Sports talk with the institutions left in.
Hang Up and Listen is Slate’s long-running sports conversation for fans who want more than scores and transactions. Its panel moves from WNBA roster logic to MLB rules, Olympic politics, quarterback economics, and prediction-market absurdity with dry skepticism and real sports fluency.
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Hang Up and Listen is a sports show built for people who know the games are never just games. Its conversations start with standings, brackets, contracts, rules, rosters, and broadcasts, then keep going until the institutional machinery is visible. Recent episodes cover UCLA, Michigan, UConn, Duke, March Madness, the World Baseball Classic, WNBA draft logic, NBA tanking, Olympic hockey, NASCAR hype, Formula One coverage, MLB’s automated ball-strike challenge system, and the strange spread of prediction markets into sports culture. The show is comfortable with the details. It can parse why a shooter fits the Wings, why Kansas City can restructure Mahomes, or why a challenge system changes baseball strategy inning by inning. It is also comfortable saying when the details point to something uglier. Sports books, labor negotiations, eligibility fights, presidential pardons, media rights, and league incentives all become fair territory. The result is not a highlights recap. It is a weekly panel conversation about how sports actually operate, and why supposedly narrow stories keep becoming political, financial, or moral ones. The tone is brisk and dry. Jokes land as pressure valves, not as detours. The show’s best moments come when a familiar sports question gets turned slightly sideways: who benefits, who is pretending not to, and what rule is doing more work than anyone admits? Guests bring reporting and specialist knowledge without turning the program into an interview show. Alex Kirshner often frames the conversation with clean setups and direct questions, while regular voices such as Lindsay Gibbs and Ben Lindbergh keep the discussion moving across women’s sports, baseball, football, basketball, and the broader sports economy. The show has enough affection for athletic excellence to enjoy a tournament, a prodigy, or a championship run. It also has enough distrust of sports institutions to ask what else is being sold. Hang Up and Listen suits listeners who want smart sports talk with its guard down: analytical, funny, skeptical, and allergic to pretending the business around the games is incidental.
Made for: For sports fans who want sharp analysis across leagues without separating games from money, politics, media, and labor. It especially fits listeners who follow multiple sports and enjoy skeptical panel conversation.
What sets it apart: The show’s edge is its range: tactical sports discussion and institutional critique occupy the same conversation. A draft pick, a broadcast deal, a betting product, or an Olympic result can all become the real story.
A weekly sports discussion from Slate.Get more Hang Up and Listen with Slate Plus! Join for weekly bonus episodes of Hang Up and Listen and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Hang Up and Listen show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or visit slate.com/hangupplus for access wherever you listen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
It shows how regulation, ownership, and political power shape the games that reach the public.
Hang Up and Listen treats sport as an institution with money and political power, then follows those pressures beyond the field. Alex Kirshner, Ben Lindbergh, and Lindsay Gibbs move between game analysis and reported conversations with guests, asking how rules and incentives…
A blown strike call and betting deregulation both get the cross-examination you wanted.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded farewell built around a clear WNBA draft case.
Hang Up and Listen closes on a note that feels earned, with the farewell giving the hour real weight. The WNBA draft sits at the center, and the case for Azzi Fudd and the Wings is laid out plainly: they needed shooting, had already strengthened the front court, and wanted help…
Sports talk that finds the real story in timing, strategy, and the machinery under the headline.
The episode moves quickly from March Madness to Wrexham to the early ABS rollout, and the strongest stretch comes when it treats each headline as a question of timing, leverage, and authority.
A brisk sports conversation links a strange United States baseball team, March Madness forecasts, and the Jeffrey Epstein scandal as a sports story.
Hang Up and Listen treats the World Baseball Classic as a sports story about a strange but seemingly effective United States team, with the final still unresolved.
A Mahomes restructure anchors a clear look at why the NFL salary cap can feel less absolute than advertised.
Alex Kirshner turns NFL quarterback pay into a tight lesson on how scarcity and accounting can warp each other. The clearest hook is Kansas City converting $54 million of Mahomes's salary into a signing bonus spread over the next five seasons, clearing more than $43 million in…
A clear-eyed look at F1's Apple TV move and the broadcast style many fans care about most.
