Lately, we’re pumped for the Paris Olympics. But does the excitement around the Summer Games act as the perfect distraction?
The Paris Olympics are nearly upon us, and one thing is clearer than the Seine: For some countries, sports are the ultimate distraction. Dubious human rights records? Look at our athletes!
It’s called sportswashing, an attempt by nations and companies to take the focus off their less-than-stellar practices. Our guest, Globe and Mail reporter Simon Houpt walks us through the long history of sportswashing, all the way from the inception of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece to the present day.
Also, Vass ribs Katrina for being an Olympics superfan.
Simon Houpt writes about sports media and the business of sports for The Globe. His article that inspired this episode is called “Why do we reserve the term ‘sportswashing’ for repressive regimes and not, say, Coca-Cola?”
This is Lately. Every week, we take a deep dive into the big, defining trends in business and tech that are reshaping our every day.
Our executive producer is Katrina Onstad. The show is produced by Andrea Varsany. Our sound designer is Cameron McIver.
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Find the transcript of today’s episode here.
We’d love to hear from you. Send your comments, questions or ideas to lately@globeandmail.com.
Vass Bednar [00:00:00] I'm Vass Bednar and I host this Globe and Mail podcast called Lately.
Katrina Onstad [00:00:03] And I'm Katrina Onstad and I am the show's executive producer.
Vass Bednar [00:00:07] You're also an Olympic super fan, which I adore about you. How stoked are you for the Summer Games in Paris and why do you have face paint on right now?
Katrina Onstad [00:00:16] Hey, that's a lie. I feel like you're shaming me for my affection for the Olympics.
Vass Bednar [00:00:22] No! No, no no.
Katrina Onstad [00:00:23] Like I am aware that Olympics bashing is another kind of sport, especially when they come around and you don't have to convince me, okay? There's excellent reporting on the terrible environmental footprint of the games. We all know how they're often economically dubious for host cities. Montreal took 30 years to pay down its debt from the 1976 Olympics, so I get it. People are defecating in the Seine as we speak to make a point about this, but I've got to say, I love the Olympics, I just do. I find it very moving to see these athletes achieving at the highest levels. And these people, you know, are not professionals, most of them, some of them are now, but most of them have put in so much time and a lot of their own money into this one narrow passion, and not often for financial gain. Most of them do not come out with these million dollar sponsorships. Right? And so I refuse to be a Grinch about it. So there. There's my Pro Olympics rant farce. Leave me alone.
Vass Bednar [00:01:12] I didn't mean- I didn't mean to tease you.
Katrina Onstad [00:01:14] So what about you? What are you going to watch or will you.
Vass Bednar [00:01:17] I don't have anything marked in my calendar yet. My kind of joke is I've always wondered why water sliding isn't at the Summer Olympics as a complement to bobsledding. I really I thought I could become a contender.
Katrina Onstad [00:01:29] Oh, yeah.
Vass Bednar [00:01:29] That's how I see myself, you know, at a future- future games.
Katrina Onstad [00:01:34] I think. Yeah. You could get sponsorship for that I think.
Vass Bednar [00:01:36] I'm working on finding the best slides around the world. And this week we want to talk about how those good feelings you describe, that romance, that achievement, that kind of halo element of the games and other sporting events can be harnessed to sportswash. And that word doesn't refer to laundering your biker shorts or wiping off a sweaty fencing mask. Sportswashing is a term used to describe the practice of governments or corporations using sports to improve their reputations. Now, Saudi Arabia tends to be the case study here. They've spent billions into hoovering up events like the PGA Golf Tour and the 2030 World Cup, and they have a pretty terrible human rights track record. Also, Gulf nations are changing sports. They've bought up a bunch of teams in the English Premier League and that's a shift in ownership, not sponsorship. But the same forces are at play.
Katrina Onstad [00:02:30] And there was a really good column in the Globe and Mail recently by Simon Houpt, which looks at this phenomenon. And he asks if we should be raising an eyebrow at the investments of big brands as much as we do repressive regimes. Like is our scrutiny sometimes selective? It's interesting. So we invited him in to talk about it?
