Whats happening to CrowCast in 2018?

As the year draws to a close. the CrowCast team wishes to firstly thank all our loyal listeners for your support during 2017. We have built a steady following and have a large group of (as Pete would say) rusted on listeners, and it’s great to see the numbers each week and know that our rambling is valued by you all.

That said, CrowCast has been going for 3 seasons now, starting as a pre-recorded podcast in 2015 and progressing to 3 live shows a week plus numerous player interviews in 2016-17. It’s been a learning experience for all of us, and we’d like to think that, over time, we’ve settled most of our production issues and deliver something worth listening to on a weekly basis.

CrowCast was built on the foundation belief that Crows fans suffer from a distinct lack of balanced coverage in AFL media world. We’re in a unique situation – being outside Victoria we dont qualify as “mainstream” to the national networks, meaning we’re often served up generic coverage, erroneous information and, as we’ve seen this off season, snide, aggressive and often ill informed criticism from all the national outlets.

You’d think we’d be able to rely on the local outlets to balance this up, but without naming names, most would agree that the SA coverage is either vindictive, click bait or just plain stupid.

With that foundation, CrowCast have some great plans for 2018, to further improve our offering as an alternative to the mainstream Crows coverage. Here’s what’s in store for next season:

• A change in platform – we’ve used the Spreaker platform for the past two years to facilitate live broadcasts as well as host our casts for on demand listening. Spreaker has been a great platform for us, but it does have it’s limitations, so from next season, we will be moving to a new host and, more importantly, broadcasting our live shows on Facebook. Facebook gives us a great opportunity to reach as many Crows fans as possible and is an easy platform for people to access. Facebook currently has Live Video available and is in the process of rolling out Live Audio on desktop. We’re experimenting with the Live Video format at the moment with a view to offering a broader cast that has visual as well as audio elements. This is quite exciting, but also quite labour intensive, so we’ll take baby steps to ensure our efforts dont “break” the cast. We hope our live listeners will find the transition from Spreaker to Facebook easy and painless
• With the change in platform comes a change in host. All our casts will remain on Facebook after they’ve been live, so anyone accessing our Facebook page  will be able to view and/or listen to any or all of our Casts. In addition, our Casts will now live on this site and be available for viewing/listening live or on demand. As always, audio versions of our cast will remain available on iTunes, and from 2018 also on TuneInRadio and Google Music. Audio streams will still be accessible via all major pod catching software for those who like to download or stream their podcasts from those apps. In short, there will be many ways to get your fix each week!
• Expansion (aka World Domination!!) – we will be marketing actively to spread the love and increase our listenership. This is something we haven’t really done in the past, relying instead on our BigFooty roots and word of mouth. The time has come, however, to spread our wings! So for all of you who listen, make sure you share our links with your Facebook and Twitter friends and help us grow CrowCast!
• New Shows – 2018 will see a dedicated, Wednesday night AFLW show throughout the Women’s season. Scorpus and Nikki will be heading this one up, and we hope to get plenty of involvement from our female listeners (and the blokes who love the AFLW too). Following the completion of the AFLW season, the Wednesday night show will revert to a general AFL talk show, with a large segment of Fantasy Footy content for those Supercoach enthusiasts.
• Our other shows will remain, but with slight tweaks for Tuesday Night Live. TNL will be very much a Crows talk show and we will be encouraging – no DEMANDING – listener participation. We will have many avenues to get involved. Facebook comments, Twitter, Skype, and a dedicated number for people to text or call in. This show will be a chance for you all to get involved and have your say. There will be the usual content, but the show (we hope) will be driven by you guys. Sunday’s Wrap and Thursday’s preview will remain largely the same, but will be fine tuned and assisted by some of the aforementioned graphical wizardry, so if you can watch the live feed either here or on Facebook, you’ll be thrilled and amazed!
• We’ve had the dear old CockWombling Numbnut award and Game of Crows and these will remain but be joined with more competitions and prizes in 2018. Look out for a tipping comp. a Fantasy Footy League and some other spot competitions throughout the season.
• Sponsorship – many of you will have noticed that our shows have been sponsored by Kazmar Event Technology in the past, and they’ve been a great support to the cast. Whilst they have indicated they will continue to do so, we will be seeking more sponsorship for the various shows in 2018. Why do we want sponsorship? Well, every little bit helps us get better equipment, pay for better hosting and generally assists us deliver something which is as high a quality as a bunch of amateurs like us can deliver. So if you’re a fan of the show and would like to kick in a few bucks to help us grow, please drop us an email at sponsorship@aflcrowcast.com and we can provide more information.
• Finally, there’ll be some new faces next season. Donkey Magoo had such a good time as my boundary rider during the Main Break shows, he’s decided to come on full time. Rabman is a BigFooty member who has also put his hand up and promises to give a younger, fresher outlook (I don’t know what he means?!?!). Many of you will know Corey from some of his work on Draft analysis and some cameos on our shows in the past and he will be becoming a regular in 2018. Plus there’s Maggsy, who joins our international bureau as our UK correspondent, complimenting the inimitable AmericanCrow from the US. We hope to have both our internationals on as often as possible next season.

Thats about it for now, but there may be even more to come. In the meantime, thanks again for all your support to date, have a safe and happy Christmas and New Year, and we’ll see you all rarin to go for the AFLW 2018 season.

The team at CrowCast