The following podcast contains explicit language.

Hi, this is Josh Levine, and this is Slate's sports podcast Hang Up and Listen for the week of January 30th, 2017.

On this week's show, we're going to talk about the dream matchups at tennis's Australian Open,

where Roger Federer beat Rafael Nidal to win his 18th Grand Slam, and Serena Williams took her 23rd major by beating her sister Venus.

Tim Layden of Sports Illustrated will also join us to talk about the athletes affected by Donald Trump's ban on immigrants from seven majority Muslim countries.

And director Charlie Ebersol and running back Rod, he hate Me Smart.

We'll join us to talk about the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary.

This was the XFL about NBC and the World Wrestling Federation's epic failure

to create a rival to the National Football League.

Joining me in Washington, D.C. is Stefan Fatsis, the author of the book's Word Freak, and a few

seconds of panic. Hello, Stefan. Hello, Josh. With us from New York. It's Mike Peska,

those of Slate's Daily Podcast, The Gist. Hello, Mike. Hello. Just in 15 seconds,

Stefan, since I don't think we're going to get to this in our XFL segment. You wrote a bunch

about the XFL back in the day. Did you ever consider doing an XFL book? Did it ever even

like crossed your mind for five seconds? No, and we weren't. I did a real, I got 3,000 word, page one story about the

demise of the XFL. We were not approached by any publishers, my co-author and I on that piece to do

a book. I want to read that book. Our demographic research shows that XFL fans are huge literary

fans as well. There's a huge overlap. Let's let's not forget that

one of the XFL games got the lowest rating in the history of broadcast television.

The first game was very popular. The first game was popular. So remind me next week,

the audience needs to hold me accountable for this.

I am going to read the title of Stefan's XFL book in the introduction, his notional XFL book.

...