Podcast Madness 2018 — Announcing the Champs!

During the 1980 Winter Olympics, the US men’s hockey team historically upset the Soviet Union in a game that transcended sports with the Cold War in full swing. Commentating the game, famed announcer Al Michaels, exasperatedly asked, “do you believe in miracles?!” The call has become arguably the most well-known American sports call forever tied to underdog upsets and milestone victories worldwide.

So I ask you, podcast fans, do YOU believe in miracles?

When we originally kicked off Podcast Madness, we segmented all the podcasts into four quadrants within similar categories. Up and Comers was for indie or otherwise non-mainstream podcasts; Audio Drama were for (imo) an under-hyped category of podcasts; Figureheads were those household names leading podcasts; and True Crime was for the behemoth of them all when it comes to podcasting. We structured the tournament this way because, quite frankly, I assumed S-Town would win it all since they swept the 2017 Discover Pods Awards and I wanted other podcasts the chance to “win” their quadrants.

Like I said, I always assumed the champion would come out of the True Crime quadrant. But you know what they say about assumptions.

Congrats to Crime Writers On for winning the inaugural Podcast Madness! Crime Writers On isn’t the 2006 George Mason team, they’re better. True Crime Garage, Crimetown, Criminal, S-Town, Wine & Crime, This American Life. That’s not a fire emoji podcast playlist, those are the opponents Crime Writers On beat to become the 2018 Podcast Madness Champions!

Jediah Cummins on Twitter compiled everything the Crime Writers On crew said about the tournament on their podcast, each subsequent round. It’s so humble and lovely and hilarious with hindsight knowledge. They went from astonished to be included, to pleading to just get out of the first round, to accepting their fate against Crimetown, to wait what’s happening, to holy crap we just beat S-Town, to we actually have a chance at winning this thing. It’s perfect.

Throughout my recaps I’ve made thing abundantly clear: I’m terrible at seeding and ultimately predicting the outcomes of these matches. I also think, to a degree, it might be my fault the actual March Madness is as mad as it’s been. In my first recap I said matter-of-factly that a 16-seed has never won a game in the NCAA tournament. They were 0-135. Well, this year 16-seed UMBC beat 1-seed Virginia — stoking what has already been a very wild tournament. The Podcast Madness bracket, while didn’t have a 16-seed upset, was just as wild. Zero 1-seeds were in the final four. The final pitted Crime Writers On, a 10-seed, against This American Life, a 6-seed. A freaking double digit seed won the tournament, that’s crazy!

After over 10,000 votes (after the ballot stuffers were deleted) were cast, the tournament finally comes to an end. Hope everyone had fun and we look forward to improving the process and doing this again next year. Ideally it’d be fun if we created an actual pool where people filled out brackets. If anyone has any idea how to implement this, please reach out to me.

Some final thoughts and notes:

• S-Town beat My Favorite Murder by less than 30 votes, the closest of the tournament
• Surprisingly, the Figurehead quadrant was the least predictable
• The Final Four (seeds) was This American Life (6), Crime Writers On (10), Wine & Crime (3), and Homecoming (3)

See the full tournament breakdown below.