Sports Explains the World

At the 2022 IFSC Climbing Asian Championships, Iranian climber Elnaz Rekabi competed without a hijab, sending shockwaves through Iran's political establishment. Many Iranian athletes have been targeted by the country's "morality police," and driven from their homes to seek new lives, and new competition, elsewhere. Captivated by her mother’s stories of pre-revolution Iran, reporter Sanam Skelly ha...

Stanford University holds the record for most Division I NCAA titles -- which means its marching band has plenty to root for. The Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band became a student-run organization in the midst of the turbulent 1960's. Decades of debauchery, irreverence, and protest ensued. The group now faces a crossroads in the wake of the #MeToo movement and the scrutiny of colleg...

Reporter Tommy Andres comes face-to-face with the intruder he saw in his living room. After Jermain Thompson is released from prison and agrees to sit down for an interview, Tommy begins to understand the tragic series of events that led the former wrestler on a downward trajectory and to break into the Andres' home. Listen to Sports Explains the World on the Wondery App or wherever you get your p...

Two lives were forever changed one night in May of 2021, when an intruder broke into the home of reporter Tommy Andres while his wife and daughters lay sleeping. After the police were called and the broken glass swept up, Andres learned that the intruder was a former college wrestling star named Jermain Thompson. In part one of The Eyes of the Fighter, Andres begins to piece together the man's sto...

Following the bloodshed of Port Said, the families of the supporters killed in the stadium are left to mourn their loved ones and seek justice in whatever way they can. The Ultras themselves, now labeled as a terrorist organization, are left to ponder their unclear future. Reporter Kieran Morris catches up with the Ultras more than a decade after the massacre, and investigates whether a government...

Amidst the protests that swept through Egypt during the Arab Spring, an unlikely group helped tip the scales towards Democracy – soccer fans. The Ultras Ahlawy were hardcore supporters of the Cairo-based football club, Al Ahly. They were also effective in the fight to oust Egypt’s leaders. But after the attempted revolution, pro-government forces took their revenge on The Ultras in a violent attac...

When late NBA Commissioner David Stern arrived in Beijing, he came with a lucrative business proposal. Stern pushed for American basketball games to be broadcast on Chinese national television, introducing millions of Chinese people to inspiring NBA narratives of individual glory. As the country’s spirits rose, so did the league’s revenues. In the final installment Two Dreams, reporter Kerry Seed...

Former Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey Morey’s ill-fated tweet in support of the 2019 Hong Kong protests sparked an existential showdown between the NBA and China, where, by some estimates, there are more basketball fans than people in the United States. In part two of Two Dreams, reporter Kerry Seed looks back at the crucial time during the 1980s when the NBA and the People’s Republic...

The NBA is considered one of the most socially progressive leagues in all of sports. Yet the league's fortunes are intertwined with China, a country with a complicated history of human rights abuse allegations. The tension between these competing interests exploded into the public discourse in 2019, when then Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey sent a controversial tweet during massive pro...

The Dominican Republic produces more professional baseball players per capita than any other country in the world -- but one city in particular specializes in shortstops. Reporter Jeffrey Bissoy travels to San Pedro de Macorís to discover how the city consistently exports excellence for one of the most difficult positions in all of sports. Listen to Sports Explains the World on the Wondery App or...

As mensur combatants Felix and Max prepare to fight, reporter Leo Hornack documents their training, while exploring larger questions about the sport. Leo tries to understand how such an antiquated sport still exists, and what it does for those who dare to take part in a match. But as the fight nears, police begin to infiltrate fraternities in the hopes of putting an end to mensur, placing months o...

How far would you go to prove yourself? Is there still a place in modern society for violent competition? Should frat bros carry swords? These are some of the questions surrounding Mensur, an ancient but underground form of sword fighting practiced at fraternities throughout Europe -- like "Fight Club", but with swords. In part one of this story, reporter Leo Hornack embeds with two mensur fighter...

Davy Rothbart struggles with whether to tell Allison what he's learned about the murder of her mother nearly four decades ago. He seeks out advice from an unlikely source: Allison and Davy's all-time favorite baseball player, former Detroit Tigers outfielder, Chet Lemon. Listen to Sports Explains the World on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes ad-free...

