Last updated on February 26th, 2018

Round 1 of Podcast Madness 2018 was more intense that I originally thought! Stay tuned for a full recap and analysis. We said goodbye to podcasts like Atlanta Monster, Our Americana, The Allusionist, and Magnus Archives. The tournament must move on though. In Round 2, the matchups get a little bit harder, less easy decisions.

Quick recap on the rules: voting is open for a week, every person only gets one vote per round — no ballot stuffing.

We still had some would-be ballot stuffers in Round 1. Here’s the short end of it: we monitor email addresses, IP address, and suspicious voting patterns, please stop trying to cheat. It’s all in good fun. Once we identify a repeat voter, we delete all the votes after the first one. LOL at the person who tried voting 84 times, not sure if you read my recent article, but I’m halfway decent at recognizing data patterns. It’s pointless, please stop.

Here’s the schedule:

  • Round 2 February 19-25
  • Sweet 16 February 26 – March 4
  • Elite Eight March 5-11
  • Final Four March 12-18
  • Championship March 19-25

Round 2 Matchups

Up and Comers Quadrant

  1. Twenty Thousand Hertz vs. We Have Concerns
  2. Sneak Attack! vs. My Thing Can Beat Your Things
  3. Podcasts We Listen To vs. Wine and Crime
  4. Doug Loves Movies vs. Kevin’s Cryptids

True Crime Quadrant

  1. S-Town vs. Dirty John
  2. Embedded vs. My Favorite Murder
  3. Heaven’s Gate vs. Criminal
  4. Crime Writers On vs. Crimetown

Figurehead Quadrant

  1. WTF with Marc Maron vs. Fresh Air
  2. 99% Invisible vs. Pod Save America
  3. This American Life vs. Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History
  4. Lore vs. How I Built This

Audio Drama Quadrant

  1. Welcome to Night Vale vs. Wooden Overcoats
  2. The Black Tapes vs. Tanis
  3. The Walk vs. Homecoming
  4. Poplar Cove vs. The Bright Sessions

The organization seemed to work well for the first survey, so on the first page we’ll have the Up & Comers and True Crime quadrants, page two will have the Figureheads and Audio Dramas.

Voting will be open until February 25th at 7pm ET.

Voting is now closed. Click here to find the current voting round.

Here’s a PDF version of the bracket