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 June 19th, 2017.

On this week's show, The New York Times's

Kevin Draper will join us to discuss the upcoming fight between boxer Floyd Mayweather

and mixed martial artist Connor McGregor, which will make a lot of people a lot of money

and seem certain to disappoint those among us who spend the money to watch it on pay-per-view.

We'll also be joined by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer.

He'll chat with us about the various theories behind why baseball players are hitting more home runs than ever before.

And finally, David Gessner will be here to talk about his memoir, Ultimate Glory, Frisbee Obsession, and My Wild Youth.

Joining me in Washington, D.C. is Stefan Fatsas, author of the book's Word Freak and a few seconds of panic. Hey, Stefan. Hey, still living my wild youth over here. What was the subtitle of Word, Word Freak? Heartbreak, triumph, genius, and obsession in the world of competitive Scrabble players. You just needed to get Frisbee in there, and you would have... You know what's hard to say? New York Times'. New York Times is, New York Timeses, New York Timeses, New York Times is, New York Timeses, New York Times is. Kevin Draper is in the studio with us. Hi, Kevin. Hi, how are you? I'm good. The New York Times is Kevin Draper. And you wrote a story last week about the McGregor Mayweather fight. It's going to happen a little more than two months from now on August 26th. They are scheduled to enter a ring to answer one of the least difficult questions in sports, which is who would

want to fight between one of the greatest boxers of all time and a guy who is not a professional

boxer? No matter, this will be one of the highest grossing sporting events of all time, as many

of our fellow humans will want to pay to see the undefeated 40-year-old Mayweather come out of retirement

to face off against the 28-year-old UFC lightweight champion Connor McGregor. In your piece, Kevin,

you quoted a former executive from HBO who estimated that the fight could bring in around $400 million

from pay-per-view buys and tickets and advertisers and various other

revenue streams. So the obvious answer to why this fight is going to happen is that it's going

to bring in around $400 million from all that stuff I just mentioned. But there have been so many

fights in the history of boxing that we would have thought were no-brainers because of the

amount of money that they would bring in.

You know, Mayweather Pachiao took six years for it to happen.

And when it finally did, both guys were past their prime.

...