Daanyal Saeed has built a reputation as one of Australia’s sharpest young reporters, moving with ease between major newsrooms and some of the country’s biggest sporting moments.
Now the Crikey media correspondent is returning to his sporting roots with a new podcast that taps into the depth of experience he’s gathered across print, digital and radio.
Saeed’s career has taken him from local reporting in Grafton to the sports desk at news.com.au, before shifting into the media beat at Crikey.
Along the way, his work has appeared in The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, Fox Sports, The Mandarin, ABC, Network 10 and CNA, underscoring a versatility shaped by years across both commercial and independent outlets.
A proud Victorian and lifelong sports devotee, he has covered everything from World Cups and Ashes series to Grand Slams, Grand Prix and Grand Finals.
His new podcast channels that breadth – and his ongoing interest in cricket, AFL, football, golf and motorsport – into a format built for deeper conversation and sharper insight.
With the show now underway, Mediaweek spoke to Saeed about why he’s returning to sport, how he sees the podcast landscape shifting, and what he wants this next chapter to sound like.
Mediaweek: Where did the idea originate?
Daanyal Saeed: Sometime in 2024. I found myself – as many reporters do – looking for different ways to incorporate my passions into my full-time work for Crikey. Toward the back end of 2024, my former editor, Gina Rushton, commissioned a series called Movers and Shakers, which interviewed some of the biggest names across the Australian media industry.
A small portion of those guests came from the sporting world, and the conversations sparked through that process got me thinking about how sport engages with independent media.
MW: How closely aligned is the podcast to your current role at Crikey?
DS: Perceived Pressure is completely separate from Crikey and my work there, but my colleagues and editors have been incredibly supportive. I adore my job, and it’s only strengthened my belief in the value of independent media.
MW: You talk about your love of sport on your social media accounts. When did it click for you that there were stories not being told?
DS: There were two key moments for me.
Just over two years ago, I was working in a big commercial newsroom as a sports reporter, and the sheer volume of work was extraordinary. As incredible as the opportunities were in a newsroom of that scale – and at an organisation with access to rights for so many major sports – I’d often get frustrated by the day-to-day grind.
Most of it involved watching games on television, writing up what TV analysts said, tracking punters’ reactions on social media, or producing “colour” stories. How expensive are the snacks at the footy? Was there a fight? Can I confect some sort of drama?
I felt like I wasn’t adding anything meaningful to a reader’s experience of sport. We ask for their time, their attention, their data and, at times, their money. We owe it to them to actually serve them.
That said, that kind of content does huge numbers and it’s extremely profitable for advertisers – which is why it’s so common. The challenge is finding alternative revenue pathways and an audience that’s incentivised differently.
The second moment came during this football season – which, as a Victorian, means Australian Rules.
There are so many magazine-style footy shows. You’d see situations where someone would offer an opinion on a Monday that was transparently designed to provoke a reaction, the reaction would then be reacted to all week, and by Thursday the whole thing would be dissected again on the same show where it began.
There are some exceptional commentators and analysts in footy media who I respect enormously, and they work incredibly hard – but even they’d admit it’s all gotten a bit wild lately. Mark Howard spoke about this really well on The Grade Cricketer podcast recently too; the opinion economy has started to fray.
We’d love to elevate it.
MW: On that note, why do you think those stories are being left out?
DS: As I mentioned earlier, short-form content – a higher volume of quick articles or a flood of social clips – is incredibly profitable from an advertising and revenue perspective.
It’s simply a response to how algorithms prioritise views, distribution and engagement.
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age’s sports pages have made a concerted effort in recent months to reduce the sheer number of stories in favour of publishing more substantial pieces, and I think that’s really commendable.
It’s produced some fantastic results. More competition in that space can only be a good thing. Audiences have been starved of depth for a long time.
MW: You’re not hosting alone. Who will be joining you?
DS: I’ll be joined by Saraid Taylor, who plays in the backline for the Melbourne Demons AFLW team and is also an accomplished writer, essayist, poet and screenwriter in her own right.
She’s incredibly articulate, generous and talented, and I can’t wait to see what we create together.
We’re incredibly proud of Saraid and the Dees for their amazing season this year, going all the way through to a preliminary final. Hopefully next year we get to go one better and say we’ve got a premiership player on our team.
Saraid Taylor
MW: What are you hoping to add to the conversation?
DS: Sincerity, I think. We’ve lost a little of that, and if we can bring it back, I think there’s an audience for it.
MW: What does success – in terms of the podcast – look like for you?
DS: I’m acutely aware of the challenges of working in the Australian market.
It’s incredibly concentrated, and we don’t have the scale of other regions. At the moment, this is coming out of our own pockets, so for me and the team, success – at least in one sense – would be reaching a point where the podcast can sustain itself. I’m very respectful of the economics of this medium; it’s a tough space to launch in, especially during a cost-of-living crisis.
The other part of success is driving some cultural change in sports coverage. There’s a long-running joke among reporters: whenever audiences complain about a story being shallow, we check the numbers and it will inevitably have performed incredibly well.
There’s a real disconnect between what audiences click on and what they say they want to click on. I think we can be optimistic and take people on a more positive journey – one that chases the latter, not the former.
You can listen to Perceived Pressure here.