The Conversation Weekly

When Roberto Baggio missed a penalty in the 1994 Fifa World Cup final at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, more than 94,000 people were there to watch Italian heartbreak and Brazilian ecstasy.
To this day, no other World Cup has been as well attended as the 1994 tournament. Tickets were cheap and abundant, and despite the relatively low profile of the game in the US compared to sports like baseball or basketball, people went along to see what it was all about.
Now, three decades later, as the 2026 World Cup returns to North America with games across Mexico, Canada and the US, soccer has grown a much larger and more dedicated fan base in America.
In this episode, we speak to John Sloop, a professor of communication studies at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and historian of soccer and its fans in the United States, about what’s changed for the men’s game in the US and whether the popularity has staying power.
This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware, Katie Flood and Mend Mariwany. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.
If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.
Is soccer taking over America … or are Americans taking over football?
How apartheid, European racism and Pelé helped cultivate a culture of diversity in US soccer that endures into Messi-era MLS
Soaring ticket prices could help FIFA pull in $15B this World Cup cycle — where does the money come from, where does it go?

As health workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continue to battle an ongoing Ebola outbreak, scientists around the world are racing to develop a vaccine against the strain of the virus that’s causing it.
Two approved vaccines exist for Ebola, but they target the Zaire strain of the virus, not the Bundibugyo strain causing the 2026 outbreak, which has so far killed 61 people with 359 confirmed cases in the DRC and neighbouring Uganda.
In this episode, we speak to two scientists at the Oxford Vaccine Group at the University of Oxford, Teresa Lambe and Rebecca Makinson, who are developing a vaccine candidate for Bundibugyo virus. On June 1, they were among three research groups to receive fast-track funding from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, alongside Moderna and IAVI.
This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware, Katie Flood and Mend Mariwany. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.
If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

Buried underground in caverns dug out of salt on the Gulf coast of the US are millions of barrels worth of crude oil. This is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, built up in the late 1970s.
Globally, at the end of 2025, global strategic oil stockpiles were estimated at 2.5 billion barrels, with China holding the most.
With the Strait of Hormuz now closed for more than two months, global oil supplies are being squeezed. In March, as part of a co-ordinated move by members of the International Energy Agency to release 400 million barrels of oil to prevent price spikes, the US began releasing 172 million barrels from its strategic reserves.
In this episode, we speak to Scott Montgomery, a former petroleum geologist who lectures in international studies at the University of Washington, about why these oil stockpiles were built up in the first place, and how they work.
This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware and Katie Flood with production assistance from Katie Flood. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.
If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.
Why Middle East gas field attacks could send energy prices soaring
Why the Persian Gulf has more oil and gas than anywhere else on Earth
War in the Middle East made the case for renewables – what’s happening in each country tells a harder story
The government’s plans to bolster Australia’s fuel stores are sensible – but 5 years too late
Over 400 million barrels will be added to the oil market soon – what are strategic reserves and what can they do?

The month Javier Milei took over as president of Argentina in December 2023, monthly inflation was 25.5%. The annual rate for that year was 211%. Now, it’s plummeted to 32% – still very high, but more stable.
Milei, a right-wing populist famous for wielding a chainsaw on stage to make a point about fiscal conservatism, made cutting inflation a central part of his campaign.
And yet economists like Can Cinar from City St George's, University of London, warn that Milei’s battle against inflation is more of a mirage, than a miracle. In this episode, Cinar explains how Milei’s government managed to cut inflation by deliberately suppressing people’s wages, and the stark impact these policies are having on Argentinians.
This episode was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware with production assistance from Katie Flood. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.
If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.
Kemi Badenoch says she wants to be Britain’s Javier Milei – but is the Argentinian president a model to follow?
What’s inflation – and how exactly do we measure it?
Javier Milei’s victory in Argentina’s midterm elections is also a win for Trump
Currency controls and debt in Argentina: the stakes are high if Milei’s latest economic gamble doesn’t pay off
Javier Milei’s inflation ‘miracle’ in Argentina is a warning to the world, not a blueprint

As the revelations from the Epstein files continue to reverberate around the globe, those conspiracy theorists who were among the first to call for the release of information about Jeffrey Epstein's legal cases are feeling vindicated.
Before his death, Epstein already featured in many fringe online forums, including those centred on the Qanon conspiracy narrative that the world is run by an elite cabal of child sex traffickers. Now, many in these communities are saying "We told you so."
In this episode, Art Jipson, a sociologist at the University of Dayton in Ohio, who researches social movements and extremism, explains what happened when a real-life criminal case collided with an online community built on conspiracy theories.
This episode was produced by Katie Flood, with assistance from Mend Mariwany. The executive producer was Gemma Ware. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.
If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.