“What Chaos!” podcast move to The Ringer well-deserved for hosts

One of the most satisfying aspects of covering sports media for a long time is watching talented people work hard, trust their instincts, create their own niche, build a following, and ultimately end up in just the right place.

That thought popped to mind this past Tuesday when writing about the latest fulfilling step in DJ Bean and Pete Blackburn’s podcasting journey.

The Massachusetts natives — Bean is from Belmont, Blackburn from Waltham — have long been familiar to hockey fans. Bean covered the Bruins for WEEI and NBC Sports Boston, while Blackburn built a large social media following, working for CBS Sports, Fox Sports, and Bally along the way.

The pop-culture podcast “Brunch” marked their beginnings as a tandem. In November 2023, they joined the AllCity network as the hosts and masterminds of the witty NHL-focused “What Chaos!” podcast, which shifted to the Nation Network last season.

Dues have long been paid, in full. So it was fitting in all the right ways this week when word broke in this space that “What Chaos!” — which also includes talented producer and third-voice Shawn DePaz — will be moving to The Ringer in time for the upcoming NHL season.

The Ringer — founded by another Massachusetts guy, Bill Simmons, a decade ago — is a dream landing spot for most sports/pop-culture podcasts because of its reach (it’s owned by Spotify) and sensibilities (Simmons remains in charge of The Ringer, and has an exceptional knack for finding the right talent fits).

“What Chaos!” will be The Ringer’s first NHL-focused podcast. The fit will be perfect. But in the interim, it’s a heady time for Bean and Blackburn, who are arriving at the place where they hoped to be.

“I’ve read and listened to and respected Bill for so long,” said Blackburn, “that I kind of had to detach from the emotionality of that connection throughout this process when we were talking about coming to The Ringer.”

Mused Bean: “I mean, everybody’s always thinking, ‘Hey, this show that I have would be cool if it were on the best podcast network.’ It becoming a real thing for us is nuts.”

Simmons reached out to Bean and the “What Chaos!” crew following the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, when the United States men’s and women’s teams won gold medals and the sport’s popularity was percolating stateside.

Conversations about them possibly joining The Ringer were tabled until the summer, in part because they were under contract at the Nation Network.

Simmons got back in touch roughly a month and a half ago, Bean said.

“I was in Nova Scotia on vacation when he called and said, ‘Hey, can you talk?’ ” said Bean. “The cell reception there was terrible, so I drove around until I had service and sat in my car outside a supermarket.”

Simmons told him, in essence: You guys have it figured out, we want hockey stuff, you guys have the hockey stuff we want. Let’s make this work.

“We talked for 45 minutes, and I was buzzing,” said Bean. “It’s funny, my fiancée was sitting in the car with me, hearing half of the conversation, but what she heard was 45 minutes where I wasn’t doing any pitching.

“She was like, ‘Weren’t you supposed to be selling the show to him?’ Now, I would expect somebody with Bill Simmons’s power and busy schedule would be like, ‘All right, kid, you’ve got five minutes, wow me.’ But he already was well aware of who we are and what we do, and he already knew that we aligned with what he wants to do. It was awesome.”

There was another fortuitous reason that the “What Chaos!” show might have piqued The Ringer’s interest. Bean and Blackburn were all-in on the HBO Max show “Heated Rivalry” even before it became a pop-culture phenomenon.

“The ‘Heated Rivalry’ thing was so weird because we were committed to watching that show months before it came out,” said Blackburn. “It was in our wheelhouse, and it ended up being so good and so compelling that it consumed the hockey world for 2½ months. The stars really aligned with that.”

One of Simmons’s strengths is all too scarce in the higher levels of the media and entertainment businesses. He finds something he likes, and allows it to remain exactly that, without requiring change for change (or ego’s) sake.

“I feel like authenticity and self-awareness is at a premium now in the creator economy,” said Blackburn. “It sometimes seems like everybody is just trying to kind of follow the same mold, or try to be something inauthentic that they think their audience wants.

“I always tell people, I still feel like we’re getting away with something in doing this show. For better or for worse, we’ve always just been ourselves, and it’s a good feeling to have that rewarded.”

Chad Finn

Sports columnist

Chad Finn is a sports columnist for Boston.com. He has been voted Favorite Sports Writer in Boston in the annual Channel Media Market and Research Poll for the past four years. He also writes a weekly sports media column for the Globe and contributes to Globe Magazine.