Vass Bednar [00:02:49] Yes. So on today's very Olympic episode, we discussed the history and economy of sportswashing. Simon Houpt cover sports, media and the business of sports for The Globe and Mail, and he wrote that excellent column, which we're going to link to in our show notes. He is also a former baseball player who broke his nose one time too many. That's something he told me. It's not a comment on his face. Okay, this is Lately. I was thinking one of the first things we should do out the gate is ask you to define sportswashing for us.
Simon Houpt [00:03:37] Sure. Sportswashing is a relatively new term. It's about ten years old. It's one of those made up terms, you know-
Vass Bednar [00:03:43] My favorite kind, yeah.
Simon Houpt [00:03:44] Well, it's a portmanteau, as they say. Sports and washing, refers to this practice of using sports to, cleanse or cover up something that is perceived to be dirty. It was first used in 2015 by an Azerbaijan critic of her country's regime and its human rights abuses. But basically it's nowadays used most commonly to refer to the practice of repressive regimes, these might be, you know, Russia or China or some of the Gulf oil nations, using sports to distract people, both inside the country and especially outside, from their human rights abuses.
Vass Bednar [00:04:26] I think those are two really key words cleanse and distract. Let's talk about an example, Qatar and the World Cup. Why would a middle eastern emirate with fewer than 3 million people and kind of little in the way of soccer tradition, want to host the sport's biggest event at a reported cost to them of some $220 billion?
Simon Houpt [00:04:48] That's a great question. That's a key question. You could say some of these Gulf oil nations, they see 100 or $200 billion as funny money. I mean, really, what we're talking about when we're talking about Sportswashing is a sort of cultural diplomacy, right? It's soft power. And like, this is something that every country engages in the broad category of, really I mean you could say, marketing that Sportswashing belongs to. You know, this is persuasion. This is spreading their values and back up for a second I mean, America has been doing this for decades. You know, during the Cold War, the State Department used to send jazz musicians like Dizzy Gillespie and some of the more avant garde poets and writers around the world to spread American values. And that is cultural diplomacy, that is exercising soft power. You know, Canada does it, too. For a number of years, I was based in New York for the Globe, and every July 1st, the Department of Foreign Affairs would host a concert in Central Park for Canada Day, and some of Canada's greatest musicians played there, Tragically Hip, Feist, and Broken Social Scene. And, you know, Pamela Wallin, who was then the consul general, explained to me that this is a way of kind of opening conversations with, it could be Americans, it could be all kinds of people from around the world to the values that Canada holds. And so Qatar saw the World Cup as a great way to advertise what it said was its new openness. There were cultural elements to the Qatar World Cup. There were sculptures in the desert and, you know, all kinds of fantastic things that people could do, not just watching soccer. And this was, you know, cultural diplomacy.
Vass Bednar [00:06:39] So what is it about sports specifically that is attractive to, I guess, dubious regimes, but maybe regimes of of all kind? What is the particular shine that these countries are hoping might rub off on them?
Simon Houpt [00:06:56] You know, Nelson Mandela once said sport has the power to change the world. And, you know, he recognized it was a meeting place where all humanity could work out their differences and show the best of what it was to be human. I mean, look, there's this purity to sport and a connection to human achievement that I mean, frankly, stretches back thousands of years.
Vass Bednar [00:07:18] Yeah.
Simon Houpt [00:07:18] Certainly back to the original Olympic Games. And look, do you play sport?
Vass Bednar [00:07:22] Yeah, I play pickup basketball.
Simon Houpt [00:07:25] Excellent. Good for you. So I don't know whether that started in your childhood, but most of us play sports as children, right? It's how many of us learn to work together in team-
Vass Bednar [00:07:38] Wait, what are you play? Are you an individual sport guy? Are you a team sport guy?
Simon Houpt [00:07:43] Well, you know, I don't play a lot anymore. I, suffered many injuries playing baseball.
