Football, Podcasts, and Beyond: Iain Macintosh on Modern Sports Media

Hi Iain, thank you for taking the time to speak to us today. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and what you currently do?

Hello, Freelance Football Opps! I’m Iain Macintosh and I’ve had a very odd career path. I failed my journalism degree in 2000, but I didn’t mind so much as I had already landed a job on a B2B business news website in London. Then the Dotcom Crash hit and by 2002 I was working on building sites or selling black bin bags over the phone. This was a very important lesson in the capriciousness of fate. But I got myself a job in syndication at The Independent in 2003 (selling Indy articles to other papers) and then in 2005, I moved to Icons where I tried to do much the same thing with football interviews.

One day, a Singaporean newspaper asked if we did anything other than interviews, so I wrote a particularly nasty column about Ashley Cole and they asked me to come and work for them full time. In 2010, with a baby on the way, I started hawking myself out to anyone who would have me and picked up bylines at The Mirror, Sports Illustrated and ESPN, among others. Along the way, I wrote books (Football Manager Stole My Life being one of the only ones that actually sold any copies), appeared on podcasts, radio, television and I edited a small website called ‘The Set Pieces’.

Then in 2017, I started Muddy Knees Media with James Richardson and Ben Green, and that was quite something. By the time I sold the company in 2020, we were making dozens of podcasts, including the award-winning comedy/history show ‘You’re Dead To Me’. One day I’ll write a book about those years.

Since the takeover, I’ve done lots of things for the Athletic, including making the ‘Euro Stories’ series and playing Football Manager for a living. In 2022, I took over the UK Audio Department and just a couple of months ago, after a bit of a restructure here, I said goodbye to middle management and took over ‘The Daily Football Briefing’ which I now write and present with the help of some very lovely and extremely patient producers.

What does a ‘typical’ week look like for you?

I work every evening from Sunday to Thursday to ensure that we have the most up to date show possible as early as possible from Monday to Friday. I will admit that this has put a bit of a crick in my social life because while generations of journalists have proved that it’s perfectly possible to write a decent article after a few drinks, it’s much more difficult to present a show in the same condition. Listeners tend to notice when you slur your words or suddenly tell them all that you love them. But I actually don’t mind. I spend the day reading articles and listening to podcasts, then I spend the evening watching a game or two and somewhere down the line I smash out a 1,500 word script, record it at about 2200 and generally have the show out by 23:00. I am pretty sure that we are the least efficient podcast in human history, in that it takes multiple people multiple hours to create just ten minutes of audio, but I think the effort is worth it. This show is my baby and I’m very proud of it.

What is your number one focus when it comes to your work?

Utility. I used to wish that a show like this existed and in the end I had to make it for myself. There is so much football now, it’s so relentless, it is practically impossible for anyone to stay on top of it. But that’s the objective here. In ten minutes, we want to tell you what happened last night, what’s happening now and what will happen this evening. And that’s not just in England either. We want to make a global show. It’s a competitive, crowded market and I know that people don’t have much spare time available, so the real challenge is making sure that it never, under any circumstances, runs for more than ten minutes. This show should fit into your life, we shouldn’t be asking you to alter your life to fit in this show.

Are there any specific projects or goals you’re currently working towards in your role at The Athletic that you’re particularly excited about?

Only this. And after nearly 20 years of stretching myself across multiple projects or multiple clients, I cannot tell you how glorious it is to have one single objective, one focal point and no distractions.

Could you share a memorable experience or highlight from your career to date that stands out to you?

Definitely the first game. I don’t have the traditional, “I started out at the age of 16 reporting on the Steeple Bumstead reserves in the driving rain,” origin story. I was 29 and my first game was the 2007 Emirates Cup. I’d come from a steady stream of terrible jobs, I had zero experience in football writing and suddenly I was dispatched to cover this glitzy pre-season tournament. I remember turning the corner off the Holloway Road and seeing the stadium, still new in those days, looming in front of me. I just could not believe that someone was paying me to go to this five star hotel of a stadium to watch top class European teams play football.

What is the most enjoyable part of your role?