Hang Up and Listen uses Formula One's move to Apple TV to ask a larger question about what American fans want from the broadcast itself. It is strongest when it treats the split between the F1 TV feed and the Sky Sports broadcast as more than a technical choice, and when Martin…
Olympic hockey opens onto betting, pardons, and the politics around both.
Hang Up and Listen starts with Olympic hockey, noting that the United States has won two gold medals since the last episode, then turns to a brewing clash between prediction markets and traditional sportsbooks.
A brisk sports panel on NBA caring, tanking, NASCAR hype, and the Olympics.
The hour opens with the NBA's care crisis and keeps circling the harder problem: how to make an All-Star game players actually want to play, and how to stop teams from treating losses like strategy.
A Super Bowl Monday argument about prediction markets, shame, and the business of pretending the lines are clear.
The episode spends its early stretch on sponsor reads before settling into a hard-edged discussion of prediction markets, athlete ownership stakes, and the NFL's ties to gambling-adjacent commerce.
Bill Simmons debates NBA tanking, MVP races, and movies with Zach Lowe and friends.
April 14, 2026 is the end of the run.
March Madness is over.
March 16 opens with baseball.
Mahomes makes the cap look imaginary.
Apple takes the F1 feed.
Olympic hockey takes the first turn.
Sports apathy takes the lead.
Prediction markets are the breaking point here.
Groundhog Day, 2026, brings a sports show-and-tell with a mean little Hall of Fame puzzle at the center.
January 26, 2026, opens with playoff clarity.
LIV looks suddenly less alive.
Manchester United is a proper mess.
The stadium story gets pulled apart.
December 29, 2025: prediction season arrives.
December 22, 2025 sets the table.
December 15, 2025, begins with sponsor chatter before Alex Kirshner turns Hang Up and Listen to John Cena's final WWE match.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino awarded Donald Trump a made-up FIFA Peace Prize at the 2026 World Cup draw held at the Kennedy Center, complete with the Village People and Andrea Bocelli, in what panelists describe as a garish spectacle designed to keep the U.S.
College basketball is chasing money, and Matt thinks Players Era is where the sport is headed.
November 24 brings a busy Slate table.
November 17th sets the table.
Hang Up and Listen examines how the New York Knicks became an unlikely fixture of Zoran Mamdani's mayoral campaign, with guest Jason Concepcion explaining why the Knicks, not the Nets, unify the city despite owner James Dolan's opposite politics.
The episode opens with a Slate promo before settling into a college-sports politics conversation with Matt Brown of Extra Points.
Hang Up and Listen dissects the federal indictment of more than 30 people in a sports-gambling scheme touching Chauncey Billups, Damon Jones, and Terry Rozier, with Lindsay Gibbs and Ben Lindberg debating whether prop bets on individual players are an inherent corruption risk.
This episode discusses the NFL's unusually tight season with Nate Silver's insights, previews the NBA season, and features segments on college football and baseball.
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A weekly sports discussion covering the Ryder Cup, MLB playoffs, NFL, and sports video game deals.
This sports podcast episode discusses the WNBA playoffs without Caitlin Clark due to injuries, NFL kickers' performance possibly linked to footballs, and Clayton Kershaw's final regular season week.
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A weekly sports discussion podcast covering the Dallas Cowboys' contract dispute, a WNBA ownership relocation issue, and the breaking of the gender barrier in MLB umpiring.
This episode discusses how U.S.
This episode of Hang Up and Listen discusses the NFLPA scandal, Ichiro's Hall of Fame induction, and Hulk Hogan's passing, with hosts and guests covering sports news and analysis.
A weekly sports discussion covering Scotty Scheffler's Open Championship win, WNBA All-Star Weekend labor issues, and baseball's swing-off.
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The hosts discuss the recent NBA Finals won by Oklahoma City, the Stanley Cup final won by Florida, and the record-breaking sale of the Los Angeles Lakers, while reflecting on the emotional exhaustion of championship games.
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