Side Story Sports Podcast

When 50,000+ screaming fans pack Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina to see the US Men’s National Team take the pitch, they think the pristine green grass, the stadium wrapping, and the high-tech international broadcast just happened . They are wrong. In this episode, we sit down with John Terry, Vice President of Events for US Soccer, the man orchestrating the massive, invisible...

Data Science often feels cold. We think of algorithms, spreadsheets, and “Moneyball” tactics that strip the soul out of sports. But Skye Reymond isn’t just a number cruncher. She is a former college soccer player who grew up with the game in her DNA. Now, as the Senior Director of Data Science at U.S. Soccer , she uses analytics not to replace the human element, but to understand it. On this week’...

If you look at Joe LaBue’s resume, it reads like a highlight reel of the mid-Atlantic sports world: The Washington Commanders, The Capitals, The Panthers, and finally, the launch of Charlotte FC. But titles don’t tell you what it feels like to sit in an empty stadium after a decision goes wrong. They don’t tell you what it’s like to leave a “dream job” in the MLS to navigate the chaos of the NCAA’...

If you follow soccer in America, you have likely seen Favian Renkel’s name. He has bylines in Forbes , Sports Illustrated , and OneFootball . He is everywhere. But the byline doesn’t tell you how he got there. It doesn’t tell you that for years, “covering the team” meant waking up at 3:00 AM in Japan to translate post-game press conferences for the San Jose Earthquakes, only to finish just in time...

If you browse the library of MLS Season Pass on Apple TV, you will see thousands of hours of content. Live matches, yes. But also deep-dive documentaries, player profiles, and “Breakaway” features. While the live broadcast team is frantic to capture the goal in real-time, there is another team working on a different timeline. They are the ones telling you who the player is after the whistle blows....

Prematch: The Elevator Pitch When Chris Rivett meets a stranger and tells them he is the Director of Communications for PRO Referees, he knows what’s coming. The eye roll. The joke about a missed call. The skepticism. So, he has developed a survival mechanism. An opening line. “Just hang in there for me,” he tells them. “Hear me out. I might just change your mind.” Chris isn’t just a spokesman. He...

Pre Match There is a specific kind of silence that exists in a corporate law firm. It’s the silence of distinct, billable hours, of focus, of isolation. For a few years, that was Alex Burakoff’s life. He was doing the “sensible” thing—drafting commercial real estate leases, knee-deep in documents, largely cut off from the outside world. But Alex had a different noise in his head. It was the roar o...