11-year-old Chet Lemon superfan Allison cheers on the Detroit Tigers on their path to World Series glory in 1984. The team's success is a comfort for a girl whose mother was tragically murdered by a stranger in a robbery gone wrong. Nearly four decades later, Allison's friend, reporter Davy Rothbart, reaches out to the woman convicted of the crime to learn more about the tragic day that changed al...

In the sixth grade, Davy Rothbart fell in love — with a girl named Allison...and Detroit Tigers outfielder Chet Lemon. It didn't hurt that Allison loved Chet Lemon at least as much as Davy did. But months into their innocent courtship, tragedy struck when Allison’s mother was shot and killed in a random robbery. More than 30 years later, unable to forget the heartbreak Allison endured, Davy goes b...

In part three of the Big Dipper, Wilt Chamberlain signs a record-breaking contract with the Los Angeles Lakers and wins L.A's first NBA title. But despite his storied career full of MVP awards and every basketball accolade imaginable, his legacy also includes well-publicized sexual exploits and a controversial alignment with conservative politics. How will one of the greatest to ever play ultimate...

Wilt Chamberlain goes from sideshow to superstar early in his career. But as his profile rises, so do the challenges of being a famous black athlete in the midst of the Civil Rights Era. Wilt's formative years in the NBA are spent repeatedly losing to Red Auerbach's Boston Celtics; one of the most successful dynasties in league history. In part two of the Big Dipper, Wilt's outlook and political i...

Wilt Chamberlain is the greatest basketball player ever. This may sound like a controversial statement to some and even heresy to others, but reporters Shaun Assael and Peter Keating can prove it. They unearth archival footage, get a little help from Reddit and enlist data scientists to gather new and more accurate stats from Wilt's career. And those numbers don't lie. Tune in to part one of the i...

In part two of Sneaker Con, the other shoe drops. Michael Malekzadeh’s alleged scheme comes to light and his company, Zadeh Kicks goes under. With thousands of orders left to be filled, Reporters David Gardner and Diana Moskovitz visit the former Zadeh Kick’s warehouse, and go to Michael Malekzadeh’s parent’s house looking for answers.

Social media sensation and sneaker reseller Michael Malekzadeh helmed Zadeh Kicks, an online company that netted $6 million a month. He was at the top of his game until the U.S. Department of Justice accused Malekzadeh of running a Ponzi scheme. The unregulated sneaker reselling market is projected to reach $30 billion in sales by 2030 and everyone from common criminals, to Nike executives, to Mic...

The legend of Rashun Richardson's rise to high school basketball glory crumbles, and a much older man named Sidney Gilstrap-Portley is left to pick up the pieces. What starts as a tale of deceit and second chances, turns into an introspective look at who gets to profit from someone's story. In part two of The Imposter, reporter Max Marshall concludes Richardson's saga, and catches up with the form...

In 2017, Rashun Richardson enrolled as a freshman at Hillcrest High School in Dallas. He claimed to be a Hurricane Harvey refugee from South Houston who had just lost his home, and everything else along with it. Just a few weeks later, Rashun became the star of the Hillcrest Panthers varsity basketball team, perennial losers who suddenly found themselves winning big behind an unstoppable player pu...

In part three of The Mighty Bucks, the Pinebridge Bucks try to weather the storms of a losing season, dwindling ticket sales and a steep drop in team morale. But the Buck's survival is crucial to the health of all of professional hockey, whether the owner Robert Bailey knows it or not. Could a new coach mean a fresh start for the fledgling team? Reporters Sean and Louise Flynn examine the impact o...

In part two of The Mighty Bucks, the town of Spruce Pine falls in love with the Pinebridge Bucks, even if the stands are full of novice hockey fans. The Bucks players become local celebrities around Spruce Pine, as the Bucks represent a first step and even a last hope for NHL prospects. The financial realities of fielding a professional sports team prove to be tricky, and are complicated even more...

In 1983, Spruce Pine, North Carolina set a record for the smallest town to ever have a professional sports team, a record that remains intact to this day. In an act of perseverance and blind ambition, a remote town of only 2,000 residents ended up with a 5,000-seat hockey stadium. In part one of The Mighty Bucks, reporters Sean and Louise Flynn introduce us to Robert Bailey, a starry-eyed stove ma...