Local Middletown podcast ‘Listen Up’ focuses on women’s basketball
MIDDLETOWN, Md. — “We are both such big sports fans, and we talked about sports so much,” said Ryan Renner about himself and his cousin Phillip Vecera. “It was Phil’s idea to do a podcast on YouTube.”
Ryan, a 2021 Middletown High School Grad, and his cousin, Phillip Vecera, have been hosting a podcast (“Listen Up,” listenupmd.com) for the past couple of years. Ryan was featured in his high school yearbook for this venture.
Dempsey’s Grille and Middletown Sportsland sponsor the podcast.
Phil wants to become a broadcaster/commentator and plans to attend the University of Maryland for sports journalism. He said he worked for 930 WFFD, the sister station of WFRE. He was the basketball and football analyst. He started with Pete McCloud, Ed Louie, and Frank Mitchell, and thanks them for taking him under their wing. He said, “That was when I realized sports broadcasting was my dream.”
Ryan is currently taking classes online with Frederick Community College.
Ryan, who said, in the past, they have covered the Orioles, NFL (mostly Ravens, but focused a little on every team and college football as well), with a little NBA and NHL, said, “We talk about professional sports and college sports. We have recently been focusing on women’s college basketball.”
Phil, who described himself as “a huge helper of people, on another level,” and who works as a 911 dispatcher full time, said, “With my love of sports, I got the idea that I wanted to do the broadcast side of it. I love to travel, and with everything that comes with the job, I think I would be made for it.”
The two record a podcast about two or three times a week, each lasting about 15-30 minutes.
Ryan said, “We do it on Zoom. I’ll send the link to him, and we press record on Zoom and then upload it on my computer.”
Phil said, “ We try to test ourselves a lot. We wanted to put something out there that entertains people and makes them want to come back and watch it. When the WNBA team won the championship, we found our calling – women’s basketball. With Saylor Poffenbarger out of Middletown, we started talking about women’s basketball and it flew from there!”
Ryan aid, “We recently covered the Yukon women’s team; we recap all their games. Toward the end of the video, we read some people’s comments and respond to them; that’s kinda cool, too. It’s kind of like an ongoing conversation.”
Phil said, “We want to really put a big point on women’s basketball. It is not being covered enough, and we want to change that. They don’t get treated like men as far as pay and hospitality.”
Ryan said, “ We are looking forward to covering Middletown and local teams. We will start at the bottom and move up. We want women, girls, and boys on the podcast for the coming years. I have always thought it would be interesting to see how far we can go, how many viewers/subscribers we can get. Recently, we have been getting about 1000 views per video and about 240-250 subscribers.”
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