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Sports mega-events and changing world order

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The political economy of SMEs in general and the Olympic Games in particular has generated a vast and growing scholarly and popular literature. David Black discusses.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 19, 2024

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This video video discusses the interplay between sports mega events, particularly the Olympic Games, and evolving world orders. The speaker is intrigued by cyclical patterns in the impact and popularity of these events and how they reflect broader geopolitical dynamics. He refers to ideas of world order in a "neo-Gramscian" sense, emphasizing the fragile and constantly evolving nature of power dynamics, which includes state authority, cultural practices, and dominant ideas.

The speaker notes that sports mega events serve as key sites for understanding global political changes, reflecting periods of stability and challenge within world order. He highlights historical examples such as the 1980 Moscow and 1984 Los Angeles Games to illustrate shifts in power and the emergence of a neoliberal model in global sports. The trends in hosting these events represent changing economic contexts, rising powers, and the complexities of public funding, corruption, and the legacies of these events.

He concludes that understanding these dynamics is crucial for both the study of world order and the politics of sport. The upcoming Paris Olympics serve as a lens through which to examine current tensions and human rights issues, suggesting that organizations involved in sports need to adapt and become more sophisticated in dealing with these complexities. Consequently, sports mega events could play a significant role in shaping future world orders and addressing global challenges.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

00:00.000 --> 00:03.245
It's a question that motivated, the, the paper that,

00:03.305 --> 00:06.845
that, I was thinking about

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or that you were thinking about when you, when,

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this invitation came, I imagine.

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Um, essentially, I'm, I've always been fascinated

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by the way in which, sports mega events in general

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and the Olympic Games in particular, have a kind of a,

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a, a trajectory of long cycles.

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They have periods of rising and falling

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and, in, in terms of their impact, in terms

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of their popularity, in terms of their reach.

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And it struck me that those, those patterns,

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were interconnected with changing

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dynamics of, of world order.

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Um, and I'm thinking about world order,

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in a neo gian sense, in the sense of, situations

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where there's a relatively high degree of fit between

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dominant ideas and key institutions

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and material capabilities.

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Um, and those orders are always fragile,

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and they're always in the process of being remade,

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reconstituted, or challenged and, and refined.

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And what I think you can see, in the,

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in overlaying those two dynamics,

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is the way in which sports mega events have,

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have not only reflected,

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but in some ways, reinforced,

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dominant trends in world order, constitution,

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sustainment and, decline.

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And of course, the other thing that motivated me

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to think about this was that we're living through a moment

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of what many people consider to be a, a, a kind

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of proto period of world order change, an an emerging,

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process of world order change.

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And, and, and,

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seeing the way in which sports mega events intersected with

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that process struck me as very important.

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When people speak about, growing tensions

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or growing uncertainties, in,

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the existing world order, they, they're often thinking about

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the balance of power between different state-based,

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sources of, of, of authority, and, and capacity.

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Um, and, Cox's approach is inspired by,

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the ideas of, Antonio Gramsci,

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but, situated on a transnational basis.

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And he became, and in a sense that the initiator

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of a whole school of neo gramsci and thought.

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And the point here is that that, more

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or less stable periods of world order,

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do not depend just on state-based power.

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State-based power, is reflected in dominant forms

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of institutions, but also in terms of material capabilities.

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And most importantly, from my perspective, I guess, the,

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the importance of, of ideas, dominant ideas,

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and cultural practices that reflect those dominant ideas.

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And it's the interplay between those, those spaces,

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those those, factors that

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determine whether orders are relatively stable

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or whether they're in, periods of, of transformation,

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whether they're challenged.

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Um, and it, it's, it seems to me

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that events like sports mega events, are key sites

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where all of these factors come together

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and can be reflected in, rising fortunes

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or appear, attempts to maintain, orders,

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or, sites of decay.

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Um, and so that's, that's, that's how I see Cox applying

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to these kinds of spaces.

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There is an astoundingly large number of,

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academic sources that focus on,

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sports mega events in general, and the Olympic Games

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and Olympism in particular.

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Uh, and they do so in a panoply

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of ways in many different ways.

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Um, but, and,

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and there are definitely, sources that,

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have grappled with these broad gauge, issues.

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Uh, but what I had not seen was an attempt to directly read

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sports mega events in relation to these processes

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of world are to change that we're

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increasingly preoccupied with.

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Um, and I also, saw it as necessary

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to think about these, these events not as one-off events

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or as particular sites,

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but as part, part of a long cycle of, of,

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changing fortunes of these events

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and the, the patterns that these events

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together constitute in terms of a story

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that they tell about both, sports mega events,

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but also about these longer term processes of,

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of transition and change.