Vass Bednar [00:07:48] Okay.
Simon Houpt [00:07:48] I broke my leg. I broke my nose, at least once, playing baseball. But, you know, I mean, you're, I believe a relatively new mother, right?
Vass Bednar [00:07:58] Yes. Wow. Who's done their homework for this episode? I know I'll be playing that new mom card as long as I can.
Simon Houpt [00:08:06] Right.
Vass Bednar [00:08:06] Just kidding.
Simon Houpt [00:08:08] You know, at some point, I presume you'll put them into some kind of sports as a toddler or, young kid, and he will push himself and he will achieve great things, and he will also suffer terrible loss. And that is really the training ground for life. And so that's one of the elements that makes sport so attractive. And we're about to embark on the Olympics. This is three weeks of the Olympics and the Paralympics, and it's one of the few communal experiences that we have anymore, even though we're all going to be watching different events, you know, CBC will have their main channel, and they'll also be broadcasting on two TSN channels and two Sportsnet channels. But there will be dozens of streams on CBC's app. And so we're all going to be watching, on the one hand, different things, but on the other hand, the same thing. It is going to be this communal experience that millions are going to be engaged in. And so if you're a marketer, you want to capitalize, I think not just on the large audience, but also, you know, on the positive feelings and that kind of warm and fuzzy fellow feeling that these kinds of events bring.
Vass Bednar [00:09:27] It has been said that the Olympics have actually always invited Sportswashing. Do you know this myth or story of Athens and Sparta in 416 BCE?
Simon Houpt [00:09:40] So I'm trying to remember is that the Alcibiades, moment?
Vass Bednar [00:09:43] Yeah. Like, why don't I do my my history version of it and decode it for me, okay?
Simon Houpt [00:09:48] Sure.
Vass Bednar [00:09:49] So here's a quick thumbnail. At the time, there was this ongoing, brutal war between Athens and Sparta. And Athens is losing the war, I'll say this is historically accurate, big time. So an Athenian politician enters a bunch of Athenians in a chariot race, and they win. This is like an F1 racing team. And now Athens is sort of really energized, right? Their- their people are feeling like who's the loser now? Athens is number one. What do you think? Is that sportswashing or is that just sports?
Simon Houpt [00:10:24] Certainly. I think if we think about it in modern context, that is something that we would equate to Sportswashing. And I'm thinking about, for example, Vladimir Putin back in 2014, you know, Russia hosted the Sochi Olympics. He basked in the adulation of being the host to what ended up being, I mean, despite a lot of criticism, especially around, Russia's repression of LGBTQS individuals. But, you know, Putin's internal approval rating went up and Russia was feeling very strong about itself. Putin then took that great feeling and invaded Crimea between the Olympics and the Paralympics. So according to some, he used that as a kind of a jumping off point, having either cleansed, his image or certainly improved his image through hosting the Olympics and used the soft power to then move to the hard power of a military invasion.
Vass Bednar [00:11:24] In your column, you wrote about a kind of double standard at play when we talk about this phenomenon. The headline, if you'll permit me to read it out loud back to you, is "Why Do We Reserve the Term Sportswashing for Repressive Regimes and Not, say, Coca-Cola?" So what should we be thinking about differently here?
Simon Houpt [00:11:43] Sure, we should be skeptical of Saudi Arabia and its multibillion dollar spends in the sports realm, but we also should be skeptical of what corporations, not just globe straddling corporations like Coca-Cola, are attempting to convince us of, there are reasons that Coke wants to make us feel really good. One of the things it doesn't want to remind us of is that, and this is kind of the irony, really, that I was just trying to flick at in the column, you know, Coca-Cola is not really the best drink for for athletes to be consuming.
Vass Bednar [00:12:22] What?
Simon Houpt [00:12:23] I'm sorry.
Vass Bednar [00:12:24] Oh, I've got to rethink my whole strategy here.
