Prediction Season

December 29, 2025·1 hr 8 min·5 clips

Alex forecasts LeBron James playing beyond this season, but not with the Lakers, stirring speculation on his next move.

December 29, 2025 sets the board. First comes a cold open packed with sponsor copy, then the show snaps into end-of-year prediction mode. The pace is quick, a little tart. One soccer forecast ties Ronaldo's ruling, a White House dinner, and the old habit of powerful people rewarding the people close to them. The joke is neat, and pretty bleak. A World Cup for Ronaldo comes off less like romance than the kind of outcome modern institutions know how to produce. From there, the panel swerves. The U.S. men's national team comes up as a prediction the speaker cannot quite make work. Optimism stalls out. The better bet is WSL finding a way to keep Trinity Rodman in the league, with January left to sort out the next part. Then women's sports takes over. Lindsay stays on court, picking Texas to win the national championship and UConn to miss the repeat. Rory Harmon matters. Madison Booker does too. A colder prediction follows: one new women's sports league launching in 2026 may last only one season. Nobody sounds happy about it. The fun here is that the predictions keep bumping into bigger machinery: titles, labor markets, league survival, and power.

As heard by us

Sharp year-end sports forecasting that treats the game as politics, money, and mood.

Prediction Season turns Hang Up and Listen into a year-end sports forecast with a political edge. The panel moves through Ronaldo, the U.S. men's national team, Trinity Rodman, Texas, and new women's sports leagues, and the larger point lands clearly: sports talk can be about…

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Why you'd press play

If you want year-end sports predictions with teeth, this one keeps the takes moving.

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