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Um, in terms of other sources

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that I think have been really important in this area,

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and that I draw inspiration from, scholars like,

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John Hoberman, who talks about Olympic internationalism

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and it's, and, and the way in which,

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the Olympic movement in the early part of the 20th century,

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mapped onto ideas of internationalism,

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in world society, work like that of, of,

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Rick Reno and John Horn on, sports Meg events

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and their relationship to,

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late stage global capitalism, if you like.

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Uh, I think these have also, they,

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they've been very influential and helpful.

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Uh, but, but the particular angle that I took, I,

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I think was, was, somewhat novel the point that I am,

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I'm trying to get at, and I used

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It for illustrative purposes

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because I think that this, this relationship

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that I'm talking about can be traced throughout the history

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of the emergence of, of the, the modern Sports Mega event.

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Uh, but I wanted, I could see it particularly,

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acutely in relation to the period of

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what some have called world order inter agni

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that we're moving into by tracking the rise,

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the adaptation,

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and then the erosion of,

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what I called in the paper high, high neoliberalism.

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Uh, and so really the story here is that there was a kind

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of 10 year cluster

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or pivot point around the sequence of the, Los Angeles,

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the Moscow Games in 1980

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and the Los Angeles games in 1984, which was,

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initiated with, the boycott of the Moscow Games,

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which greatly diminished the prestige that,

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that the Soviet Union Union was attempting to seek

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through hosting these events.

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And, not withstanding the controversy about the Boycott

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illustrated, the capacity of the United States to mobilize

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support for its cause, that was then followed

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by 1984 when the Soviet Union

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and several, of its allies boycotted

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the Los Angeles games.

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But rather than diminishing the impact of those games, they,

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they, they align with us kind of with a, well,

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for one thing, the emerge of, emergence of,

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of a fully capitalist, fully marketized,

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Olympic model in Los Angeles.

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Uh, and also, with, a, a, a surge of

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optimism and patriotism

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and,

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bravado, if you like, from the,

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the Reagan administration in the United States.

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Uh, and so this, the sense

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that you could see the tide turning, you could see that the,

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the, the stalemate of the Cold War was, was, starting

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to turn and was illustrated

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and manifested by these two events

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that then fed into a long cycle of what I call the sort

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of rise, adaptation

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and decline of, of the neo, the exclusively neoliberal model

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of the games, which, which was reflected in the numbers

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of bidders for these events.

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It was reflected in the range of bidders.

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So more and more, they weren't just,

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rich states from the, the global north.

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They were, the full array of,

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of rising states from Asia, from Latin America,

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bids for, to host these events from places like Cape Town

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and, and Cairo and Africa.

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So, and of course, this was sort of initiated

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with the Soul Games, which also held up the promise

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that the games could be associated

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with rising developmental success,

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but also growing democratization.

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Uh, and then, over time, as the,

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the commercial promise, the urban regeneration promises all

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of these, positive branding promises associated

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with these games, sort

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of reinforce the neoliberal model of development.

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Uh, then you saw growing disaffection

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as they were also associated with extremes of, of,

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sometimes the misuse of public funds, of, degrees

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of corruption and of, post, post-event hangovers of,

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of white elephants.

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So you saw that with, with, the hyper capitalizing,

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character of the Atlanta Games, then the 2004

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Athens games, which were, precursors to the, the,

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the deep economic crisis that was faced in Greece,

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there immediately thereafter.

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Um, and,

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and I think, most strikingly so far, the,

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the 2016 Rio Games, which when they were awarded to Rio,

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seemed to embody the promise of rising prosperity

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through joining the ranks of, of, the neoliberal world.

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But by the time the they took place had actually come

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to reflect the excesses and abuses of that promise.

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Uh, and,

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and then that was overlaid with the emergence

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of a growing trend towards, illiberal regime seeking

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to host these kinds of events with Sochi in 2014.

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Well, Beijing in 2000, Beijing in 2008 is really interesting

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because there was still the hope that Beijing would become,

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as it were, a normal capitalist power, that it would reform

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and become, a part of, this, this

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neoliberal hegemonic model.

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Uh, but by 2022, that, hope had dissipated.

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Um, and, it was also,

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it was also reflected in the 2018, FIFA World Cup

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and, and, and, Russia.

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And, and so, so I think you see, you see a, a,

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a pivotal cluster, a long cycle.

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And then in a sense, we're in, in a current,

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another current moment of great uncertainty

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and how the, how, the games reflect

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and navigate these kinds of processes is going

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to be telling in terms of the kind

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of world order that emerges.

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There are conclusions

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and implications for students of, of world order change, of,

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of world orders, of the question of, of world order

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and international relations.

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And there are also, interestingly enough, I think,

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important conclusions for students of the politics of sport

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and sport diplomacy.

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Um, I think, in terms of the former, I, I, my,

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my general point is

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That if we want to understand, what is going on,

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where the current is running in terms of the, the,

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the process of world order breakdown,

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but also the, the emergence of a landscape of change,

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what might a future world order look like then?