Vass Bednar [00:12:26] I know I'm going to sound like I'm raining on everybody's parade, but, you know, it does belong to this class of beverages that is widely understood to cause heart disease, diabetes, obesity, tooth decay, all kinds of bad health outcomes. So, you know, these things are terrible for you if you consume them with any kind of regularity. Look, Coke is the longest supporting official sponsor of the Olympics, and Coke is the most aggressive brand marketer, I think, in the world when it comes to pairing its image with sports. And it always has been, I mean, back in 1928, they sent a thousand cases of Coke to the Olympics, in the Netherlands. And their first official Olympic sponsorship was at the 1936 Olympics. And these are the ones, of course, held in Berlin, which, Adolf Hitler had famously hoped to use to spread the, we'll call it, the myth of Aryan supremacy and-
Vass Bednar [00:13:26] I want to talk more about this.
Simon Houpt [00:13:27] Please.
Vass Bednar [00:13:27] Probably the most egregious example of Olympics sportswashing was, of course, Berlin hosting the 1936 games. And to put that in context, this was three years after the first concentration camp began operating, and two years after Hitler abolished the office of the president and declared himself dictator. What do you think the goal was there, and how did it go over on on the world stage?
Simon Houpt [00:13:50] Well, it didn't go over nearly as well as he'd hoped. I mean, there are all kinds of films and books written about the way Jesse Owens almost single handedly destroyed Hitler's ego at the time. But, you know, similar to the way Putin had used the Sochi Olympics, and as you note, Alcibiades used the original Olympic Games to prove to the world that in the case of Athens, that Athenians were superior, and obviously in the case of Hitler, that Aryans were superior.
Vass Bednar [00:14:23] As a quick follow up, I feel like we kind of just avoided a repeat of this. Right? France is just wrapping up a major election, at the time that we're recording this the outcome is still a little bit uncertain, but there was a real risk that the far right would be in power and kind of then could use the Olympics to legitimize its politics.
Simon Houpt [00:14:41] Well, it's believed that the Paris Olympics will be one of the most widely viewed games, certainly in probably about a decade. And so, yes, absolutely. We don't yet know, as we're recording this, who will be standing there greeting, athletes from around the world as France's government, we expect it will still be Macron, but we're not sure. And these platforms are very valuable. Look, back in 2022, when China hosted the Beijing Olympics, Putin was there and he and Xi Jinping were together at the Olympics and they displayed not just that unity, but that sense of power. These are very powerful platforms and very influential platforms, and we don't yet know what we're going to see in Paris.
Vass Bednar [00:15:36] So you've pointed to the the reputational element for repressive regimes. I wanted to bring celebrity and pop culture here for a second. It's my time to shine. Did you read about Flavor Flav's five year sponsorship deal with the U.S. women's Water polo team? It felt like it would be if Drake stepped in to sponsor women's field hockey or something like that. What's going on here?
Simon Houpt [00:15:59] Well, you tell me whether you think Flavor Flav's reputation needs cleansing in the same way that Drake's might.
Vass Bednar [00:16:05] Well, he has a domestic battery charge that was dropped and he pled no contest to coercion. So, yeah, I definitely think there could be some reputational elements for him. He could just also really love water polo. And maybe women's sports just are less funded.
Simon Houpt [00:16:24] Well, certainly women's sports are less funded. And they are also the flava of, I'm sorry, of the month. And I hope that it's not just of the month, but, you know, obviously women's sports have become very important for an increasing number of corporations to be seen to be getting behind. But, you know, here in Canada, obviously, we saw the launch of the PWHL, the fantastic Professional Women's Hockey League and, companies like Canadian Tire, stepped up as founding sponsors because they saw this was good business. And you could do good by doing well and do well by doing good. You know, Flavor Flav has not said exactly why he's sponsoring, and we don't know a lot about that particular sponsorship or that particular involvement.
Vass Bednar [00:17:13] Just that it's five years, yeah.
