On the same day of the first-ever FIFA World Cup match to be played on Canadian soil, members of Footy Prime The Podcast will put their stamp on the historic moment by ringing the opening bell at the Canadian Securities Exchange in downtown Toronto.
The moment will have been nearly seven years in the making.
Footy Prime co-founders and on-air contributors Dan Wong, well-known broadcaster James Sharman, Canadian Soccer Hall of Famer Craig Forrest, and former star Toronto FC striker Danny Dichio launched the podcast in the fall of 2019 after identifying a void in the market for soccer content in Canada.
However, Wong - with a wealth of experience in sales, marketing, and production - recognized that the show could only be successful if they took a different approach to soccer coverage than what was already being produced by major networks.
“We had to be strategic,” Wong told BNN Bloomberg in a recent interview. “I had to get the team [of trained broadcasters] to lean into their more locker room, bar, around-your-friends, post-match, walking-down-the-street [persona].
“We had to lean into our darker angels, maybe the ones that are truer to ourselves because what we realized is we can’t keep doing a podcast that a broadcaster can copy. So, it defined us that we created content that had authentic, transparent, and sometimes polarizing takes.”
In addition to Wong, Sharman, and Forrest, the cast of the show boasts an impressive lineup of experienced broadcasters and Hall of Famers in Jimmy Brennan and Amy Walsh (who joined the cast in January 2023), along with contributor and producer Jeff Cole. Dichio departed the show on good terms in January 2022.
Footy Prime, which has now taped over 1,100 episodes, reached a partnership agreement with Torstar ahead of the 2022 World Cup.
Wong and his team incorporated the business in 2024, forming the umbrella company Footy Prime Media Inc., with each current member of the podcast receiving an equity stake.
After concluding the agreement with Torstar, Footy Prime signed on with Acast and in December of 2025, the show reached an exclusive agreement with SiriusXM Media Canada.
“This partnership reflects the growing appetite for premium soccer content in Canada, and we’re thrilled to welcome Footy Prime into the exclusive SiriusXM podcast network,” SiriusXM Media Canada VP, Country Lead Jon Hales said in a press release when the deal was announced.
“Footy Prime‘s credibility, humour, and deep fan connection position them as the perfect partner for brands looking to break through with soccer audiences—particularly in a World Cup year, when passion and attention skyrocket.”
Wong says the show initially helped the cast members keep their stride during a period of unemployment and that gathering to record episodes became therapeutic, especially during the pandemic.
But even from the beginning, Wong and his team were also starting something they believed could grow into a larger business.
“We weren’t monetized [yet], but [those early days of the show] gave us a great outlet for growth, [while] at the same time, being strategic about how we wanted to do it,” said Wong, who also serves as president of Footy Prime Media and is a producer of the show. “We knew we had to create a baseline of content, subscribers and support from listeners.”
Neil Acharya and Neate Sager started the podcast SportsLit in 2017 in which the hosts interview authors about their written work.
The most recent episode of SportsLit, which is now in its 10th season, featured an interview with legendary Canadian broadcaster Rod Black about his new book Cut to Black: A Legendary Life in Sports (and Maybe a Few Beers).
Acharya, who is now the sole host of the show, says the podcast – which is primarily a hobby outside of work - was born out of the idea of featuring books that he is interested in and actually has time to read.
For Acharya, monetization has never been top of mind.
“There are people out there that are probably making some sort of money on this type of thing - it depends on your motivations,” Acharya said.
“Everyone has different motivations. [My podcast] was never started to make money. I think if you want to start a podcast and your main motivation is to make money, that’s up to you. For what I do now, the idea is to just have the best conversation. What happens from there, happens from there.”
Furthermore, Acharya admittedly takes a passive approach to promoting his work, instead preferring to grow his audience in a more authentic manner.
“I just kind of put [the podcast] out there,” Acharya said. “I don’t even market it. It’s very organic. I myself don’t love to be sold to, so I try not to sell to others. There’s not a lot of interaction [with the audience].
“The one thing for sure is I never wanted it to be about what will sell, what book will be popular [or] what the audience wants, per se. I figured the audience will come to it if they feel the conversations are coming from a good place and are pure and are something they want to tap into, as opposed to having it pushed on them.”
