The State of Split Zone Duo

An update for our listeners on how everything is going.

In a world with hundreds of college football podcasts, we want Split Zone Duo to stand out in a few ways. We want to cover the full breadth of the sport with intensity and attention to detail. (We call this “eating the whole hog.”) We want the show to be informative and entertaining, so we spend a lot of time planning our episodes and making ourselves as knowledgeable as we can. But most of all, we want Split Zone Duo to be understood as a trust between ourselves and the people who listen to us.

We try to live up to that trust in a lot of ways. Number one is that we take your feedback seriously. For the past four or five years, we’ve run nearly annual audience surveys, seeking to get a sense of what you’re looking for from us. We take those results seriously, too. They have helped us pick our editorial direction (for example, doing more history podcasts after being told you all love CFB history). They have helped us pick advertising partners, like the ones you’ve seen on the show for four, five, or six years at a time. They’ve helped us figure out which advertisers you don’t want, which has also been important. In fact, we passed on an opportunity just this week because we felt confident it was not right for us, or for you.

We also try to keep your trust by building a show that works for you. The word “independent” is overused in the media, as we’re all dependent on someone, and we are dependent on you. The only group that we’re really accountable to is our audience, especially our paying subscribers. We’re very lucky to have a few great corporate partners, but our business is primarily subscription-driven.

That means two things: One, we try to make a show you will love. Two, we feel some obligation to keep you looped on how things are going. We’ve admired how outlets like Defector and Extra Points have offered annual reports on the state of their business. So, here goes ours.

How Everything’s Going: The Summary

We are happy to report that Split Zone Duo is in good health. The two of us met in person in January and left feeling optimistic about the next year. A few reasons why:

• At the moment, Split Zone Duo has 4,000 paying subscribers, give or take a few depending on the day. These generous, wise, and savvy consumers get roughly twice as many podcasts from us as everyone else. Subscribe here. This doesn’t give you equity in Split Zone Duo LLC, but you are stakeholders in our success. We could not do this without you

• Subscriber revenue was down 5 percent in 2025. A few things were happening here. Number one, our excellent co-founder and co-host emeritus Steven Godfrey stepped away from full-time SZD duties in January 2025. He’s still with us on a regular basis (at least monthly, often more frequent), but drawing down the full-time cast of the show by one-third clearly affected growth. You may have also heard that 2025 was a tough year for subscription businesses in general, as the state of the economy encouraged people to cut spending where they could. We didn’t know what would happen over the course of the year, but we’re very happy and grateful that the vast majority of subscribers have stuck around, and plenty of new ones have joined up.

• Fortunately, we made up that shortfall with some additional sponsorship revenue. This year, we added Dad Water (discount link here) as another Indiana-based sponsor. We also ran a campaign for Modelo, a beer you have probably heard of. Sponsorships are less than half of our revenue, but they really help. We’ve now spent six years with Homefield, the best collegiate apparel company in the business. We’ve now spent four years with Nokian Tyres, inventor of the winter tire. These have been reciprocally great partnerships, and not just because we’ve scored some free hoodies and tires. Our audience has really bought in, which has allowed our champions at these companies to continue to keep us involved with their marketing. (Special thanks to Connor Hitchcock, Josh Johns, Wes Boling, Chris Golski, and everyone else who’s helped us make a business out of this.) We’ve succeeded with brand partners not by having the biggest scale in the world but by having a very loyal audience that supports partners of the show. So thanks to all of you, too, especially if you’ve bought something or posted on social media about our partners.

• Overall, the SZD audience continues to grow. Podcast metrics are a hilarious, disorganized black hole, but our show usually generates 15,000 to 20,000 downloads per free episode, not counting anything on YouTube. We grew downloads by a few percentage points in 2025. We are especially proud that we (and this includes our dear Godfrey, and all of you) have built this community with zero institutional support behind us. We are not part of a media conglomerate. Until this past football season, our combined advertising budget in the entire history of the show was approximately $500. This community has grown by word of mouth, and we’ll never take that for granted.

If you’re interested in partnering with the show, by the way, email sales@splitzoneduo.com.

Podcasting live in Houston in 2024.

Our Big Goals for 2026

We want to do a few things this year:

• Make the podcast better. This is our goal every year. We are well positioned to do it in 2026, both with our own big pile of ideas and a lovely cast of outside voices. We’ve had a great time podcasting with the likes of Rodger Sherman, Matt Brown, host emeritus Godfrey, and more. We also will have the help of social media producer Hector Diaz and audio engineer Anthony Vito, who are going on a half-decade with us. We are planning some longer-lead podcast ideas that we are excited to get out into the world.

• Grow the audience. Let us explain this one, though, because we know it’s obvious. Every year, some people will stop listening to the show. The goal is to bring in more new people—not because we’re trying to get bought by some multinational company, but so we can keep making this our jobs, paying talented people to help us, and making a show that is for the audience instead of any specific sponsor. We’re on all of the major social platforms. The one that’s born the most fruit of late is YouTube, where we had 5,000 subscribers last year and now have about 27,000. Many of those people will not become regular podcast listeners to the traditional audio feeds, but some will, and they’ll help keep our ecosystem healthy. Others will just stay on YouTube, and we’ll try to give them videos they enjoy, like this one about Curt Cignetti. The results have been good.

• Try a weird thing or two. We have a few ideas in the hopper right now that could enrich your time with us, help us find new listeners, let us put more back into the podcast, or all of the above. Stay tuned.

We face challenges every year. The Balkanization of the internet is a big one, as we know there are now infinite publications and streaming services asking for your time and subscription dollars. The key aim for 2026 will be making sure this show is great enough to keep earning your time and money. Ideally, we’d also sleep more this year than we did last year.

How to Support This Podcast, if You Want!

There are many options:

1. Subscribe. We also offer gifts and group discounts. If you just feel like supporting this show at a higher level because you believe in what we’re doing, we also have a “Founding Member” tier where you can name your amount.

2. Tell a friend about the show! Word of mouth is real. Existing subscribers can also refer people here and earn subscription rewards for doing so.

3. Follow the show on your preferred social media platform. Linking here to TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Bluesky, and X.

4. Leave an Apple Podcasts or Spotify review.

5. Just listen to an episode. That’s always great!

6. Join our free email list here.

Thank you for being a part of what we do. We do not take it for granted how unusual it is to have stable media gigs in 2026, let alone stable media gigs talking about college football with, and to, people we love. It’s a great gift, and we will spend this year working to pay it back with a show you appreciate.

Thank you, Lee,

Alex Kirshner
Richard Johnson