Welsh trio behind hugely successful podcast given their own TV show
David Owens
The team behind the phenomenally successful podcast, The Socially Distant Sports Bar, have been given their own TV show on BT Sport.
Mike Bubbins, Elis James and Steffan Garrero launched the podcast during lockdown in March 2020.
The podcast quickly established itself as one of the UK’s most popular pods within months of launching.
Distant Pod – as it’s become known – has taken on a life of its own, thanks to a large and fiercely loyal audience and a successful patreon scheme, which has allowed the pod to expand, including a UK tour which has visited venues in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.
Comedians Bubbins and James, and former sports reporter Garrero, have now been handed an opportunity to expand their horizons even further with a new show on BT Sport.
Tentatively titled The Club House, it will start recording on the sports channel next year.
“We’re doing a series with BT Sport that we’re going to record in April,” said Bubbins. “It’s going to be an archived clip based series featuring the three of us.
“We’ll be looking at archived sports clips and obviously it’s a tip of the hat to the podcast, without it being a podcast.
“We didn’t want to spoil the podcast by doing the same thing on TV, so this is more of a straight clips show. We’ve been given eight one hour episodes. It’s tentatively called The Club House, but we haven’t confirmed that yet.”
‘Love it’
Fans of the podcast needn’t worry however – the three are still very much committed to Distant Pod.
“We finish the tour in Belfast and then we’ll go back to recording the regular podcast,” said Mike. “It’s something we love doing so we’ll carry on doing that regardless of what else we’re all doing, because we love it so much.”
It’s a busy time for Bubbins, whose comedy Mammoth – about a ‘70s PE teacher, airs on BBC Wales tomorrow night at 9.30pm. It will also be available to view on the BBC iPlayer.
He’ll also be heading out on a UK tour with his own show Throwback during February and March next year.
Book tickets for the Throwback tour HERE
The Socially Distant Sports Bar is available through Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.
You can book tickets for the Distant Pod live tour including a date at Cardiff Motorpoint Arena on February 11, 2022 HERE
Find out more about Distant Pod HERE
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