5 quid isn’t a lot of money… but just can’t see me making the move.
And if the free episodes devote too much time trailing the paid for ones I can see this costing them listeners.
Still best of luck to them
I usually liked Second Captains, picked a chose what episodes I downloaded based on the description. Certainly won’t be paying for their ‘extra’ content. They should just have some advertising on their show to keep it free for listeners. Can’t see this model being sustainable….
Like them, but won’t be paying for it. Plenty of free podcasts out there to make up for it. Best of luck though lads.
You’d essentially be paying for all that rugby talk which I’m convinced everyone fast forwards anyway….!
Agreed, rugby never off both shows.. totally out of proportion to active participation of the game.. sick of listening to it..
That’s the Irish media for you, the way they hyped up that Irish team last week I was almost glad they lost
@Denis McDermott: Mcdevitt asks shane horgan one question and hes off talking rogbish for 30 mins, it’s terrible.
wedn6night rugby is dreadful gilroy and gerry thornley talking bollix about guys playing in the pocket and building platforms to play wide expansive rugby to get over the gain line like two toffs in kiely’ s over a fine malt and salmon sandwiches absolute torture.
Go forward momentum, line breaks, offloads, line speed… ugh, it’s like the worst kind “bizness” jargon transplanted into sport
me favourite is what gilroy says consistently ‘we ‘coughed up possession’ awful nonsense all together.
Can’t disagree but Eddie O’Sullivan does have rest interesting stuff to say!
Does anyone else think the off the ball lads getting very cringey lately.The Shearer interview last week was very awkward stupid comments and quotes bout Gullit then Bellamy then Keane just to make each other laugh
I like Joe Molloy. Always felt like Ger Gilroy thinks he’s better than me. Sad!
Sam Beckett, the fake banter on Off the ball is very annoying, there’s zero chemistry and a lot of forced laughter. Second captains were a huge loss. Indeed Newstalk is gone down the tubes apart from Moncrief
To say there is zero chemistry is ott. Some times the laughs can be too big and ladish but sure there is always rte sport.
I would actually listen to moncrieff all day long. Best show on radio.
Did you not hear the Armstrong, David Walsh or Cathaal McCarron interviews lately? Thought they were the best sports interviews of the year to be honest.
It’s awful stuff. I gave up on that years ago.
@Sam Beckett: Im finding the “banter” toward Kilbane is beginning to grate. A lot.
Best podcast show in Ireland
@Aidan O connor: by a distance. 5 euro is great value.
RTE should get rid of dead weight bring in second captains boys
Nah when they are on rte radio it’s not the same show, imo.
‘World service’ i.e a website.
It’s a joke about the BBC world service.
The ‘independent online station’ hot air stuff makes me think the BBC was more of an inspiration
@Caelum Rosenkranz: No Caelum listen to Liam, he actually knows what he’s talking about
@Liam Mc Loughlin: Not a very good joke.
Good luck to them but it’s a tough job with so much free stuff available. I’m out.
Pay to listen to Ken Earley? No thanks..
It’s Ken Burley actually
Ciaran Murphy is one annoying presenter. Don’t listen to it anymore. Off the ball and Joe molloy far far superior
You’ve got to be joking me, Joe Molloy is so lacking in any kind of personality or character I fully expect him to turn into an actual drone. Murf isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but McDevitt keeps him honest, he doesn’t speak with a dull D4 accent which always helps, and he’s played a bit of football so you can relate to him, plus they clearly get on extremely well in a natural way unlike the forced banter on Off the ball now
They should make one of the pods a political show ..and the other an anti mcgregor one..
I wish these lads were still on NewsTalk so much better than Molloy and Gilroy. I could just about bare it when Wolly was there, since he left it’s been a disaster.
I couldn’t agree more, the likes of Wolly and Gizzy Lyng made it just about bearable. Molloy and Gilroy are sports journalists in the worst sense of the word, they’re incredibly dull and are trying to copy the second captains in such an inane way
Harsh. And Gilroy was there before any of them so he’s hardly copying them. You have 2 good sports shows so why moan?
I’d have to disagree with you but feel free to pay for the new service. I’m happy with off the ball.
There are loads of sports shows, with plenty of coverage of sport, Second captains were one of the first to combine it with character and personality amongst a group of young lads who had good chemistry and could talk about anything
Gilroy’s interview of Lance Armstrong was class journalism, and I wouldn’t miss the newspaper review for anything.