Always and forever, it will be watching football matches. I have had some terrible, terrible jobs in my time. I’ve worked on assembly lines, I’ve been a night shift hospital porter and worst of all, I’ve worked in McDonalds. I have loved football since I was six years old, I was obsessed with it, my room was covered in posters, my shelves filled with books. I remember being sat in the press box at White Hart Lane for the first home game of the season years ago. The old press box was right behind the dugout, it was an evening game, there was an hour until kick off, it was still sunny and you could smell the cut grass on the air. I’ve never felt so fortunate. I don’t go to games now, the show is made in my office and I watch the matches on the laptop, but even that is wonderful in its own way. You’ve got a cup of tea, you’ve got a notepad, a freshly sharpened pencil and Bournemouth vs Southampton. It beats the arse off getting a proper job.

What is the most difficult part of your role?

Everything is relative. Compared to serving Big Macs to aggressively drunk teenagers on Chelmsford High Street on a Friday night, very little in the media industry can ever be considered difficult. But I did struggle to manage myself in the early days. I was so desperate not to screw up this implausible last chance of a career I’d always wanted that I didn’t give myself any breaks. I slept with my Blackberry under my pillow (ask your parents), the first thing I did when I woke up was check the news, I wouldn’t leave the house in case something happened and I needed to write about it, I tried to be on top of everything, everywhere at all times….and with a thudding inevitability, I made myself quite unwell.

I’m much better at it now. I’ve learned to have boundaries, to compartmentalise things in my mind, to only worry about the things I can control. But when you’re new and you’re consumed with Imposter Syndrome and you’re desperate to succeed, you can ask too much of yourself and pay a heavy price in doing so.

What advice would you give to aspiring writers or broadcasters looking to break into the world of sports media, particularly in football?

Be useful. Ask yourself what editors need. Ask yourself what you can do better than other people. Play to your strengths.

Also, never say no to anything. I was once asked by a producer if I’d ever done telly before. I said that I had, so he booked me for a show. But I was playing fast and loose with the space/time continuum. I was answering for Future Iain. Present Day Iain had never done any television at all. But later that night he had. It’s all about perspective.

Also, don’t be a dick. Don’t attack journalists on social media, they have a horrible habit of remembering names. There’s only about 100 or so people in this industry now and they all talk. And when you get a job, don’t be a dick there either. I was a dick. I cringe sometimes when I look back at how I behaved. I carried on like a local radio DJ, voicing my every thought on social media, banging on about the food in the press lounge. I was over-excited and understandably so, but I wish I’d dialled it down a bit.

Can you share 3 useful tools or resources which you find helpful to fulfil your role?

There’s so much stuff now that I wish had existed back in 2006. The website FBRef is incredible. I’ve had a mixed relationship with data in football, but it is absolutely a part of the industry now, it’s not something you can ignore and that site has everything you need. Go on, have a play, if an idiot like me can make sense of it, you’ll have no issues.

I don’t watch a game without FotMob on my phone now. They have the line-ups, the stats, the context, everything you need to support your own opinions (or have them stress tested and discarded, which is just as important), they make my life much, much easier.

And I am a slave to the Apple Books 99p section and all charity book shops. I’m firmly of the belief that, if you work in this industry, you can never waste time reading a book about football. And I’ve read some stinkers. But there’s always something in there that will prove useful later on. I’ve been devouring football books since I was a kid and there are still massive gaps in my knowledge, so you’ve got no excuse.

What do you do to switch off outside of work?

I try to read as much as possible outside of sport, something I didn’t do very well when I was a writer. But you need to have a wide frame of reference or you’ll just start regurgitating. I came off all social media in instalments from about 2017 and you’d be amazed how much time that frees up for you. I’ve got subscriptions to The Economist, the FT and National Geographic, I read history books, a bit of sci-fi and anything that Terry Pratchett has ever done.

I like a video game too, I’m keen to see what Football Manager 2025 looks like, I play in a Civilisation 6 game with the guys at TIFO and I am hopelessly addicted to Bannerlords on the PS5. And, of course, one of the benefits to no longer slogging up and down the country every weekend is that I now get to spend far more quality time with my family, which is the most important thing of all.

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