On this week’s episode, Jon Wertheim talks with middleweight fighter Luke Rockhold ahead of his middleweight championship rematch against Chris Weidman at UFC 199 on June 4. Calling in from Las Vegas, Rockhold (15-2 MMA, 5-1 UFC) talks about his preparation, mentally and physically, for his fight against Weidman, whom he beat for the UFC’s 185-pound belt at UFC 194 in December.

This week’s episode features a conversation about how fans self-identify with Ed Hirt, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at Indiana University. Hirt has studied, among other things, how wins and losses affect fans’ perception of their own abilities and why the attachment to a sports team can create a more powerful group experience than almost any other movement or event.

Former NBA player John Amaechi discusses his life after basketball as an organizational consultant and performance coach, how his career might have gone differently with the lessons he’s taken from his post-NBA graduate studies in psychology and what impresses him most about the Warriors’ team chemistry.

March Madness has descended upon the sports world once again, and from casual fans to diehard bracket-trackers, everyone is on high alert for the next team from a little-known school to take the NCAA tournament by storm. But why are we so predisposed to pulling for the little guy? On this week’s episode, USF professor Joe Vandello joins the show to discuss his research on this topic and its impact not only on how Americans view the tournament and other big sporting events but how they approach presidential elections and other major world events.

Scott Kutcher, a clinical professor of psychiatry and behavior sciences at the Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine, joins the show this week to talk about the scientific world of sleep and what other teams can learn from the Yankees’ decision to start their spring training workouts later in the day than usual. How significant are the benefits of a good night’s sleep at the highest athletic level? Brain on Sports is brought to you by FreshBooks. It’s smart, mobile accounting, designed specifically for freelancers and small business owners. You can try FreshBooks for 30 days on us, with no credit card required. Go to FreshBooks.com/sports and enter SPORTS in the “How your heard about us” section.

On this week’s episode, Jon Wertheim talks with actor Jason Sudeikis, who is known for his comedic roles in Horrible Bosses, We Are the Millers and Saturday Night Live, about his new biopic titled Race. Sudeikis plays Larry Snyder, coach of African American athlete Jesse Owens, who won a record-breaking four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, where he confronted racial barriers in Nazi Germany​. Sudeikis talks with Wertheim about the parallels between sports and Saturday Night Live, how athletics has shaped his life and career, the difference between comedy and a historical movie like Race, the similarities between sports and acting and more.

On this week’s episode, Sommers and Wertheim explore the myth of the good-looking quarterback, one of the chapters in their new book, This is Your Brain on Sports. The pair explains the photo experiment they conducted where a sample group judged quarterbacks’ attractiveness and how his attractiveness relates to success on the field. Sommers and Wertheim also discuss the “halo effect” with NFL quarterbacks and people in everyday life.

On this week’s episode, Sam is joined by two of the founders of the Duke Behavioral Science Sports Initiative: Kevin Brilliant, a business strategy and analytics manager for the Chicago Bulls, and Sanyin Siang, executive director of the Coach K Leadership and Ethics Center at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business. Together they discuss the science behind why fans make the choices that they make and how teams can use that information to improve the fan experience at their home stadiums. This week's show is brought to you by FreshBooks. For freelancers and small business owners, Freshbooks takes the pain out of accounting. Have a question about the service? A real-live human will answer every call in about three rings. Get your 30-day free trial by going to FreshBooks.com slash BRAIN and entering the promo code BRAIN.

Can the number of high-fives, hugs and chest-bumps a team exchanges impact its win-loss record? Michael Kraus, a professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management, joins the show to discuss his study on the correlation between physical touch and performance among NBA teams, and how lessons from those findings can be taken off the court and into our business and personal relationships.

On this week’s episode, Wertheim and Sommers use the wild events of the opening rounds of the NFL playoffs to discuss the presence of “hotheads” and rash decision-makers in the sports world. Who’s responsible for players that fly off the handle and lose their cool in the heat of competition, and do the words we use to describe their behavior match up with the science behind what’s going on in their brains? This Is Your Brain on Sports is sponsored by the SeatGeek app, available in app stores and at seatgeek.com. Enter code BRAIN in the app to for a $20 rebate off your first ticket purchase. We are also sponsored by FanDuel. Enter promo code BRAIN at FanDuel.com for up to $200 in bonus cash.

