A New Year’s Eve look back at PSN’s 2022 Union/Soccer content

On the final day of 2022, it’s important to take a look back and see all that has made the previous 364 days memorable. Here at Philly Sports Network, we love to cover the game of soccer and the Philadelphia Union, to bring it into the highly saturated Philly Sports landscape. In 2022, we hit new highs in our coverage of the beautiful game that is setting a foundation for an even more successful 2023!

376 pieces of content created

TODAY THE PHILADELPHIA UNION PLAY IN #MLSCup!!!

To get you ready for #LAFCvPHI @PhiladelphiaSN has you covered with coverage, previews, spotlights, and the @DoopByRiverPod!

The hype is real as you’ve probably seen in @MetroPhilly this week!#DOOP | #MLSCupPlayoffs

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— Tim Lovenguth (@Tim_Lovenguth) November 5, 2022

It was an amazing year for soccer at Philly Sports Network (PSN). We created 376 different pieces of content in a calendar year! It has been such a busy, hectic, and fun year to cover soccer in Philly. From covering the Union’s historic run to MLS Cup, the fun season Union II had, the USMNT’s World Cup qualifying campaign, the AFCON championship, and finally the men’s World Cup! What a year it was.

Philly Sports Network Articles: 260
Doop by the River Podcasts: 48
Youtube Videos: 68

We had seven different writers write articles on soccer in 2022. Dedicated members of the Doop by the River gang produced 48 podcasts, and a great content creator made 68 YouTube videos on all things Union. Let’s take a look back at what we were able to accomplish, and just how remarkable it was!

260 Articles written!!!

Reflecting on the Union’s historic yet empty 2022

The goal for 2022 was to write 225 articles covering the Union, Union II, MLS, and International games (AFCON, World Cup Qualifying, and the 2022 Men’s World Cup) we overachieved by 35 articles writing 260!!!!! This is the most soccer articles PSN has ever produced in a calendar year.

This past year saw PSN soccer writing debuts for Justin Friedberg (37 articles written), Nate Tennessen (6 articles written), and Regina Ham (1 article written); while Zach LoBasso (6 articles written) Liam Jenkins (7 articles written), Steve Beavon (23 articles written), and Tim Lovenguth (178 articles written) continued to churn out content to produce this best year ever for PSN’s written soccer content.

Here’s a look at Philly Sports Network’s all-time soccer articles written since we started tracking them back in 2016:

2016 Articles: 50
2017 Articles: 136
2018 Articles: 227
2019 Articles: 194
2020 Articles: 101
2021 Articles: 190
2022 Articles: 260
TOTAL SINCE 2016: 1,158 Articles

On top of writing the most soccer-specific articles ever for Philly Sports Network, the team also had 17 articles picked up and featured in the Metro Philadelphia Newspaper! Two of which were featured on the front page; The season-opening preview, and the MLS Cup Final Preview. Five writers had their articles in the newspaper: Zach LoBasso (1 article), Steve Beavon (1 article), Liam Jenkins (2 articles), Justin Friedberg (3 articles), and Tim Lovenguth (10 articles).

Major props to all who contributed their time and put in the hard work this year to break some records! We’re gonna smash it even more in 2023!

48 Episodes of the Doop by the River Podcast!!!

The Doop by the River gang released at least one episode of the podcast a month throughout 2022! The amazing consistency from El Parcero Philly and Justin “insert clever nickname here” Friedberg carried this podcast in just about every episode! Zach and Tim were sprinkled in there at times as well throughout the year. The pod welcomed amazing guests from the soccer community of Philadelphia as well as across the landscape of MLS:

Including current Union player Leon Flach, Union play-by-play commentator and former Premier League player Danny Higginbothom, Christian Polanco and Alexis Guerreros – the Soccer Cooligans, and former ESPN Sportcenter anchor and current LAFC play-by-play man Max Bretos just to name a few.

Here’s a look at the episode breakdown month-by-month:

Jan: 4
Feb: 4
March: 6
April: 5
May: 3
June: 4
July: 1
Aug: 7
Sept: 4
Oct: 4
Nov: 3
Dec: 3
TOTAL: 48 Episodes

This was a great third season of the pod, that saw us go over the 150-episode mark (our 150th episode was on Nov. 25th season-ending presser recap, and World Cup talk; USA vs Wales) Can we hit episode 200 in season four???

Season 1 – 2020: 41 episodes
Season 2 – 2021: 64 episodes
Season 3 – 2022: 48 episodes
TOTAL: 153 Episodes

Thank you to those involved in creating this consistent pillar of PSN’s Union/soccer content!

68 Youtube Videos!!!

If you watch or listen to the Doop by the River Podcast, you know that El Parcero Philly brings his passion for Philly Sports and the beautiful game.

He creates Union-specific Youtube videos throughout the year alongside the podcast, and in 2022 he did an amazing job creating 68 videos on his channel!

The fantastic previews, recaps, vlogs, and shorts were really great for the stereotypical Philly 4-for-4 audience to see how good the Union is and how fun the sport of soccer is to follow. Way to go man, and keep up that great work!

Thank you!!!

If you are someone who has read one of our articles, listened to/streamed an episode of Doop by the River pod, or watched a youtube video by El Parcero Philly, we just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you! We love the beautiful game and the Philadelphia Union, and love sharing that passion with you all!

We’ll continue to bring you the content you want in a way that is fun/exciting to consume! With that here are our goals for 2023: