Podcasts about Washington, United States

The Seahawks' draft board is the most-argued subject on this page. Locked On Seahawks weighs whether John Schneider, who has drafted one first-round running back since 2010, would take a second in 2026; Sea Hawkers Podcast settles on Emmett Johnson as its late-second or early-third-round back and talks itself out of any trade up for Jeremiah Love; on Wyman and Bob, Schneider himself explains that the team grades players for its own needs rather than for the whole league. That is most of what Washington listening on PlayNext is: Seattle's teams, worked over by people who watch every game. The larger part of what plays here comes from shows about Seattle rather than the state, so the Seattle page is where that listening properly lives. The state beyond the city has a smaller share and different concerns: trails, old crimes, geology, breweries, and a Cougars program whose own podcast wants a coaching change.

What Washington is

Washington is the northwesternmost state of the contiguous United States, on the Pacific with Canada to the north. The Cascade Range divides the wet, populous west around Puget Sound and Seattle from the drier east of Spokane, the Tri-Cities and the wine country. Mount Rainier and the Olympic Peninsula are its best-known landscapes; technology, aerospace and coffee its best-known businesses.

Seattle's teams, in several voices

The Seahawks shows differ more in temperament than in subject. Locked On Seahawks, which calls itself a daily show in a clip where Corbin Smith hosts with Rob Rang beside him, is the measured one: it lands on a thesis and circles it, as when it ties the February Lombardi Trophy run to rebuilding both lines. Seahawks Playbook Podcast is slower and more qualified, setting the Rashid Shaheed deal, $51 million after 18 catches as a Seahawk, against positional value. Sea Hawkers is a panel, faster and readier to argue; it carries the same Shaheed number in a different mood, plus the reminder that the Seahawks are only cooked if you ignore who the current Super Bowl champions are.

The sports-radio hours are where the Mariners come in and the mood sours. Chuck and Buck, in a clip about a bullpen that ranks among baseball's top five, cannot get past Gabe Speier being used for three outs in 17 days. Wyman and Bob asks how worried to be after a sweep and answers that the Mariners are pressing into avoidable outs and defensive mistakes. Dave 'Softy' Mahler and Dick Fain is the loudest of the three, and its clips are grievances more than games: someone at T-Mobile Park filming Angie Mentink's phone screen and posting it, and the Sonics leaving for Oklahoma City 18 years ago, which Softy says he will never forgive. Meet at the Mitt is the Mariners conversation among fans, rapid-fire and overlapping, with the practical clip on reaching T-Mobile Park by light rail rather than driving.

Sound Of Hockey covers the Kraken as a panel that wanders before it tightens; its mailbag clip works out what Seattle would need back for Shane Wright, with Darren Drager's line that the team is listening but not rushing. Nos Audietis is the Sounders show, and its Spokane clip reaches furthest into the state: hundreds of fans marching through downtown to a 5,000-seat stadium by the river, the hosts insisting these were supporters getting a game on their side of the state rather than tourists come to see a circus, and Peter Kingston turning a risky sideline throw into a goal.

The state beyond the city

The shows named for the state lean toward landscape and the past. The Washington State Hiking Podcast, from Jennie Thwing Flaming with Craig Romano, ranges across the regions by title: the Olympic Peninsula and its wilderness coast, Hanford Reach National Monument, and how Ice Age floods shaped the hiking country around the wine region. Its Tri-Cities clip is a guest named Kevin describing years of after-work and weekend outings to learn the place, and his advice that anyone moving across the country should behave like a tourism director to get an instant welcome.

Washington Our Home, with Erich Ebel as guide, is exact about dates and distances: Hazard Stevens and P.B. Van Trump reaching Mount Rainier's summit on August 17, 1870; the Blue Lake Rhino Cave as a 15-million-year-old lava mold rather than a true cavern; the outlaw Harry Tracy, born Harry Severns around 1875, shooting F.B. Farrell and then S.R.T. Jones from as far as 150 yards. Exploring Washington State is looser, a curious conversation that follows its guests: one defends the 1968 Dodgers draft as the greatest ever, with 15 future big leaguers drafted, 11 signed and more than 11,000 hits between them, after which the host admits he did not think it would be that easy. Its titles cover "A Thousand Campers a Night: Inside Lake Chelan State Park", Wallace Falls through rangers' eyes, and Mountaineers Books.

Washington Beer Talk is an older run, its episodes dated 2018 and 2019, from a host who cycles between breweries; its clips come from Chainline in Kirkland, where Eric Wallace describes himself as the master marionette puppeteer controlling his brewers. Podcast Vs. Everyone is the one college show, Washington State Cougars talk in a season the hosts think should cost the coach his job: WSU finished eighth in the WCC with seven conference wins, against teams like 202 Portland and 260 Pepperdine, and blaming NIL resources, they argue, amounts to asking donors to cover for coaching. One title says it plainly: "David Riley won't be fired. But he should be. (Episode 248)".

City hall, a dance ordinance, and a pharmacists' town hall

Seattle Now sounds like a newsroom talking among itself. One Casual Friday clip has the hosts wishing light rail reached Tacoma, noting the Ballard line could slip past its 2039 target, and relaying Mayor Katie Wilson's statement that Sound Transit could break ground in West Seattle this year; another is Jimothy, the Ballard raccoon shared by NASA, the BBC and Seattle's sports teams. Seattle News, Views, and Brews, from Brian Callanan, is the council-and-budget companion: a viral pepper-spray video that drew 13,000 complaints without showing the spray itself, and Kevin Schofield asking whether the city's psychedelics resolution covers medical treatment or self-medicating for personal growth.

Rainy Day History, from the MOHAI Youth Advisors, and KUOW's Let the Kids Dance! meet on one law, Seattle's Teen Dance Ordinance: the former explains how it priced all-ages music out of reach, especially for young hip-hop crowds; the latter has TV commentator Lou Guzzo arguing that punk rock mesmerized teens with drugs, sweat raining from the ceiling at a sold-out show where teens defied the ban, and Nirvana knocking Michael Jackson to number five. The statewide professional show is the WSPA Pharmacy Podcast, the Washington State Pharmacy Association's town halls, where Jenny Arnold asks whether the Change Healthcare outage has pharmacists feeling like they are solving all the world's problems.

Where to start

• For the Seahawks: Locked On Seahawks for measured draft analysis, Sea Hawkers Podcast for the argument.
• For the outdoors: The Washington State Hiking Podcast, with Exploring Washington State for the conversations around it.
• For history: Washington Our Home for statewide stories, Let the Kids Dance! for Seattle's Teen Dance Ordinance.
• For city politics: Seattle News, Views, and Brews or Seattle Now.

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