Sommers and Wertheim discuss the firing of NFL coaches after the regular season and the announcements of these changes. Despite the trend, data and studies actually suggest that there is little benefit to replacing a losing coach and a new leader can actually decrease the chances of an improved season. The pair also discusses the effects of the public's interest in job loss in the NFL. -- The Brain on Sports Podcast is sponsored by FanDuel. Enter promo code BRAN at FanDuel.com for a risk-free tournament up to $10. We are also sponsored by the SeatGeek app, available in app stores and at seatgeek.com. Enter code BRAIN to for a $20 rebate off your first ticket purchase.

Sam Sommers talks with Megan Bartlett of Up2Us Sports about youth sports and the areas in which coaches, parents and players can strive to improve the industry in the coming year.

On this week’s episode, Sommers and Wertheim recap all of the year’s Brain on Sports episodes and reflect on some of their top guests and interviews. Listeners will hear from athletes, economists, psychologists and more, including Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne, Holly Holm after her win over Ronda Rousey, superman Cameron Hughes, Dan Ariely, former NFL player Tony Gonzalez and others.

In this week’s episode, Sommers and Wertheim discuss the halo effect—the cognitive bias where your overall impression of a person impacts your evaluations of that person's traits. Sommers discusses some of the classic experiments that illustrate this effect and the pair talks about this bias in the sports-scape and everyday life. How does the halo effect—also sometimes dubbed the pitchfork effect—relate to Tom Brady and Bill Belichick? What does physical appearance have to do with NFL quarterbacks?

On this week's episode, Jon Wertheim and Sam Sommers discuss the psychology of an undefeated team. What are the dynamics of playing to keep a record going and extend it? They also discuss whether or not an undefeated record actually sharpens focus or if the pressure ultimately puts more at stake during a game or match. -- This is your Brain on Sports is brought to you by FanDuel. Enter promo code BRAIN at FanDuel.com for up to $200 in bonus cash. We are also sponsored by the SeatGeek app, available in app stores and at seatgeek.com. Enter code BRAIN in the app to for a $20 rebate off your first ticket purchase.

On this week’s episode, Sam is joined by Juliana Schroeder, an assistant professor at Cal-Berkeley, to discuss the psychological impact of rituals in the sports world and elsewhere in everyday life. From the subtle quirks of baseball players in the batter’s box to the shared pre-game antics of an entire team or fan base, Schroeder reveals what we know about the tangible effects rituals of all kinds have on the efficiency and productivity of the athletes and people who practice them.

Fresh off her shocking knockout of Ronda Rousey, UFC women’s bantamweight champion Holly Holm discusses the underdog mentality, her relationship with fear, feeling compassion for her opponents and what it means to be a world-class athlete. Your Brain on Sports is brought to you by FanDuel. Enter promo code ONTHECLOCK at FanDuel.com for up to $200 in bonus cash. We are also sponsored by the SeatGeek app, available in app stores and at seatgeek.com. Enter code ONTHECLOCK in the app to for a $20 rebate off your first ticket purchase.

On this week’s episode, Sam Sommers talks with University of St. Thomas head men's basketball coach and psychology professor John Tauer. Tauer is also the author of Why Less Is More for WOSPs (Well-Intentioned, Overinvolved Sports Parents): How to Be the Best Sports Parent You Can Be and he discusses youth sports, parenting and motivation. -- This is your Brain on Sports is brought to you by FanDuel. Enter promo code BRAIN at FanDuel.com for up to $200 in bonus cash. We are also sponsored by the SeatGeek app, available in app stores and at seatgeek.com. Enter code BRAIN in the app to for a $20 rebate off your first ticket purchase.

On this week's episode, Jon Wertheim sits down with cricket titans Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne discuss retirement, bringing the sport of cricket to the U.S., what makes an athlete great, the mental side of sports and more. -- This is your Brain on Sports is brought to you by FanDuel. Enter promo code BRAIN at FanDuel.com for up to $200 in bonus cash. We are also sponsored by the SeatGeek app, available in app stores and at seatgeek.com. Enter code BRAIN in the app to for a $20 rebate off your first ticket purchase.

Why do fans continue to root for perennial losers? On this week's episode, Jon Wertheim and Sam Sommers discuss how fans of bad teams strike a balance between the rational and irrational, as well as what happens when a team's fortunes turn, leaving its fans to deal with newfound success.