I’ll definitely be paying for the subscription service with Second Captains. It’s a fiver. A month. And like it or not most podcasts are eyeing that model. Graham Hunter’s had to fund raise to keep it going ffs.
Jesus lads, stop moaning and criticising. Two very enjoyable shows to listen to and enjoy.
Listen to Eoin McDevitt interview Cathal McCarron, Then listen to Ger Gilroy interview Cathal McCarron Then delete your comment
He should delete his comment because of one interview?
No, he should delete his comment because he said Gilroy was a “journalist in the worse sense of the word” and I gave one example amongst many of why the reverse is true. If McDevitt feels it acceptable to celebrate ppl like McCarron yet insult someone like Conor McGregor (and his fans for that matter) for trivial behaviour then how can he be journalistically more credible than any sports broadcaster?
Well Gilroy does like to make thinks about himself on occasion and when it comes to being the better presenter McDevitt wins my a long shot. Don’t know if I’d pin the title Journalist on either of them as such. McDevitt didn’t celebrate McCarron, but Gilroy did do the better interview. I know they said they had received contact from the girls family before he was interviewed hence the few weeks of a delay so maybe that explains why it was more hard hitting. Yeah McDevitt could have when harder but to say he celebrated him is a bit off. Did he insult some of McGregors trivial behaviour? Was this when he threw glass into a crowd of people? I don’t recall. As for the fans, sure most of them are great. They were really classy when aldo was in town.
Your reply perfectly illustrates my point. Complete refusal to acknowledge that the fans who were at that presser are not the majority ( are we really going to say that such a segment doesn’t exist for PL football or boxing etc) I’m referring to the real MMA fans that appreciate the 15/25min of actual competitive endeavour and know to ignore the rest of the pageantry. Of course 2ndCs would never generate the traffic they do if they were to report objectively, it pays to trash McGregor and his ilk because that’s what listeners want to hear, not a balanced report on sport ( excuse the pun ). Your not paying a €5r a month for high standard, accurate reporting, your paying to hear your own opinion confirmed to you in a sneering elitist tone. Say what you want about the OTB teams personalities but I’ve never felt they’ve pushed a specific perception for ratings or money, they just report the news and respect people’s right to enjoy what floats their boat.
Glad I illustrated your point for you. That must have been satisfying.
@Kevin Power: Well McDevitt just approached it differently. Gilroy just responded to the fathers request if i remember. McDevitt called out Jim McGuinness’s hypocrisy if i remember
Won’t work but good luck
Never heard of it .. Don’t think I would pay €5 a mth to listen to it anyway.
But. . . . If you’ve never heard of it then how would you know?
People slating the personality of Ger Gilroy while stating their preference for a show with Ken Early. The mind boggles. The first time I ever felt the need to text a radio station was about 14 years ago and I was listening to Ken Early spew nonsense.
Sure everyone knows he talks rubbish, the lads slate him over it and rightly so.
I’ll be signing up as it’s the pod I’d listen to before otb, the guardian etc. I’ll give it a few months but we’ll have to see how the content is split up.
Some times more content isn’t always better. The Monday slot will cover the weekends sport. The football and rugby will finish in may. Are they going to have huge content on gaa then? Like most here like there podcast but won’t be a sub. Can’t see the value. #cantpaywontpay
I think Eoin McDevitt is wonderful. Ken Early reminds me of some flame haired flame thrower of truth who thinks very cogently about the game.
Are they finished doing the TV show on RTE?
Tv show was too scripted in my opinion, still some good moments and some great parodies
Yeah never got into the TV show. Audio suits them better, not that the show was bad.
And they’re all weird looking fellas…
I think a lot of the listeners are Irish overseas. It can be very hard to get GAA news, RTE/TV3 punditry, Match of the Day etc. €5 a month isn’t too much to pay for good content when our access to it overseas is limited.
€5 no thanks. Off the ball all the way
The guardian pod with James Richardson is the best around.
@Martin Carter: No way. Barry Glendenning is on that and he is awful.
I’d pay the 5r for 1 McDevitt/Murph free show a week tbh
I forgot about these clowns
Loved them on off the ball, but I am not going to pay to listen to them. Wish there TV show was just them giving analysis, not the disjointed show that was aired. Cut the crowd just have one guest from one code on at a time simple TV.