Podcasts about Tennessee, United States

The season on this page is being argued over in real time. Tennessee went into SEC baseball play 4-8 and then swept ninth-ranked Mississippi State in Starkville; weeks earlier the same voices watched the basketball team beat Virginia 79-72 for a trip to the Sweet 16 and, a week later, lose in the Elite Eight, the same episode logging a baseball game that turned a 15-5 lead into a 16-15 walk-off defeat. University of Tennessee athletics, filed under Sports, is most of what plays here, talked through by beat writers, a panel of fans and hosts who turn up as guests on one another's shows. Around that sit a state-politics rundown with a clear position, a legislative read from the attorneys' side of the table, the state's own court and child-welfare podcasts, and a few shows rooted in single places.

What Tennessee is

Tennessee is a long, narrow state in the southeastern United States, running from the Appalachian Mountains in the east to the Mississippi River in the west. Nashville is the capital and home of the NFL's Titans; Memphis, Knoxville and Chattanooga are the other large cities, and the University of Tennessee and its Volunteers teams are in Knoxville. Nationally it is known for country music and the Great Smoky Mountains.

The Vols, from the press box and the couch

GoVols247: A Tennessee Volunteers athletics podcast is the closest thing here to a beat: measured, comfortable inside the details, assuming you already know the stakes. Its Elite Eight preview has Isaac Trotter arguing Tennessee may need to drag No. 1 Michigan into a half-court game and make Elliott Cadeau decide it; another clip tallies Nate Ament's 16 and 22 points in a quiet week, five late free throws against LSU included. Its Diamond Vols Podcast titles run alongside the basketball ones.

Baseball gets a show of its own in RTI Press Pass, whose Diamond Pass episodes, Jack Foster with Ryan Shumpert, move series to series: heartbreak in Georgia, the Missouri win, the Vanderbilt sweep, and the recovery at Mississippi State, where Cam Appenzeller finally allowed his first SEC run and closed the game out anyway. The clip from just before SEC play has the offense scraping 2-1 and 5-4 wins over Wright State before a 6-0 Sunday shutout that Josh Elander called unacceptable and put down to immaturity.

More Important Issues is the couch: several plugged-in fans at once, sentences starting and restarting, tangents part of the rhythm, moods running from dry to frustrated to sarcastic. Two clips a week apart make a complete arc. After the Virginia win the panel notes that Tennessee is the first team since 1985 to face 30-plus-win teams in the tournament's first two rounds, calls for a banner, and compares this team to the 2023 baseball team that limped to Omaha. Then "Ep 378 | March 29th, 2026 | A Sad Sunday on Rocky Top": the Elite Eight loss, doubts about next year's team, and the walk-off grand slam.

Locked On Vols is the spring-football show of the group, its titles stamped BREAKOUT, COMMIT, SWEEP, INTEL: George MacIntyre against Faizon Brandon at quarterback, Kim Caldwell's Lady Vols adding transfers, and a practice-one clip passing on the joke that it may have been the shortest practice of the Josh Heupel era, followed by his longest press conference. The Chase Thomas Podcast: A Tennessee Volunteers Show is built on guests from the other Vols outlets, among them Ryan Shumpert of Rocky Top Insider, who in the Arkansas preview takes Arkansas to cover with the Vols favored while Chase Thomas frets about Taylen Green's mobility. Two older windows sit alongside: The Volunteer State, from USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee, at the College World Series run that ended in the baseball program's first national title, and Volunteer Country, from 2021.

The Titans, one voice at a time

Two Tone Titans Podcast is a single voice thinking out loud, fast, stacking measurements, production numbers, contract terms and gut reaction into one stream. The draft-grade clip lands on Nick Singleton at pick 165, a 98 athleticism score with power and speed, held back only by a need for patience before attacking the right gaps; the free-agency clip frames Wan'Dale Robinson's $70 million deal as a 15-target-a-game answer for moving the chains; the mock draft has Jordan Tyson as a top-10 receiver at pick seven.

The statehouse, the courts and the agencies

The Tennessee Conservative, with Brandon Lewis, sounds like a state-politics rundown from people who already know where they stand: blunt setup, then straight to who benefits and what to do about it. The clips warn that the school choice program could send taxpayer dollars to Islamic schools, argue that a monument to the unborn on Capitol grounds forces Democrats to concede these are people, and pick apart a set of college-readiness numbers, a third of students ready after 13 years and $156,000 per student. TBA Legislative Updates is the opposite register, its titles nothing more than "S7, EP 9: Week of April 6", and its clips explain how the building actually works: Ashley Harvin on House and Senate leadership meeting, location undisclosed, to settle the budget before any floor debate; FedEx's proposed $20 million tax savings failing amid a corporate-welfare argument; committee amendments landing 24 hours before debate so attorneys have to answer on the spot.

Three institutional shows fill in the rest. Tennessee Court Talk, from the Supreme Court's Administrative Office of the Courts, walks from the Sixth Amendment through Gideon to how states supply lawyers for defendants who cannot afford one. Roots and Wings, from the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth, puts the firearm death rate for Tennessee children under 17 at 36% above the national average in "Tennessee Child Deaths and Firearms". TSBA: Your Education Source Podcast, from the Tennessee School Boards Association, has "Calling the Shots with TSSAA", where Reeves describes the squeeze between NCAA and pro sports on one side and AAU and travel sports on the other.

Single places

Behind The Tennessee: A Palace of Stories is about one building, the Tennessee Theatre in downtown Knoxville, which opened in 1928: Willie James Taylor going from porter to singing on its stage, Lily Tomlin stopping a show so Pat Summitt could come backstage, and in "Through Courage Comes Change" Bob Booker recounting his arrest after standing at the ticket window for a ticket. Johnson City Living interviews the people running things in Johnson City and the Tri-Cities: Rearview Rentals' contactless van business, Jeremiah Cafe as a path into employment for autistic staff, Hellbender Outfitters fitting a first-time hiker for about $650. Murder At Land Between The Lakes works unsolved cases around Dover, built around two sisters who went missing in 1980; in the Leanne Green clips investigators reenact a gas-station trip several times, a fire truck standing in for rain, and time it at under nine minutes. Tennessee WildCast, from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, has Bill Dance and Garry Mason on side-imaging technology revealing thousands of bluegill beds, and Limetown stands apart: a scripted audio drama in the shape of an investigative podcast, unhurried and grave, about vanished people and dangerous technology.

Where to start

• For the Vols in season, GoVols247 for the beat read, More Important Issues for the fans' reaction, RTI Press Pass for baseball alone.
• For the Titans, Two Tone Titans Podcast.
• For the legislature, TBA Legislative Updates for how a budget moves and The Tennessee Conservative for the argument about it.
• For something with no scoreboard, Behind The Tennessee: A Palace of Stories or Murder At Land Between The Lakes.

The Tennessee feed on this page plays clips from these shows.