Simon Houpt [00:17:14] It's five years, and that he has said he's not getting into the pool, which I think is- is a good thing. But, no look, the increasing use of the term sportswashing, I think, has thankfully made us more aware of any time an individual or a corporation or a country is using the platform of sports to do something that they may have ulterior motives for.
Vass Bednar [00:17:43] Maybe we can talk a little bit more about Saudi Arabia, specifically. A country with an abysmal human rights record, pretty much the poster child for Sportswashing. Saudi Arabia has spent at least $6.3 billion on sport deals between 2021 and 2023, according to an analysis by The Guardian. This includes initiatives like the Asian Winter games, tennis, cycling, the 2034 FIFA World Cup rights and this month, e-sports. What's interesting here is the clarity around the agenda. So Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said that he, quote, doesn't care about accusations of sportswashing against his country. He told Fox News, "If sportswashing is going to increase my GDP by way of 1%, then I will continue doing sportswashing." What are the economics at play here? What is success?
Simon Houpt [00:18:33] It's not clear exactly what he meant by that comment. I know it has been taken to be well, hey sportswashing itself is giving us this additional 1.5% of GDP. But the way I heard it, it sounded as if basically what he was saying was, hey, this is just an investment. That is to say, an actual business investment, which is, I think, probably important to separate from the sportswashing, which is, as we say, a kind of cynical PR move to throw a whole lot of money at something and you would not get that money back. And frankly, if I'm a young Saudi individual, I would want to know what this public investment fund is doing with money that is supposed to belong to me, whether it is being used to cleanse the nation of a bad reputation for murdering journalists and, you know, keeping women as second class citizens, or whether it's an actual good investment from the cash flow perspective.
Vass Bednar [00:19:33] What is the PIF?
Simon Houpt [00:19:34] The PIF is Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. It's this fund created, obviously from their oil wealth. It's worth about $1 trillion American now. And so it allows Saudi Arabia to go around the world and make, eye popping investments in, really, whatever they want.
Vass Bednar [00:19:56] Okay. Let's talk about what these business investments mean and feel like for the athletes themselves, because it strikes me that sportswashing is not just about buying teams or rights to events. You can also kind of buy people and use them as your own billboard. Ronaldo was paid $213 million to play for Al Nassr. Notably, only a fraction of this relates to him actually playing football, with his image rights and commercial deals reportedly funding more than half of his total earnings. What is Saudi Arabia buying, and how is this different for the players themselves than just wearing a pair of Adidas shoes in an ad campaign?
Simon Houpt [00:20:37] Well, you know, Rafael Nadal as well, recently signed on to be an ambassador for Saudi Arabian tennis. And I think you've hit on something really important here. Ultimately, it's the athletes who are the reason we're watching these sports and in some cases, the ambassadors and the billboards for these messages. You know, and this is something that I think most acutely has been felt in the WTA, you know, the Women's Tennis Association, for years they were offered Saudi money and they rebuffed it. Because understandably, a lot of WTA members were really not comfortable partnering with a regime, you know, where women are treated as second class citizens. You know, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, these are two legends in the game, they said this is a terrible thing. Our work, our legacy, should not be used to cleanse the regime. But another legend of the game, Billie Jean King, suggested or argued that actually engagement, that is to say, having athletes in Riyadh, and having athletes speak directly to power could be a great thing. So back in April, the WTA, sure enough, actually did sign a deal whereby the WTA finals, you know, for the next three years are going to be held in Riyadh. And they bought great PR, but that is a very active conversation. And I think it points to one of the complicating elements of sportswashing, which is that, you know, when Qatar hosted the World Cup in 2022, all of a sudden hundreds of millions of people around the world were suddenly talking about Qatar's terrible human rights record. So you invite not just the great PR and not just, you know, the cleansing of that reflected glory of sports, but you also invite the scrutiny.
Vass Bednar [00:22:38] So speaking about inviting scrutiny, you've also written about the rise of private equity in sport, pointing out just how weird it is to see the new National Women's Soccer League team-
Simon Houpt [00:22:50] It's very weird!
