Monday marked 700 episodes of the Only Friends podcast, and while fans might have tuned in with hope of a celebratory atmosphere the message they got from Matt Berkey and the crew was the polar opposite.
After three-plus years, the Only Friends Pod is likely coming to an end.
"We're getting kicked out. They're evicting us," said Berkey. "We just got our 30-day notice. It's all coming to an end. We will have our last show, tentatively, I think, [April] the 28th."
The end of Only Friends?
While the end of a lease wouldn't necessarily be a death knell on its own, the timing appears to have lined up with something of an existential consideration that Berkey's been considering.
"To me, the problems all come from within - the structure aspect of it, the motivation and purpose behind it," said Berkey. "When I launched this, one, it was a marketing tool for Solve for Why which by and large, especially now with us being evicted from this place... with that coming into play, and everything else, Solve for Why is scaling way way way back.
"It was always a passion project, and I've been beating this drum for a while — I just don't think the training space is flourishing for the small business. I think it's absolutely carved out for the GTO Wizards of the world, and I think that's the direction it should go."
Some hope for the future
Berkey has not entirely ruled out the potential of continuing the show in some form, but it was clear that he was not in a space where he felt that was a particularly likely outcome.
"If we continue this show, I don't think it makes sense to get a whole new studio," said Berkey. "Even if we downsized, I don't think we're gonna find a $2K a month place.
"[Even] if that were to happen, we would still have to have some sort of hiatus while we build a set and figure out what the fuck this show even is."
Could there be a fix?
Over the course of the conversation, which also included Jesse Sylvia and Brian Lamanna, Berkey discussed talking over the future of Only Friends with others in the poker community. Their suggestions largely centered around changing the schedule to something other than the current daily format, but in Berkey's mind that's not where the problem lies.
"I've spoken to a lot of people about this, and they all focus on the daily aspect of it," said Berkey. "I don't want to speak for everybody else, but to me that's not the issue at all. I think people want some version of daily content. That's what I think makes us valuable, is that we are here every single day."
"Though I think there is a hunger for it, I don't think that it is a product that the community overall values. I don't know if we're the best for the job, but we're the most available for it."
One more month to close out strong
Berkey ran through some of the other issues where Only Friends didn't lead to the kind of outcomes he anticipated at the outset, including the way relationships with event and tour operators and other media entities failed to lead to more permanent arrangements.
And while Only Friends has attracted a long list of top notch guests over the last few years, Berkey lamented how certain players and personalities at the very top of the poker food chain tend to avoid the media spotlight.
"A lot of people you want to hear from have no interest in talking," said Berkey.
There was a bittersweet tone to some of Berkey's closing remarks on Monday's show, but regardless of what the future of Only Friends holds, if any, he's looking forward to going out strong.
"Three years into the experiment, where I've enjoyed every second of it, I'm looking forward to the final 20-ish shows," said Berkey. "People stop me and they tell me how much they love it, and I'm so appreciative of it. But I've lost whatever sense of purpose there is."
