An idea for a newsletter

14 Sep, 2024

I intended to write this up yesterday (Friday) but my back had other designs and sent me to the hospital¹. Thankfully the idea is still fresh in my mind so I thought I'd write about it. After all, I teased the idea on Mastodon so it's only fair to reveal my potential intentions.

The idea stems from a messenger conversation I had with my brother. We run a podcast together called Jays From Home; it's a baseball podcast and we talk about the Toronto Blue Jays. We started it...three years ago I want to say? Anyway it was once a weekly show, then this year we switched to bi-weekly - his schedule is getting busier as his kids get older. Last week he mentioned that he doesn't think he can continue with the podcast - and he's okay if I continue on solo, or find another co-host.

This got me thinking; I could host it solo, but one of the things I enjoyed was that I would run through the show notes and my brother would take the lead on the discussion topics. I'd throw in my thoughts and talk back-and-forth; he's more of a baseball fan than I am, so it worked well. If I hosted solo, it would probably be more surface level. And I have no idea who I would approach to be a co-host at the moment.

So when I was walking Thursday, the idea popped into my head: I could run a podcast about our local Frontier League baseball team, the Ottawa Titans. Technically I already have media accreditation (courtesy of my brother a few years back), so I'd have access to the team if I wanted to take advantage of it. But then the idea evolved.

There are several sports teams in our city, including four pro teams (NHL, CFL, PWHL, NLL), a junior team (OHL), the aforementioned baseball team, a soccer team, and a basketball team - and there might be more I'm not familiar with. Why not start a newsletter covering the sports teams? My ambitious mind thought I could cover different sports on each day of the week but I backed it down to a weekly newsletter with an overall round-up and a few paragraphs of thoughts about a specific topic.

And if I wanted, I could use the written info to put a podcast together, but that part is secondary. I think I would rather focus back to my book podcast if I'm going to shift away from another podcast.

So that's where the idea stands. I'm going to take a few weeks to think it over, which will lead into the start of the NHL season. Even if I don't do anything with it, it feels good to generate fun ideas.

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