Men In Blazers
Soccer Media Network
Men in Blazers is America's soccer media network: Roger Bennett and Michael Davies turned a 2010 podcast into the largest independent football operation in the U.S., with a weekly NBC show and the 2026 World Cup road shows.
About Men In Blazers
Men in Blazers is the American soccer fan's home team — the media network that turned a two-man podcast into the largest independent football operation in the United States. What began in 2010 as Roger Bennett and Michael Davies bantering about the Premier League is now a multi-platform empire: daily podcasts, a weekly television show in its twelfth season on NBC and Peacock, YouTube, newsletters, live events, and an 84-person staff, all built on a single mission statement — "Soccer: America's Sport of the Future since 1972." The joke was the point, and then the joke became true.
The origin story is pure football-fan romance. Bennett — a Liverpool-born Evertonian journalist who moved to the United States in 1993 — and Davies — the television producer who created the American version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and later became an executive producer of Jeopardy! — met at a wedding taking place during the 2006 World Cup final between France and Italy. There were no televisions. They commiserated, they became friends, and in 2010 ESPN asked them to cover the World Cup together. The experience led to a podcast, hosted on Bill Simmons's Grantland, which they named Men in Blazers out of reverence for the old American network tradition of putting sportscasters in brightly colored blazers. They launched just as podcasting was becoming a thing. "We made a bet, and it was an uninformed bet, but it was a very blessed bet," Bennett later told The Hollywood Reporter.
The Brazil summer and the NBC leap
The bet paid off in the summer of 2014. ESPN sent Bennett and Davies to Brazil for the World Cup, where their nightly recap — broadcast from Bob Ley's "Panic Room" — became a cult hit, regularly drawing six-figure audiences. That September, one year after NBC bought the U.S. rights to the English Premier League, the network signed the duo away from ESPN for a weekly show reviewing the matchweek. It premiered September 22, 2014, and it gave American fans something they'd never had: English voices who treated the Premier League with the warmth of fandom rather than the stiffness of a highlight package — wry, self-deprecating, and fluent in both the game and the American experience of watching it. The show still airs after Premier League matches, now on NBC and Peacock.
The interview as an art form
The show's signature became the long, human interview. Bennett and Davies built a platform that drew Premier League royalty — Mo Salah, Pep Guardiola, Bukayo Saka — alongside the famous football obsessives of Hollywood and American sports: John Oliver (a beloved recurring guest), Jason Sudeikis, Will Ferrell, Matthew McConaughey, Eva Longoria, Ed Sheeran, NBA MVP Joel Embiid. The interviews work because the hosts are fans first and interrogators second; players relax, celebrities ramble, and the audience gets the version of these people that exists nowhere else. Every year the show hands out the Golden Blazer to the individual who did the most to grow soccer in the United States — a running gag that became, like everything else here, a real institution.
From podcast to network
As the audience grew through the late 2010s, the brand outgrew the format. In 2021 Bennett formally launched the Men in Blazers Media Network, consolidating podcasts, television, streaming, social, newsletters, and live shows under one roof — and expanding into dedicated channels for the women's game (The Women's Game) and Spanish-language coverage (VAMOS). The company calls itself the largest independent football-focused media network in the country, and the headcount backs up the ambition: 84 staff producing daily content across every platform. In April 2024, Davies stepped away from the podcast to focus on his other ventures, leaving Bennett as the network's frontman — but the ethos the two of them built, the fan-on-the-couch intimacy, stayed.
The 2026 World Cup summer
If there was ever a moment the network was built for, it was the summer of 2026. With the World Cup hosted primarily in the United States — an expanded 48-team tournament that shattered attendance records with more than 6.8 million fans through the gates — Men in Blazers went on the road, and America showed up. Spotify streams of the network's podcasts rose 500% between the start of May and mid-July, with growth of 700% among women and 500% among listeners aged 18–24; USMNT coverage drew 60,000-plus concurrent YouTube viewers. Bennett's own framing, given to USA Today after the tournament: the network's job has always been to feel like it's "alongside the fans on the couch" — pajamas, coffee in one hand, beer in the other — listening as much as broadcasting. A network survey now estimates 131 million football fans in the U.S., gaining fast on baseball and basketball, and skewing younger than every rival. "Soccer: America's Sport of the Future since 1972" stopped being a punchline somewhere along the way.
Why they matter
Previously covers Men in Blazers because they are the single best document of how soccer conquered America — not through a league or a team, but through two Englishmen in blazers who understood that fandom is a conversation. They bet on the American soccer fan before the American soccer fan was a market, and they were right. Courage.
About this creator
Men in Blazers — Rog and Davo — is America's soccer show: the podcast and media brand that made football culture essential listening for US fans. The duo is the magic. Roger Bennett — the Evertonian Liverpudlian with the encyclopedic memory and the poet's soul — and Michael Davies — the affable producer-turned-co-host — built…
Men in Blazers — Rog and Davo — is America's soccer show: the podcast and media brand that made football culture essential listening for US fans.
The duo is the magic. Roger Bennett — the Evertonian Liverpudlian with the encyclopedic memory and the poet's soul — and Michael Davies — the affable producer-turned-co-host — built something that shouldn't work on paper: a deeply British football show that became a cornerstone of American soccer fandom. The GFOPs ("Great Friends of the Pod") are one of sports media's most devoted communities.
The voice is unmistakable. "Courage." The rapid-fire "Rog's" rants. The reverent treatment of the game's characters and the irreverent treatment of everything else. Men in Blazers covers the Premier League, the Champions League, and the US national teams with a blend of genuine expertise and theatrical fandom that turned match recaps into storytelling.
The empire grew around the pod. Books, live tours, NBC Sports collaborations, World Cup coverage — Bennett and Davies became the bridge between the American audience and the global game, translating football's culture for newcomers without dumbing it down for lifers.
Why people listen: it's soccer with soul — the rare show that treats the sport as the beautiful, absurd, emotional thing it is. Football fans who follow Thogden's away days or L'Immigré Parisien's passion get the stateside institution here: suboptimal, and proud of it.
Previously covers Men in Blazers because American soccer culture has a home and it's their studio. Courage, GFOPs — the World Cup is coming.
The live shows are pilgrimages. GFOPs pack theaters for the tour dates — part comedy show, part football sermon, part group therapy for the soccer-obsessed. The community is the content as much as the hosts are.
Previously covers Men in Blazers because the American soccer story is still being written and they're holding the pen. Suboptimal since forever — and wouldn't have it any other way.
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