Vass Bednar [00:22:50] -Bay FC in jerseys with the logo for Sixth Street, a private equity giant. Hedge funds are supposed to be stealth and private. What's going on? What's being washed here?
Simon Houpt [00:23:03] Right. So we don't actually know whether it's being washed. You know, Sixth Street is the majority owner of Bay FC, which is this new NWSL, you know, National Women's Soccer League team in the Bay area, Bay FC. So they certainly have a legitimate claim to the brand of that team. But, what was unusual is back in April, they became an official jersey sponsor of their own team. And so, you know, the Sixth Street logo is on the back. It's a really big logo. It's almost as big as the number on the back of these women's jerseys. And, you know, I also mentioned in that column that we're talking about there's something called Arctos Partners, which is another private equity firm. It is a partial owner of the Aston Martin F1 team. So their logo appears on the Aston Martin F1 car. And you're like, why are these companies doing this? And your typical NWSL fan is not going to be trying to engage Sixth Street, you know, which has $75 billion in assets under management to, you know, run their fund. It's a very strange thing, but it is, I think, important to note that private equity is becoming a more significant part of our economy, you know, from sports teams to dentists offices, frankly, I- so Vass I don't know if you have a pet, but you may have noticed if you do that your vet is now owned by a private equity firm. So it's not unlikely I think that some of these firms are feeling like maybe it would be a good time to just kind of start branding the sector, start softening people up to feel good, just as Coke does, to feel good about private equity taking over the economy.
Vass Bednar [00:24:55] Well, speaking of you and I chasing those good vibes, I'm wondering, you know, we're talking about sportswashing now, but does anyone actually care? You wrote in your article about a new Harris poll that showed only 28% of boomers, or Gen Xers surveyed, believe that oil money in sports is a good thing, while a whopping 61% of millennials and Gen Z believe it's good. So what's going on here? Aren't younger people supposed to be opposed to this kind of thing?
Simon Houpt [00:25:25] I think, you know, you mentioned e-sports, Saudi Arabia sponsoring e-sports. Saudi Arabia understands that if they woo the kids, then they will, from a generational perspective, they will lay the groundwork for Saudi Arabia to be taken as possibly a benevolent force in the sports realm. But having spoken with kids of that age and people in their 30s and their 20s, I don't think it's naivety, I think it's this sense of understanding the way power works now in the world. And I think that generation, unlike perhaps my generation, which still feels good about Coca-Cola, this younger generation is looking at the way money and power works. They're looking at the way their economy has been taken over by some very powerful forces, and they're seeing right through that. And so maybe they're not saying there's no difference between Coca Cola and Saudi Arabia, but they're saying there's no significant fundamental difference. And so if I feel good about Coke, then why shouldn't I feel good about Saudi Arabia. Maybe they're saying, look, you know, the world is a cynical place, I will engage with Saudi Arabia. I will allow them to take over ownership of my sports team. But I will also recognize that their track record of human rights is a terrible thing. I can hold these two things in my head at the same time, because frankly, plenty of people feel as sports has become taken over, as I say, by private equity, a lot of people don't feel great about that, but they're like, well, what are you going to do? You know, EPL teams are no longer owned by the communities. There are very few NFL or CFL teams that are owned by the communities. And so okay, this is this is the trade off that we make. So what's important is to say, yes, this is something we live with. But we can also say this is not something we agree with and just continue the conversation.
Vass Bednar [00:27:33] Simon, thanks so much for continuing this conversation with us.
Simon Houpt [00:27:37] Vass, it's been a pleasure. Thanks.
Vass Bednar [00:27:51] You've been listening to Lately a Globe and Mail podcast. Our executive producer is Katrina Onstad. The show is produced by Andrea Varsany and our sound designer is Cameron McIver. I'm your host, Vass Bednar. And in our shownotes you can subscribe to the Lately newsletter where we unpack a little more of the latest in business and technology. A new episode of Lately comes out every Friday wherever you get your podcasts.