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  • Can World Cup mania grow MLS in the U.S.?

    Can World Cup mania grow MLS in the U.S.?
    Jul 17 2026
    As the World Cup comes to a close, so does a massive real-time experiment happening just around the edges. Major League Soccer – the top men’s professional soccer league in the U.S. and Canada – has been scrambling to take advantage of this once-in-a-generation opportunity when average American sports fans suddenly cared a lot about soccer.

    In between World Cup matches, NPR Sports Correspondent Becky Sullivan has been following Major League Soccer executives as they try to figure out how best to get a foot in the door with sports fans in the U.S.

    In this episode, we tag along to see if U.S. and Canadian professional soccer can harness 2026 for the mythical World Cup bump in soccer interest. What strategies are teams using? And does it stand a chance to work?

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    This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Becky Sullivan and Kenny Malone. It was produced by James Sneed with an assist from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Annlie Huang. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.

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    26 Min.
  • Can the Trump administration make college cheaper?

    Can the Trump administration make college cheaper?
    Jul 1 2026
    Will limiting how much students can borrow force schools to lower their prices?

    The Department of Education thinks so. It has a new plan to bring down tuition costs. Starting today, July 1st, it’s going to cap how much it’s willing to loan to graduate students.

    You read that right. To reduce the burden of school…the plan is to give students less money to pay for school.

    This plan is, in part, based on an idea that’s been floating around higher education circles for decades: The Bennett Hypothesis, which claims there’s a direct relationship between student borrowing and tuition prices. And therefore, if the Department of Education — the biggest student loan provider in the country — limits how much students can take out, then schools will have no choice but to charge students less.

    This hypothesis was floated roughly 40 years ago...without evidence. But now, as the Trump administration rolls out their Bennettian plan, we have decades of data to see how true this hypothesis is.

    Today on the show: NPR Education Correspondent Cory Turner explains this theory, and what the new plan influenced by it will mean for borrowers this fall.

    Other notes:

    • Bill Bennett: “Our Greedy Colleges”
    • Cory Turner: "July 1 brings big student loan changes. Here's what you need to know"
    • The Indicator: "What you should know about your student loans"

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    This episode was hosted by Cory Turner and Kenny Malone. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Charlotte Isidore and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

    Music: NPR Source Audio - “Morning Chorus,” “Belle Mar,” and “The Sky Was Orange.”

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    29 Min.
  • How to win a penalty shootout (with game theory)

    How to win a penalty shootout (with game theory)
    Jul 3 2026
    Lionel Messi is arguably the greatest soccer scorer of all time. But when it comes to penalty kicks, Messi is merely average. Why? Maybe the answer involves game theory.

    According to game theory, there’s an optimal strategy for taking penalty kicks. This strategy involves an idea that was once somewhat controversial in economics — that is, until economists started studying soccer players in real life.

    On today's show, we kick it over to the hosts of the Soccernomics podcast to explain how game theory has changed soccer, and how soccer has changed game theory.

    Watch the penalty shootout between Manchester United and Chelsea in the Champions League final in 2008.

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    This episode of Planet Money was produced by Emma Peaslee with help from James Sneed. It was edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Annlie Huang. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

    The Soccernomics episode was originally hosted by Ashish Malhotra, Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski and sound designed by Alex Roldan.

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    18 Min.
  • Our mission: Find the world’s best economic ideas (Summer School World Tour)

    Our mission: Find the world’s best economic ideas (Summer School World Tour)
    Jul 8 2026
    Come along as we travel the world in search of the best economic ideas to bring home!

    From the beaches of Barbuda to the fjords of Norway, there's money (and money problems) everywhere. For this summer travel season, Planet Money Summer School will take you on a world tour for your ears. Pack that sense of wonder and nose for adventure, this is our semester abroad. We’re going to explore exotic locales and discover cultural norms, but we’re also going to buckle down and learn the biggest economic lessons around the world from our guides.

    We start as far away as you can get from Planet Money headquarters, New Zealand and Australia. We’ll visit a sheep farm to observe an innovative but controversial market for the most important substance on earth, and we’ll ask when do speculators help and when do they hurt the rest of us? Then, we’ll get to know the economist – and jazz musician – who changed how the entire world fights inflation when he released a secret number to tame the dreaded wild beast. How did that work? Spoiler: it was the great leap forward in economic mind tricks.