Wong takes a similar approach to growing the audience for Footy Prime to the extent that he doesn’t see any value in paying to acquire listeners.
“We’ve said we want our crew [supporters, listeners, and subscribers] to be organic,” said Wong.
“We never wanted to be in a place where we’re like, ‘Hey, let’s see what one of these click farms and subscriber farms do.’
“If [the listeners] are not real, they’ll be taken away at some point. It doesn’t seem like the right way to do business because that would also be us being dishonest with our new partners about how many real listeners there are. [Paying for listeners] was a fairly quickly dismissed thought.”
Heather Gordon is managing director, Canada at Acast, a division of a global company that houses 140,000 podcasts on its platform. Acast pairs podcasters with brands and advertisers and provides assistance to those looking to reach a larger audience.
According to general Acast data provided by Gordon, sports podcasts now reach more global consumers than sports movies or major sporting events, with 56 per cent of the global monthly audience indicating that listening to their favourite sports podcasters is a highlight of their day.
Furthermore, Acast data reveals that 53% of sports podcast listeners made a purchase from a brand after hearing a podcast ad in the last six months, compared to 43 per cent of overall listeners.
Another notable data point for sports podcasters is that 44 per cent of global sports listeners increase their podcast consumption during major sporting events, such as the World Cup.
I asked Gordon, hypothetically, if it is too late to start a basketball podcast in Canada, especially if my concern is that the marketplace is overcrowded.
“I think there are endless opportunities for different discussions,” Gordon said. “If you wanted to launch a basketball podcast about [recapping] last night’s game, you’re probably going to run into a lot of competition.
“But, I think if you had an interesting voice and an interesting angle, something that isn’t currently being done, then I would absolutely tell you to create a podcast in sports in Canada.”
As for Footy Prime, the timing couldn’t be better with the World Cup stepping to the forefront of the sports and cultural landscape in Canada.
Through the end of the tournament, Footy Prime is producing a daily live-to-tape show for SiriusXM Satellite channel 167, Canada Talks – a platform that also features programming from the likes of former news broadcaster Peter Mansbridge and comedian Jessi Cruickshank.
While the podcast will continue to be delivered to platforms such as Apple and Spotify during the World Cup, the satellite version of the program will provide Wong and his team an opportunity to greatly increase their reach.
Wong is also hopeful that afterwards he can use the momentum of the World Cup to push soccer more into the mainstream sports conversation in Canada, which tends to be frontloaded with hockey coverage.
“I’m hoping that soccer, with the Northern Super League, Canadian Premier League, Major League Soccer, like even this push to keep the [Vancouver Whitecaps] in Canada - I can only be hopeful about the market [for soccer coverage] expanding,” he said.
“But if [that’s not the case], we’ll find our niche. I would love to say we’ll be having a broader conversation next year and we’ve been flourishing. But, Footy Prime is a journey and we’re just happy to be [alongside] our supporters, our listeners and [each other].”
Though after seven years, Footy Prime has clearly rung the bell, grabbing the attention of soccer fans and advertisers looking to reach their audience.
Footy Prime Media Inc. - which also produces a podcast dedicated to women’s soccer, called The BroadsCast - provides Wong and his team a home base for content creation and the confidence to continue building out their portfolio.
“We’ve created a workflow and the partnerships to have those conversations about growth that are transparent and can deliver on numbers immediately, using Footy Prime The Podcast and The BroadsCast as amplification points for [any] new shows,” says Wong. “Probably post-World Cup, you should be hearing more things from us on new shows and events.”
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When I set out to write this piece, I wanted to learn some of the nuances and realities of monetizing a sports podcast in Canada to the point where the work can become not just a time-consuming hobby, but rather a sustainable business.
Sure, there might be a void in the marketplace, but an authentic idea is just the beginning. It could take years of dedication and consistency to appear as an investable business in the eyes of advertisers – and even then, there are no guarantees of leaving behind your day job.
The pursuit of a profitable sports podcast in Canada is certainly not for the faint of heart.
Follow Paul McGaughey on X: @SportsWriter_PM
