New Podcast/Podcast News!
A look back at Season One in The Seventh Circle.
Hello!
We’ve just released Episode 16, Part 2 of The Seventh Circle Podcast, capping our two-day look at the surprisingly broad blight of Minnesota sports with a deep dive on the Minnesota Vikings.
This is a hellish high note — or low note? — and an optimal time for us to announce that we’re going to call that the end of Season One, as we’ll be taking a bit of a hiatus from podcast audio production. We’re going to work out some things on the technical and scheduling end, and we’ll let you know as soon as the next season is coming.
The newsletter’s going to keep going in the meantime, and you’ll see some new and different things here soon. (Tomorrow’s edition of A Good Day In Hell will arrive as scheduled, never fear.)
Fortunately, if you’ve just come to The Seventh Circle, there’s still plenty for you to catch up on until we’re back recording — our approach of profiling the painful histories of each location/subject means that they’re not strictly topical, and you can go back and listen without them sounding dated.
Here’s a recap of what we covered in Season 1, all of which can be found directly at our website, The Seventh Circle:
EPISODE 1: Welcome To Cleveland
Near and dear to my own heart as a Cleveland native, Joe and I kicked things off with the city that’s long been synonymous with sports failure. The Drive! The Fumble! The Shot! Jose Mesa! Was LeBron James’s return and a shocking title in 2016 enough to break the curse? Or was it just enough to draw in another generation for further torture?
EPISODE 2: Welcome To Tampa
Ryan Nanni of The Shutdown Fullcast/Banner Society and Mark Ennis of ESPN Louisville joined us to talk about their shared hometown, the futility of Bucs fandom, and the great Citrus Boycott of the 1970s.
EPISODE 3: Welcome To Boston
Comedian Mike Mulloy joined us to talk about how endless success can be its own form of hell. (It’s a tough argument to sell, but Mike’s a funny dude.)
EPISODE 4: Welcome To The Swamp (Florida Gators)
Spencer Hall of Every Day Should Be Saturday/Shutdown Fullcast/Banner Society joined us to talk about the Big Dumb Will Muschamp Era of football in Gainesville.
EPISODE 5: Welcome To Buffalo
Peter Berkes joined us to talk about the Buffalo Bills, who lost four straight Super Bowls and then missed the playoffs for nearly two decades.
The perfect summary of what we do here.
EPISODE 6: Welcome To Baltimore
Haley O’Shaughnessy of The Ringer joins us to talk about The Ravens, but we spend a lot of time digging into the miseries of the Orioles over the last two decades.
EPISODE 7: Welcome To Flushing
David Roth of Deadspin comes on to talk about the Mets. They immediately went on a winning streak after we first aired this! Did it last? No!
EPISODE 8: Welcome To Houston
Stephanie Stradley of The Houston Chronicle shares her long history with Houston sports, including the Texans, Astros, Rockets and the theft of the Oilers.
EPISODE 9: Welcome To Atlanta
Dr. Ricky L. Jones, Chair of Pan-African Studies at the University of Louisville, joins us to talk about all things sports from his hometown of Atlanta. We got a professor to curse us out within the first five minutes of this one!
EPISODE 9B: Stick To Sports
Dr. Jones stuck around in the studio to have a deep and wide-ranging conversation with us about the intersection of sports, politics and society.
EPISODE 10: Welcome To Columbia (Mizzou)
Pat Forde of Yahoo Sports joined us in studio to talk about his alma mater, The University of Missouri, who have disappointed him consistently over the years.
EPISODE 10B: Welcome To Saturdays
The one truly topical episode this season, Pat Forde stuck around to preview the “worst-case, hell scenario” for college football’s Preseason Top 25. Still fun for a revisit, to see what he nailed. (UCF losing to Cincinnati!)
EPISODE 11: Welcome To Limbo
Haley O’Shaughnessy of the Ringer rejoins us to talk about what it’s like being a fan without a town. (Heavy focus on the NBA in this one.)
EPISODE 12: Okay here we just re-ran Cleveland before the Browns’ season started and [checks standings and Baker Mayfield’s stat sheet] this was not wrong of us
EPISODE 13: Welcome To Athens
Amanda Mull of The Atlantic joins us to discuss her beloved Georgia Bulldogs, one of the most successful teams to not win a college football title in the last 35 years. Listen for a story of her harassing a Notre Dame fan that didn’t go as planned!
EPISODE 14: Welcome To Ann Arbor
Ace Anbender of MGoBlog joins us to talk about the Michigan Wolverines. We recorded this right before the Wisconsin game and aired it the day after. Thanks for goosing our numbers, Wisconsin.
EPISODE 15: Welcome To Life After Football
Former NFL and University of Louisville safety Curry Burns joins us to talk about what it’s like when a football playing career ends, and where you go from there.
EPISODE 16: (Pt. 1 / Pt. 2) Welcome To Minneapolis
Finally a challenger to Cleveland’s throne — a city with teams in all four traditional major men’s professional sports, and not a single championship game appearance between them since 1991. (The Minnesota Lynx have carried the weight for an entire region). A topic so big and wide-ranging we had to split it over two episodes.
We encourage you to go back and listen to all of these while we’re on hiatus from recording. Thanks for supporting The Seventh Circle.
— Scott Hines (@actioncookbook)