The Athletic Relaunches ‘Full Time with Meg Linehan’ Podcast, Covering USWNT, NWSL And More

 I remember when sports reporting was the local newspaper's sports section, The Sporting News and Sports Illustrated magazine. Of course, sports reporting has gone digital and has a lot more competition. The crowded field of sports reporting digital outlets is driven by the growing popularity of sports, the growth of women's organized sports leagues, and

That's why, in January 2022, The New York Times Company has  bought The Athletic, the online sports news outlet with 1.2 million subscriptions, in an all-cash deal valued at $550 million.

The deal brought "The Times," which has more than eight million total subscriptions, quickly closer to its goal of having 10 million subscriptions by 2025, while also offering its audience more in-depth coverage of the more than 200 professional teams in North America, Britain and Europe that are closely followed by The Athletic’s journalists.

From that purchase came a July 2023 announcement that The New York Times would disband its sports department and rely on coverage of teams and games from its website The Athletic, both online and in print.

Joe Kahn, The Times’s executive editor, and Monica Drake, a deputy managing editor, announced the change to the newsroom as “an evolution in how we cover sports.”

“We plan to focus even more directly on distinctive, high-impact news and enterprise journalism about how sports intersect with money, power, culture, politics and society at large,” the editors wrote in an email to The Times’s newsroom. “At the same time, we will scale back the newsroom’s coverage of games, players, teams and leagues.”

The shuttering of the sports desk, which has more than 35 reporters and editors, is a major shift for The Times. The department’s coverage of games, athletes and team owners, and its Sports of The Times column in particular, were once a pillar of American sports journalism.

So with The Athletic as its core sports communications device,
the company announced the relaunch of the weekly women’s soccer podcast, “Full Time with Meg Linehan.” Meg is a senior writer for The Athletic, covering the NWSL and USWNT.

You may already be familiar with the podcast that was launched in 2020, having recorded almost 150 episodes, but this new iteration is, The Athletic claims: "bigger and better than ever."

Tamerra Griffin joins Meg as a co-host; you might already know her from her stories at The Athletic. She’s a former foreign correspondent and has written for ESPN, USA Today and other outlets. She joined The Athletic for the 2023 World Cup and produced some of my favorite stories from the tournament, whether she was covering Zambia, Colombia, or all the forms of self-expression from players.

New episodes drop every Thursday morning (and maybe more during the Olympics too, since Meg Linehan will be on the ground in France for the tournament). The first episode is out now, featuring a breakdown of Hayes’ first USWNT roster as well as special guests Duda Pavão, a content creator who was in Thailand as part of Brazil’s winning 2027 Women’s World Cup bid, and Kansas City Current and Brazilian forward Debinha.

 

 

Tamerra and Meg closed out with reactions to a shock resignation by Camille Ashton, and a preview of Friday night's top-billing meeting between the Orlando Pride vs. Portland Thorns.

Check out Full Time with Meg Linehan. First, because Linehan is a solid podcast host who knows soccer. Second, because there are not a lot of sports podcasts about women's sports. Third, the podcast is not the typical "sports show that says the craziest shit possible to get ratings" show (Skip Bayless, etc.).