This week, behavioral economist Dan Ariely joins the show to discuss fan behavior, the principle of loss aversion and the subtle psychological details that color our in-game experience as spectators. Ariely also discusses his film (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies, which includes interviews with some prominent figures from the sports world on the moral gray area on the road to large-scale cheating and dishonesty. -- This is Your Brain on Sports is brought to you by the SeatGeek app, available in app stores and at http://seatgeek.com. Enter code BRAIN in the app to for a $20 rebate off your first ticket purchase. We are also sponsored by FanDuel. Enter promo code BRAIN at http://FanDuel.com for up to $200 in bonus cash.

Is there a crisis in the kicking profession? Jon Wertheim and Sam Sommers take a closer look at the numbers from the opening weeks of NFL action and parse the comments of kickers past and present to examine the state of the kicking game and determine which early trends might be here to stay. -- This is Your Brain on Sports is brought to you by FanDuel. Enter promo code BRAIN at http://FanDuel.com for up to $200 in bonus cash. We are also sponsored by the SeatGeek app, available in app stores and at http://seatgeek.com. Enter code BRAIN in the app to for a $20 rebate off your first ticket purchase.

In this week's episode, Jon Wertheim talks with former NFL tight end Tony Gonzalez about family dynamics in sports through his own personal experiences and new documentary on Showtime, "Play it Forward." Gonzalez discusses the film and gives more intimate details about his relationship with his brother and the role of family dynamics in sports. Is there some sort of guilt felt after one sibling makes it to the NFL and the other doesn't? He talks about the emotional impact his successful career had on him and his bond with his brother and more.

On this week's episode, economists Adam Sanjurjo and Joshua Miller join the podcast to discuss their findings in the long-standing debate over the existence of the “hot hand” in sports, the phenomenon describing the groove basketball players and other athletes appear to enter from time to time that has sparked decades of discussion in the sports world and beyond.

In this week's episode, Jon Wertheim and Sam Sommers discuss abusive coaching in sports and how demoralizing tactics affect athletes today. Several studies show that a positive approach is more beneficial and effective and Sommers explains how negativity can impact the brain and cause suboptimal performance. In fact, Sommers discusses how demoralizing coaching tactics can actually affect a player's peripheral vision.

Just because you have the first pick in your fantasy football draft—or in the NFL draft—doesn't mean you'll end up with the best player. And just because you sign the priciest free-agents available doesn't mean they'll star for your team. In this week's Brain on Sports Podcast, Jon Wertheim and Sam Sommers examine the economic phenomenon of the winner's curse and how it explains why teams almost never get what they pay for.

In this week’s episode, Sommers is joined by Dr. Amy Cuddy, a world-renowned expert in body language, to discuss the subconscious messages the body sends and how those physical messages can shape the minds of top athletes. More and more teams are buying into the idea that how players and coaches act in their regular routine dictates how productive they are in the heat of competition. Whether it's high-pressure penalty kicks in soccer or casual clubhouse encounters in baseball, Dr. Cuddy shares her insight on the subtle physical messages everyone sends and receives, often without realizing it, and how those messages can help or harm athletes at the highest level.

In this week’s episode, professional superfan Cameron Hughes joins Sam Sommers to discuss the impact of crowd energy at big-time sporting venues. If you don't recognize Hughes's name right away, you'll probably recognize his dance moves from the opening week of action at the U.S. Open, when he came onto the court to dance with Novak Djokovic after the No. 1 seed finished off his second-round opponent. Hughes travels the continent riling up crowds at big-time sporting events, and he breaks down the importance of fan participation to a stadium's atmosphere and reveals what top athletes and teams have told him about how much it means for fans to get into the game and make themselves heard.

In this week's episode, SI executive editor Jon Wertheim and Tufts University psychology professor Sam Sommers discuss action bias in sports organizations, among fans of sports teams and with trade deadlines. Is it better to do something or do nothing at all? Wertheim and Sommers discuss the MLB trade deadline, NFL teams' front offices and situations with managers and coaches, fans behind the basket at a basketball game and more.

In this week’s episode, Wertheim and Sommers explore the fine art of trash talk and its place in the sports word. From the verbal jabs boxers trade at pre-fight press conferences to the personal insult Nick Kyrgios lobbed across the net at Stan Wawrinka at the Rogers Cup earlier this month, trash talk has become as common to sports on all levels as the action itself. Wertheim and Sommers discuss the origins of trash talk as a competitive strategy and the varying objectives behind the psychological tactics used most often by athletes, coaches and fans.