    Featured Episodes:
    • Liquid Markets (2021)
    • The Secret Target (2018)

    Featured Terms:
    • Multiple equilibria
    • Inflation targeting
    • Speculators (impact on liquidity)
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    This episode of Planet Money Summer School is hosted by Robert Smith. It was produced by Sophia Paliza-Carre, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Annlie Huang with help from Robert Rodriguez.

    Music: NPR Source Audio - "The Boy from Ipanema," "Desmontes," "Long Drive,” and “Bondi.”


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    37 Min.
  • Seven allegedly fake Chanel bags vs The RealReal

    Seven allegedly fake Chanel bags vs The RealReal
    Jul 10 2026
    Once upon a time, if you wanted to buy a luxury brand item secondhand (say, a Chanel handbag) you had to have an in. There was no easy way to find one. But over the past decade, the market for secondhand luxury goods has exploded. There are now many online resellers where you can shop for used and discounted luxury items. One big problem — how can you be sure if it’s real and authentic?

    Some online resellers claim to have solved this problem. They say they’ve developed a process of authentication, and so buyers can trust that the bag is really Gucci or Cartier or Hermès or whatever. But according to some luxury brands, authenticity is something that is often imitated but never replicated.

    In today’s episode of Planet Money, the fight between Chanel and The RealReal. And how luxury brands are reacting to the enormous and growing secondhand market for luxury goods.

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    This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Jeff Guo. It was produced by James Sneed with help from Charlotte Isidore, who also fact checked this episode. Jess Jiang edited the show and it was engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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    26 Min.
  • New NPR Series: "We Keep Us Safe" from the Embedded podcast

    New NPR Series: "We Keep Us Safe" from the Embedded podcast
    Jul 21 2026
    In the summer of 2020, sixteen-year-old Antonio Mays Jr. traveled a thousand miles to join the racial justice movement of his generation in the wake of George Floyd's killing. Antonio arrived in Seattle during the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, known as CHOP. Less than a week later, he was shot and killed there. The case remains unsolved.

    In this eight-part series, hosts Sydney Brownstone of The Seattle Times and Will James of KUOW team up with NPR's Embedded to investigate Antonio's death. They track down key eyewitnesses and surface crucial evidence that's never been made public.

    Find "We Keep Us Safe" in the Embedded podcast feed.

    Listen to Embedded wherever you get your podcasts, including the NPR App, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Spotify, and via RSS.

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    3 Min.
  • Big Lettuce meets Small Intestine

    Big Lettuce meets Small Intestine
    Jul 22 2026
    The cyclospora outbreak that’s sickening thousands of Americans got us interested in the rise of Big Lettuce, and the challenges of keeping it clean.

    So on today’s show, we tell you just how much lettuce Americans eat every year (SO MUCH!), how bagged lettuce came to dominate grocery store shelves, what that means for food safety, and why these outbreaks continue to happen — despite the FDA’s efforts to stop them.

    Check out other related episodes:
    Food Scare Squad
    How refrigeration took over the world

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    This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo and Emma Peaslee. It was produced by Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Marianne McCune and it was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Annlie Huang. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.

    Music: NPR Source Audio - "Electric Leak," "West Green Road," and "Melty Heart"

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    26 Min.
  • What makes a toy go viral

    What makes a toy go viral
    Jul 31 2026
    Squishy, slimy, fidgety toys are having a moment. But it’s more than just an anxiety-soothing, social-media fueled trend – these toys are reshaping how toys get made.

    Today on the show, we have the story of the once-humble squishy dumpling and what it teaches us about how to make a viral hit and how to manufacture it, without getting left holding the bag. Hear it all firsthand from the creator of this trendy toy.

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    Support public media by joining NPR+ at plus.npr.org. You’ll get perks for over 25 NPR podcasts, including bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Planet Money.

    This episode of Planet Money was produced by Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.

    Music: NPR Source Audio - "Melty Heart," "Summer Escape," and "Twilight Sparkle"


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    26 Min.