“The Thing I Don’t Take for Granted”: How the Audience Shapes the Fantasy Sport Podcasting Environment

The rise in podcast creation and consumption has created a congested landscape that necessitates intentional consideration from podcasters to connect with their audience. Through the collaborative production of content, known as produsage, podcasters are motivated by and take value from engagement with their listeners. Currently, a gap exists specific to the fantasy sport genre in examining how the audience impacts the podcasting environment. Thus, the purpose of this qualitative study was to analyze the role of listeners on the experiences of fantasy sport podcasters. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 11 fantasy sport podcasters, with a thematic analysis revealing four main themes (i.e., meaningful audience, motivation from audience, leveraging feedback, and audience challenges). From a theoretical and practical perspective, findings advance understanding on produsage communities that elicit meaningful relationships as fantasy sport podcasters are reliant upon their audience to ensure positive outcomes.