Podcasts about Detroit, Michigan

Kevin McGonigle is the name this page keeps returning to. Locked On Tigers argues before the season that the club cannot call him anything but one of its 26 best players, then walks through the service-time math of holding him down anyway. Sean Baligian In The Mornings picks over his four-hit opening day and the detail that he skipped Triple-A entirely. Karsch and Anderson has him tripling in a rain-delayed comeback, and JR Morning, a news show, reports the eight-year, $150 million extension he signed after 18 big-league games. That is the shape of Detroit listening: sports is by far the largest filing, one team story passes through a sports panel, a solo analyst and a news table within weeks, and the civic shows are a smaller, sharper strand beside it.

What Detroit is

Detroit is Michigan's largest city, on the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It was the center of the American auto industry for most of the twentieth century, gave its name to the Motown sound, and has spent recent decades rebuilding after a long population decline. For a city its size it carries an unusual load of major-league teams, and the Lions, Tigers, Red Wings and Pistons account for most of what follows.

The Lions, from the draft board out

Lions coverage is the largest single beat, and the dedicated shows differ in temperament more than subject. Locked On Lions brings in a guest from the Athletic, Colton Pouncy, who recalls Dan Campbell turning an accidental alarm into his Hard Knocks introduction; another clip credits Kelvin Sheppard's defense with unsettling Baker Mayfield despite a depleted secondary. Lions Grey Manes sounds like plugged-in team people talking in real time and correcting each other; its clips are a live first-round mock that narrows pick 17 to Caden Proctor or Olav Jäger Ione, a reading of Brad Holmes' draft board with its 866 known prospect meetings, and a case that Tyler Conklin steadies 12 personnel by changing how Detroit blocks. Detroit Koolaid Cast is the loud one, two fans at full throttle with one pushing a take and the other sharpening it, still sore that the Lions did not give up two first-round picks and more for Maxx Crosby. Drinking the Blue Kool-Aid is the fan table, longtime fans thinking out loud about Isaiah Pacheco's power against his post-injury numbers and the annual Jared Goff restructure that buys cap room now at the cost of a cap problem later.

Tigers, Pistons and the shows that cover everything

Locked On Tigers is a solo conversation that reacts to last night and previews tomorrow; its comeback clips catch Riley Greene reaching base four times and driving in the tying runs in the ninth. The Pistons shows are built around Jalen Duren: Locked On Pistons tallies 25 and 11 on 74 true shooting across the nine games since Cade Cunningham went down and an 8-2 record without him, while Pistons Talk Podcast is a solo fan-analyst voice right after the game, from Miami's easy paint touches to a playoff-predictions conversation with Natalie Kerwin that drifts into what nickname fits a team playing like the bad boys era.

The talk shows move between all of it. The Valenti Show and Karsch and Anderson both carry the 97.1 The Ticket name in their titles; Sean Baligian In The Mornings comes from Woodward Sports Network. Valenti is a panel argument already in motion, combative and exasperated: its draft clip turns on Brad Holmes saying the Lions do not have to take a tackle or an edge, and on what happens if a quarterback like Mendoza is still there at 17. Karsch and Anderson takes calls and wanders into station-room jokes between the Tigers' six-game streak, capped by Wentzel Perez's homer after falling behind 9-7, and a re-reading of Tarek Skubal's January elbow comments. Baligian is a sports-bar argument given microphones, holding playoff tickets as the Tigers blew a 5-1 lead and telling his crying son it was only a game. The Grit-Iron Report, two fans who came with numbers, reaches past the city to Michigan's 91-73 title win over Arizona.

Red Wings: a tenth year out

Winged Wheel Podcast and Locked On Red Wings cover the same collapse from slightly different distances. Winged Wheel's titles include "ELIMINATED. Detroit Misses Playoffs for 10th Straight Year - Apr. 12th, 2026", and its clips have Todd McLellan conceding the team is paid a lot and did not deliver for the fans, a deadline preview that calls Robert Thomas a unicorn, and Alex DeBrincat turning a Mike Matheson turnover into a late winner. Locked On Red Wings, Brian Fisher and Scotty Bentley starting from whatever the result feels like, has Patrick Kane tying a game then tripping Quinn Hughes late, an argument for throwing out a third period played against a team protecting a 4-1 lead, and Dylan Larkin's hat trick. Its July titles, like The Grit-Iron Report's, turn to Steve Yzerman's exit as general manager and what a new one means for Larkin and McLellan.

City hall, wages and an attorney general race

Daily Detroit is the civic show, a brisk duo who talk like people who know the blocks and the buildings. Its clips move from an argument over whether luxury development actually delivers luxury, to a State of the City roundtable where 64 percent of Detroiters are said not to earn a livable wage and older houses turn generational wealth into repair debt, to a Rocket Mortgage survey finding only about 30 percent know their neighbors beyond a casual level. Titles run from "Put Down Your Phone and Pick Up Detroit" to the RenCen and the riverfront, Mama Shu in Highland Park and a Senate primary.

The Week That Was on Deadline Detroit gives all of its clips to prosecutor Eli Savit on his run for Michigan attorney general: the job as suing polluters, price gougers and federal officials, and reading all of Project 2025 as what convinced him to run. Its titles alternate a Detroit in Black and White strand (reparations, the filibuster, birthright citizenship) with a Week That Was strand that hands out Schmucks of the Week. JR Morning, from Cumulus Media Detroit, is two people thinking out loud at talk-radio speed, from a guest answering critics of the Artemis 2 moon mission to Jamie Edmonds describing a breast cancer diagnosis at 42. The Daily J goes inside the Masonic Temple with its chief docent, who hand-cranks a 1925 Otis elevator while the show asks whether the building is haunted.

The strange history

Detroit Strange is Jess and Alex telling odd local stories over a cocktail. The Jerry Selbee clip walks through a lottery loophole, $8,000 on Windfall tickets and $15,700 back, then argues whether to learn the real story before watching the movie made from it. The Henry Ford clips are darker: an antisemitic 1920 statement about baseball, and Hitler's praise of Ford in Mein Kampf. Titles reach the St. Aubin Street massacres and the Dogman of Michigan.

Where to start

• For the city rather than its teams, Daily Detroit: development, wages and city hall.
• For the argument itself, The Valenti Show; Sean Baligian In The Mornings is the warmer version of the same fight.
• For a Lions listener, Locked On Lions for the guests and Lions Grey Manes for the draft-board depth.
• For the odd history, Detroit Strange.

The Detroit feed on this page plays clips from these shows.