Brian Landry Commits to a Limited-Run Series on Soccer’s Data and Development Boom

• Brian Landry is launching a focused, six-week podcast series examining how technology and analytics are changing player development in American soccer.

A short series with a narrow focus

Missouri, USA, Sep 16, 2026, ZEX PR WIRE — Brian Landry, a Missouri-based journalist, reporter, and podcast host, is starting a limited-run series inside his regular podcast schedule. Over six weeks, the series will look at one topic only: how technology and analytics are reshaping how young players are trained and evaluated in the United States.

Landry has covered soccer development pathways for years. This series narrows that broad interest into something more specific and time-bound.

“I didn’t want another open-ended conversation about technology in sports,” Landry said. “I wanted six weeks where we actually sit inside the tools and the decisions coaches are making with them.”

Why six weeks, and why now

Landry picked a fixed run instead of an ongoing beat for a practical reason. He wants each episode to build on the last one, rather than standing alone as a general interest segment.

“A single episode on analytics can feel like a demo,” he said. “Six episodes in a row lets you actually follow an idea from a training session to a game decision.”

The series will not try to cover every level of the sport. Landry plans to keep it focused on youth and collegiate development, areas he has reported on before and where he says the use of data is changing fastest.

What the series will cover

Landry outlined four areas the six episodes will move through:

• How coaches use tracking data during practice, not just after games

• What analytics can and cannot tell a coach about a young player’s potential

• How smaller programs without big budgets are adapting the same ideas at lower cost

• What players themselves think about being measured this closely

“That last one matters to me the most,” Landry said. “A lot of coverage of analytics never asks the player how it feels to be on the other end of the data.”

The format stays the same, the scope doesn’t

Landry isn’t changing how he records or produces his podcast for this series. The interviews will run the same length as his regular episodes, with the same mix of coaches, program leaders, and players he usually brings on.

What changes is the discipline around topic selection. For six weeks, guests are chosen specifically because they can speak to the data and technology angle, not because they have a broader story to tell.

“I turned down a few good guests for this run because their story didn’t fit the six weeks,” Landry said. “That was a hard call, but the series only works if it stays narrow.”

Where the idea came from

Landry said the series grew out of repeated conversations he’d had with coaches who kept describing the same tools differently, sometimes in ways that confused what the technology was actually doing.

“I noticed I was getting three different explanations of the same tracking software from three different coaches,” he said. “That told me there was a real story in just explaining what these tools do, plainly, before getting into whether they’re good or bad for the sport.”

He said the series won’t argue for or against the growing use of analytics in youth soccer. Instead, it will try to describe the current state of things clearly enough that listeners can form their own opinion.

“I’m not trying to convince anyone that data is good or bad for development,” Landry said. “I want people to understand what’s actually happening on these fields before they decide what they think about it.”

What happens after six weeks

Landry said he has no plans yet for a second series, and wants to see how the first one lands before committing to more. He said the format could return to cover other narrow topics in the future, such as coaching leadership or the business side of youth clubs, if the six-week structure works.

“If this works the way I hope, it’s a format I’ll use again,” he said. “But I’d rather do one thing well than promise a season two before I’ve finished a season one.”

To read more, visit the website here.

About Brian Landry

Brian Landry is a journalist, reporter, and podcast host based in St. Charles, Missouri. His work covers professional leagues, youth development, collegiate athletics, and the business and culture of soccer in the United States. Through his podcast and reporting, Landry focuses on the people and organizations shaping the sport at every level.