In this week's episode, SI executive editor Jon Wertheim and Tufts University psychology professor Sam Sommers discuss the psychology behind the New England Patriots, Tom Brady and the Deflategate scandal, including identity conflicts and persecution complex, or an irrational feeling or fear that one is the objective of collective hostility or bad treatment. Sommers suggests that it's a common belief for people in sports, politics and everyday life to focus on all that is overcome when completing an accomplishment. In addition, Wertheim and Sommers also discuss the St. Louis Cardinals hacking case and the Atlanta Falcons fake noise scandal.

For more than 60 years, Sports Illustrated has championed its brand of quality sports journalism. Today, SI announces a new partnership … one that helps us tell the stories that matter to your life, through today’s mobile channels. Sports Illustrated is now a part of the Panoply Network. Visit http://panoply.fm to learn more about the excellent slate of podcasts, and subscribe to your favorite SI shows on iTunes or find them all at http://si.com/podcasts. Music by: Pierlo (http://upitup.com)

In this week’s episode we take the title of the podcast quite literally, peeking under the hood at the mind of the sports fan. Guest Mina Cikara, a social neuroscientist and Harvard University professor, talks about her research using MRI technology to take images of fans’ brains as they follow their favorite sports teams. What's the one thing that sometimes gives fans even more pleasure than watching their favorite team win? Cikara and Sommers discuss what these brain snapshots tell us about human nature more generally, and how they help explain the brighter and darker sides of sports fan behavior.

Brain on Sports podcast co-host and Tufts University psychology professor Sam Sommers talks with Matt Bowers, an expert in athlete and coach development at the University of Texas, about what makes for a creative athlete. How can we predict who will become the next Lionel Messi on the pitch, Wayne Gretzky on the ice or Kobe Bryant on the court? Sommers and Bowers then turn their focus turns to youth sports: Does playing on organized teams foster or hinder creativity? What about playing multiple sports versus specializing?

“This is Your Brain on Sports” is a podcast from Sports Illustrated in which SI executive editor Jon Wertheim and Tufts University psychology professor Sam Sommers look at the hidden side of games, athletes, fans, owners and officials. This week's episode examines the life and career of golfer Tiger Woods—what advice does a psychologist have for this legendary golfer who is now on the decline? Wertheim and Sommers analyze the public's perception of Woods, and the perception of himself as a professional athlete, in terms of different psychological ideologies. Is Woods actually a lot like you and I in his approach to dealing with his recent troubles on and off of the course? Sommers discusses the ways in which Woods rationalizes his losses and drop in rankings and how they are similar to the way an average person deals with the ups and downs of life.

SI executive editor Jon Wertheim and Tufts University psychology professor Sam Sommers discuss the definition of rivalries, partly based on a study led by New York University Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations Gavin Kilduff, titled "The psychology of rivalry: a relationally dependent analysis of competition," which investigates the idea that teams’ similarity and histories can predict rivalry, and that rivalry may affect athletes’ motivation and performance. Can a person have an unrequited rival? Or are rivalries actually quite symmetrical?

“This is Your Brain on Sports” is a new podcast from Sports Illustrated in which SI executive editor Jon Wertheim and Tufts University psychology professor Sam Sommers look at the hidden side of games, athletes, owners and officials. This week’s episode examines hypocrisy in sports—among fans, but also players, front office execs, and the media who cover them all. Carlo Valdesolo, a professor of psychology at Claremont McKenna College in California, visits to talk about his research and to help us understand how a baseball fan can boo Alex Rodriguez as a steroid user … all the while wearing the jersey of another player suspended for PEDs. How an NFL general manager can talk about the importance of character to his franchise … and then turn around and draft Jameis Winston. Valdesolo and Sommers discuss how moral hypocrisy emerges in other domains including politics, law and even parenting, as well as what we can (and can’t) do about it.

Co-host Sam Sommers sits down with Harvard Business School professor Mike Norton, an expert on the psychology of investment, to examine the psychology of rooting for a losing team. The pair explores the possibility that the more you suffer as a fan, the bigger the fan you actually become and Norton explains how rooting for a losing team is a lot like putting together IKEA furniture: the harder you work at something, the more you come to value it later.

Sports Illustrated executive editor Jon Wertheim talks with co-host and Tufts University associate professor of psychology Dr. Sam Sommers about the FIFA Women's World Cup and it's relation to increased state aggression and world peace. The pair also discusses the psychology of the penalty kick and why the best decision for a goalkeeper is to stand in the center of the net.

Sports Illustrated executive editor Jon Wertheim sits down with economist Richard Thaler, the Ralph and Dorothy Keller Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and author of "Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioural Economics," to discuss how behavioral economist theories and concepts, such as decision-making and risk and reward ratio, relate to sports.