Only If You Get Caught

About Only If You Get Caught

Only If You Get Caught is about how we can better understand sports and culture by appreciating the ways humans cheat in ways big and small. Hosted by Patrick Redford and produced by Alex Sujong Laughlin, each episode will dive into the history and methodologies behind cheating scandals to explore what bending or breaking the rules tells us about ourselves. Created by Patrick Redford, Alex Sujong Laughlin, and Defector Media.

Publisher

Defector Media

Category

history · society & culture · sports

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

14 Oct 2025

Latest episode

12 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

4 of 13 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   12 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT

   How Pablo Torre scooped ESPN on the Kawhi Leonard story

   Patrick Redford interviews Pablo Torre about his groundbreaking ESPN scoop on the Kawhi Leonard salary cap story.

2. 

   29 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT

   The man who scammed the publishing world for love not money

   Host Patrick Redford interviews author Reeves Wiedeman about the publishing scammer Filippo Bernardini, revealing the motives behind stealing unpublished manuscripts.

3. 

   15 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT

   The Rise and Fall of Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX

   Patrick Redford interviews Jacob Silverman, exploring the dramatic rise and catastrophic fall of Sam Bankman-Fried and the FTX empire.

4. 

   9 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Only If You Get Caught Season 2

   Host [Host Name] launches Only If You Get Caught Season 2, exploring new compelling stories.

5. 

   27 Jan 2026

   The Varsity Blues Scandal Was Actually Class Warfare

   Host Patrick Redford interviews Kirsten Hextrum, an associate professor at Oregon State University, about how the Varsity Blues scandal reveals higher education as a class-based system.

6. 

   13 Jan 2026

   How Michigan’s Man on the Inside Got Caught

   Host Patrick Redford explores the Connor Stalions scandal, revealing insights into college football corruption and the NCAA's evolution.

7. 

   30 Dec 2025

   Baseball’s Steroid Era Was Actually A Labor Story

   Host Patrick Redford explores how baseball's steroid era was fundamentally a labor story, revealing the impact of the 1994 strike and labor exploitation on the scandal.

8. 

   16 Dec 2025

   Why WNBA Owners Cheated To Help Their Players

   Host Patrick Redford interviews Maitreyi Anantharaman about WNBA owners circumventing salary cap rules and the fight for wage equality in women's sports.

9. 

   2 Dec 2025

   Is It Even Possible to Cheat on The Bachelor?

   Host Patrick Redford interviews Emma Gray and Claire Fallon about the complexities of "cheating" and finding love within The Bachelor franchise.

10. 

    18 Nov 2025

    Lance Armstrong And The Myth Of The Natural Body

    Host Patrick Redford interviews Reo Eveleth about how Lance Armstrong's cycling legacy fuels the "natural body" myth and impacts trans athlete bans.

11. 

    4 Nov 2025

    A Cheating Scandal That Explains The Online Chess Revolution

    Host Patrick Redford interviews Wall Street Journal reporter Joshua Robinson about the online chess cheating scandal and its impact on the game's revolution.

12. 

    21 Oct 2025

    Did the NBA Really Fix a Playoff Game to Help the Lakers?

    Sacramento Kings fans have long believed that the NBA fixed the 2002 Western Conference finals so the Lakers would win. Patrick is joined by Tommy Craggs to discuss whether they think it actually happened. Episode transcript here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WUtVwvowZrXjmmk_seB1gbgXElsB1W8JNu3uifO3Sl8/edit?usp=sharing). Show Credits Only If You Get Caught is written and hosted, by Patrick Redford (https://www.instagram.com/patrickredford/). It’s produced by Alex Sujong Laughlin (https://www.instagram.com/alexlaughs/), with production support from Jae Towle Vieira. Editorial support from Tom Ley and Audrey Mardavich. Justin Ellis is Defector’s projects editor. Mixing by Samantha Gattsek  Show art by Jim Cooke. Jasper Wang and Sean Kuhn are Defector’s business guys. Thank you to the Defector staff. Defector Media is a collectively owned, subscriber based media company. Only If You Get Caught is a proud member of Radiotopia. If you like the show, the best way to help us is a five-star rating and review wherever you are listening right now.

13. 

    14 Oct 2025

    Only If You Get Caught Trailer

    Only If You Get Caught launches Oct 21!

Inside a recent episode

How Pablo Torre scooped ESPN on the Kawhi Leonard story

Published 12 Oct 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] When someone like Shams Charania of ESPN announces a trade, you can almost certainly believe him because he's something like an unofficial mouthpiece for the league. But there are gaps in the information, and you can see in the negative who's benefiting. agents will selectively leak info to insiders in order to try to win pr battles the league will use them to set up trial balloons engage public sentiment and teams will use them to negotiate in semi-public these insiders almost never report anything meaningfully damaging to the league or its image because they depend on access for their scoops this raises broader questions about whether they are functionally doing journalism or pr Especially since an outlet like ESPN, which is nominally one of the biggest outlets covering the NBA, also pays the league billions in broadcast rights. […]

Who has been a guest on Only If You Get Caught

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Pablo Torre
• Reeves Wiedeman
• Jacob Silverman
• Kirsten Hextrum
• Maitreyi Anantharaman

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.5 / 5

135 ratings

Spotify

4.9 / 5

99 ratings

Contact Only If You Get Caught

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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