BenchMarks

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Saints delivered a fairy-tale ending, winning Super Bowl XLIV and becoming a symbol of civic resilience. But behind the celebratory facade, a secret and dangerous culture was festering. For this episode of BenchMarks , Tom Albano dissects Bountygate , the most shocking player safety scandal in NFL history. We expose the details of the illegal pay-f...

Colombia arrived at the 1994 FIFA World Cup heralded as a dark horse contender, a vibrant, dazzling squad whose very existence offered a fleeting vision of hope for a nation besieged by the brutal era of "narco-football." Ten days after the tournament, that vision was shattered by a single, senseless act of violence. In this powerful episode of BenchMarks , Callan McClurg revisits the life and sho...

It was a primetime Monday night matchup between the Green Bay Packers and the Seattle Seahawks, but the true opponent was the men wearing the stripes. For three agonizing weeks of the 2012 NFL season, fans and players had suffered under the chaos of the replacement referees amid a labor dispute. The entire country was waiting for a catastrophic breaking point. It arrived on the final, unbelievable...

Before the era of "Super Bowl Sunday" as a national holiday, the game was exactly that: a game. You tuned in, watched the kickoff, saw a trophy presentation, and went to bed. There were no 6:00 AM breakfast panels, no celebrity cook-offs on the sidelines, and certainly no 11-hour pre-game countdowns. That all changed in 1978, thanks to a sudden downpour in the desert. In this fascinating bonus epi...

The Houston Astros’ 2017 World Series victory was supposed to be a feel-good story—a triumph of modern analytics and a symbol of resilience for a city reeling from Hurricane Harvey. Instead, it became a scar on the game, forever known as the Houston Asterisks scandal. In this explosive episode of BenchMarks, Tom Albano unpacks one of the most brazen cheating schemes in sports history. We peel back...

For decades, bowling was the quintessential American Sunday afternoon sport—quiet, focused, and relentlessly polite. Then came Pete Weber . In this episode of BenchMarks , Nick Morgasen profiles the most electrifying, controversial, and polarizing figure the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) has ever known. As the son of bowling legend Dick Weber, Pete was destined for the lanes, but he forge...

It was a baseball season for the ages, filled with historic chases—Tony Gwynn flirting with .400, Matt Williams on pace to break the single-season home run record, and the small-market Montreal Expos dominating the National League. Then, on August 12, 1994, it all vanished. In this episode of BenchMarks , Tom Albano transports us back to the longest and most devastating work stoppage in Major Leag...

The National Basketball Association’s relationship with China is a modern, billion-dollar balancing act, fraught with political tension and ethical conflict. On this episode of BenchMarks , Nick Morgasen dives deep into the complex, often contradictory, ties that bind the world's most globally successful sports league to the world's second-largest economy. We trace the history of the NBA's expansi...

On November 7, 1991, the world of basketball—and the world at large—ground to a halt. In a stunning press conference from The Forum, Earvin "Magic" Johnson , the transcendent superstar of the Los Angeles Lakers and one of the most famous people on the planet, announced he was retiring from the NBA after testing positive for HIV. On this episode of BenchMarks , the Empty the Bench Network's E60 aud...

Every legendary game, every world-shaking scandal, and every career-defining moment leaves a mark on the sports world. Welcome to BenchMarks , the premier audio documentary series from the Empty the Bench Network , where the goal is to go beyond the final score and explore the events that changed the landscape of sports forever. Modeled after the deep-dive, cinematic style of long-form sports jour...