
Defector's flagship podcast about sports (and movies, and art, and sandwiches, and certain coastal states) from longtime writers Drew Magary and David Roth. Every week, Drew and Roth tackle subjects, both serious and impossibly stupid, with a parade of guests from around the world of sports and media joining in the fun! Roth and Drew also field Funbag questions from Defector readers, answer listen... more
| Publishes | Weekly | Episodes | 306 | Founded | 6 years ago |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of Listeners | Categories | SportsSociety & Culture | |||

Special announcement: Rohan is not here. But Drew and Roth do actually have an important announcement.
Stuff We Talked About
• Masochistic tendencies
• The Cyber-Christ Complex
• Other people’s dogs
• Non-fungible podcasts
Credits
- Hosts: Drew M... more
Fellow Defector Justin Ellis joins Drew and Roth! They talk about his upcoming book, The Cruelty of Nice Folks: Why Minneapolis Is the Story of America, and how Justin thinks it relates to the latest primaries. But first, Drew’s got a good old fashio... more
Rohan’s back! Him and Drew both have a sandwich story of woe that simply needs to be told. But, more importantly, Giannis is a Heat! Is Rohan excited? Also, the Dodgers just traded for Tigers ace Tarik Skubal. Why do the Dodgers hate baseball? Finall... more
We’re deep in the summer, and that means a Drew and Roth solo episode! Drew is beaming in directly from his vacation, and Roth has some shit to shoot. After, they get to sports, like LeBron’s new commute, Tony Romo’s fresh DUI, and Sophie Cunningham’... more
People also subscribe to these shows.




Drew and Roth are endearing because they clearly love and cannot divorce themselves from sports fandom like so many of their audience members. We all have the ability to understand sports as part of our shared reality, but sometimes you just have to say FTP, Skol Vikes etc. The show sings when this discordance is acknowledged, felt, and eventually ignored because this sports stuff is actually a really good way to sink your attention into something that had a modicum of logic to it (unless you ar... more
Thanks for putting such a good pod together, it’s my b-day and though all the fun i’m still looking forward to listening to the pod tonight, thank you guys so much
My grandma always says that she hated the early rules and wanted to play like the boys played.
I haven’t listened to this in a while, then I saw Spencer Hall was going to be on. Cool! Then These self righteous clowns spent the whole time talking over him, not cool! Zzzzz
Roth is the absolute best! Someone needs to stage an intervention for Drew to get him to stop spreading his horrendous Vikings inspired nonsense that has infiltrated an otherwise stellar podcast. Love that Mina Kimes and Roth called him out for this in the latest episode.
Aside from that, keep up the amazing work!
Key themes from listener reviews, highlighting what works and what could be improved about the show.









Recent interactions between the hosts and their guests.
Listeners, social reach, demographics and more for this podcast.
| Listeners per Episode | |
|---|---|
| Gender Skew | |
| Location | |
| Interests | |
| Professions | |
| Age Range | |
| Household Income | |
| Social Media Reach |
A bold, humorous take on sports culture with sharp banter between two veteran writers, often featuring a rotating cast of guests from sports media, analytics, and storytelling. Episodes blend tactical sports discussion (basketball, football, and analytics), pop culture riffs, personal anecdotes, and candid sponsorship bits. A standout aspect is the chemistry between hosts and a willingness to chase wide-ranging tangents, from the economics of NIL to the craft of sports journalism, all delivered with irreverent wit. This show tends to attract listeners who enjoy provocative takes, inside-baseball sports analysis, and playful debate about the culture surrounding sports, media, and fandom.
Rephonic provides a wide range of podcast stats for The Distraction: A Defector Podcast. We scanned the web and collated all of the information that we could find in our comprehensive podcast database. See how many people listen to The Distraction: A Defector Podcast and access YouTube viewership numbers, download stats, audience demographics, chart rankings, ratings, reviews and more.
Rephonic provides a full set of podcast information for four million podcasts, including the number of listeners. View further listenership figures for The Distraction: A Defector Podcast, including podcast download numbers and subscriber numbers, so you can make better decisions about which podcasts to sponsor or be a guest on. You will need to upgrade your account to access this premium data.
Rephonic provides comprehensive predictive audience data for The Distraction: A Defector Podcast, including gender skew, age, country, political leaning, income, professions, education level, and interests. You can access these listener demographics by upgrading your account.
To see how many followers or subscribers The Distraction: A Defector Podcast has on Spotify and other platforms such as Castbox and Podcast Addict, simply upgrade your account. You'll also find viewership figures for their YouTube channel if they have one.
These podcasts share a similar audience with The Distraction: A Defector Podcast:
1. Nothing But Respect
2. Shutdown Fullcast
3. It's Christmastown
4. Chapo Trap House
5. Guys: With Bryan Quinby
The Distraction: A Defector Podcast launched 6 years ago and published 306 episodes to date. You can find more information about this podcast including rankings, audience demographics and engagement in our podcast database.
Our systems regularly scour the web to find email addresses and social media links for this podcast. We scanned the web and collated all of the contact information that we could find in our podcast database. But in the unlikely event that you can't find what you're looking for, our concierge service lets you request our research team to source better contacts for you.
Rephonic pulls ratings and reviews for The Distraction: A Defector Podcast from multiple sources, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Castbox, and Podcast Addict.
View all the reviews in one place instead of visiting each platform individually and use this information to decide if a show is worth pitching or not.
Rephonic provides full transcripts for episodes of The Distraction: A Defector Podcast. Search within each transcript for your keywords, whether they be topics, brands or people, and figure out if it's worth pitching as a guest or sponsor. You can even set-up alerts to get notified when your keywords are mentioned.
Recent guests on The Distraction: A Defector Podcast include:
1. Justin Ellis
2. Paul Tremblay
3. Dave McKenna
4. Leander Schaerlaeckens
5. David Grann
6. Ian Livengood
7. Patrick Redford
8. Lily Kaplan
To view more recent guests and their details, simply upgrade your Rephonic account. You'll also get access to a typical guest profile to help you decide if the show is worth pitching.