Wednesday is Spotify Wrapped day, and many music and podcast lovers are opening up their apps to see what they listened to in 2025.
No doubt, a big chunk of those people are sports lovers and used the platform to consume their favorite sports-related podcasts throughout the year. But it’s not often that we’re able to see a definitive ranking, presumably based on listener data, of which podcasts are most popular within the genre.
Fear not, that’s exactly what Spotify provided on Wednesday. Sharing the list with Front Office Sports, Spotify revealed the top-10 sports podcasts of the year. And while much of the list shook out as expected, there were definitely a few surprises. Here’s how Spotify ranked the top sports podcasts of 2025:
- New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
- Pardon My Take
- The Bill Simmons Podcast
- Fantasy Footballers — Fantasy Football Podcast
- The MeatEater Podcast
- The Pat McAfee Show
- Jesser
- The Ryen Russillo Podcast
- National Park After Dark
- Bussin’ With The Boys
What immediately stands out are the two outdoor- and nature-oriented podcasts that made the list: The MeatEater Podcast, which talks about topics like hunting and fishing, and National Park After Dark, which dives into “the darker side” of America’s National Parks.
Outside of those two shows, the list shakes out as expected. New Heights has taken on cultural importance well beyond the world of sports, making it no surprise to occupy the top spot. Pardon My Take has been a Barstool stalwart for many years now and maintains its cache among sports fans. And The Bill Simmons Podcast, a Spotify product itself, regularly sits atop sports podcast charts.
Front Office Sports also published Spotify’s top-10 sports audiobooks of 2025. The following books made the list:
- Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight
- Open by Andre Agassi
- Endure: How to Work Hard, Outlast, and Keep Hammering by Cameron Hanes
- How to Build a Car: The Autobiography of the World’s Greatest Formula 1 Designer by Adrian Newey
- Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
- The Baseball 100 by Joe Posnanski
- Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable by Tim S. Grover, Shari Wenk
- The Rise of the Ultra Runners by Adharanand Finn
- Tiger Woods by Jeff Benedict, Armen Keteyian
- Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger
As FOS notes, several of the year’s top audiobooks were published many years ago. Shoe Dog was published in 2016, Schwarzenegger’s book in 2012, and Open in 2010. Three of the audiobooks also relate to running.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.