We’ve been recording the official Wrong Side of the Pond podcast for just over a year and a half now. In total, we’ve recorded sixty-six episodes and have amassed a healthy following which numbered just shy of 200 subscriptions after our last episode. And to be honest, we’re stoked with how far we’ve come. Recording has been a blast, and it’s opened quite a few doors for us.

And even though we’ve experienced all this growth, we obviously still want the podcast to continue to grow. Problem is, it’s still really easy for our own “Pondcast” to get drowned out by the cacophony of other soccer pods out there.

All the major American outlets have them — NBC with their Men in Blazers, ESPN with their ESPNFC, Major League Soccer’s ExtraTime Radio, most of the SB Nation Blog’s, etc. There’s also the excellent podcasts across the pond, like The Football Ramble or the Guardian’s Football Weekly and the like. That’s some pretty stiff, well-backed  competition. Each of those shows has thousands upon thousands of subscribers. And that’s not even including the ocean of other independent soccer podcasts like ourselves filling the digital airways. But just because we’re small, that doesn’t mean that we’re not worthy of a listen. There are diamonds in the rough.

But what exactly are small appealing podcasts with limited backing supposed to do to continue to grow?

We figured we should band together with other talented, independent podcasts and fight to be heard. Together our voices, normally in the background, might be loud enough to hear over the drone from the big boys.

So along with Detroit’s The Outer Drive and Portland’s Back Office Gavin, we’re pleased to announce Background Noise FC.

What exactly is Background Noise FC? We’re a soccer podcast network of sorts, with each member being an independently run soccer podcast/website from a separate region of North America. The goal? To give each of our regional, independent shows a better set of legs to stand on so that others can hear what we have to say. BNFC will provide us that by offering up partnerships of cross-promotion, guest appearances and even the occasional joint collaboration. A kind of virtual megaphone, if you will.

How did we get here? We actually sought out podcasts that shared similar attributes to ourselves, but weren’t exact duplicates either. Though all of us cover the beautiful game, each of us offers a unique, regionalized perspective and different focus. Sure, there’s some overlap, but variety in opinion is the spice of life, right?

This isn’t a closed partnership. We’re keenly interested in adding additional podcasts from aother regions of North America to offer up additional insights and expand our offering. Interested pods can hit me up if they’re interested.

So if you haven’t taken the chance to yet, visit the new Background Noise FC website — www.backgroundnoisefc.com —  for feeds for all three podcasts, links to their sites and descriptions on their topics of discussion. We also launched an accompanying Twitter feed for BNFC too — @bckgrndnoisefc — so be sure to give that a follow as well.

And of course, be sure give our new partners a listen… after all, that’s the whole point.