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I think one of the key sites

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to look is actually these kinds of events.

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Um, I, I think that they, they become, fulcrums,

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if you like, they become focal points for contestation by,

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of ideas, contestations of, of models.

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Uh, there's this whole question of, for example,

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with the Paris Olympics coming up this summer, how will,

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participants respond to the presence

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of Russian athletes?

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What questions, what, what question,

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or what approaches, will participants take

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to human rights issues and this, and future contexts?

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Uh, what decisions will be made about who future hosts are

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and, and the terms under which, they,

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they adopt these roles?

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So I think looking at these kinds of events as key sites

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in this process of, of transition,

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and potentially transformation is an illuminating window on

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the, the, the, the, the problem at of world order, what kind

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of world order are we living in?

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What kind of, world order are we moving towards for,

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the many people who are engaged in sport politics

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and sport diplomacy?

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There's this whole parallel universe of sport,

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international sporting organizations,

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national sporting organizations,

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national Olympic Committees, and of course, all

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of the civil society organizations that mobilize

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around these events, that

13:43.595 --> 13:46.225
we've probably paid too little attention to.

13:46.765 --> 13:48.345
Uh, and, and as a result,

13:48.535 --> 13:51.905
they have often not been very sophisticated in dealing

13:52.055 --> 13:55.985
with the kinds of challenges that, that, befall them,

13:56.005 --> 13:57.825
if you like, when they, when they take on these,

13:57.835 --> 13:58.985
these kinds of hosting roles.

13:59.645 --> 14:02.345
And I think that they are going to have to become

14:02.855 --> 14:06.705
much more sophisticated in, in nav in, in

14:07.225 --> 14:09.745
recognizing the, the degree to which they are in fact,

14:09.745 --> 14:12.905
central sites of, of,

14:13.475 --> 14:14.785
world order contestation.

14:15.045 --> 14:17.665
And they face enormous challenges in, in terms

14:17.665 --> 14:20.865
of navigating, that space

14:21.245 --> 14:24.505
and also, seeking to do so in a way

14:24.505 --> 14:26.505
that protects the integrity of the events

14:26.535 --> 14:28.665
that they are trying to, to manage.

14:28.685 --> 14:31.785
And, and the, the brands or the identities

14:31.785 --> 14:34.185
or the movements that they claim to, to speak for.

14:34.255 --> 14:35.345
This is particularly true

14:35.345 --> 14:36.465
of the International Olympic Committee.

14:36.965 --> 14:39.305
Uh, but it's also true of,

14:39.485 --> 14:41.145
of the national Olympic committees,

14:41.145 --> 14:42.465
international sports federations.

14:42.535 --> 14:45.825
They're gonna have to, to become more adept at, at,

14:45.885 --> 14:47.345
managing these kinds of spaces.

14:47.495 --> 14:50.945
It's been a trend that's been taking place, for,

14:50.965 --> 14:52.745
for, for about a generation now,

14:52.765 --> 14:55.625
but it, it, it needs to, to, accelerate.

00:00 - It's a question that motivated, the, the paper that, that, I was thinking about or that you were thinking about when you, when, this invitation came, I imagine. essentially, I'm, I've always been fascinated by the way in which, sports mega events in general

00:18 - and the Olympic Games in particular, have a kind of a, a, a trajectory of long cycles. They have periods of rising and falling and, in, in terms of their impact, in terms of their popularity, in terms of their reach. And it struck me that those, those patterns, were interconnected with changing dynamics of, of world order. and I'm thinking about world order, in a neo gian sense, in the sense of, situations

00:55 - where there's a relatively high degree of fit between dominant ideas and key institutions and material capabilities. and those orders are always fragile, and they're always in the process of being remade, reconstituted, or challenged and, and refined. And what I think you can see, in the, in overlaying those two dynamics, is the way in which sports mega events have, have not only reflected,

01:26 - but in some ways, reinforced, dominant trends in world order, constitution, sustainment and, decline. And of course, the other thing that motivated me to think about this was that we're living through a moment of what many people consider to be a, a, a kind of proto period of world order change, an an emerging, process of world order change. And, and, and, seeing the way in which sports mega events intersected with

01:55 - that process struck me as very important. When people speak about, growing tensions or growing uncertainties, in, the existing world order, they, they're often thinking about the balance of power between different state-based, sources of, of, of authority, and, and capacity. and, Cox's approach is inspired by, the ideas of, Antonio Gramsci, but, situated on a transnational basis. And he became, and in a sense that the initiator

02:34 - of a whole school of neo gramsci and thought. And the point here is that that, more or less stable periods of world order, do not depend just on state-based power. State-based power, is reflected in dominant forms of institutions, but also in terms of material capabilities. And most importantly, from my perspective, I guess, the, the importance of, of ideas, dominant ideas, and cultural practices that reflect those dominant ideas. And it's the interplay between those, those spaces,

03:13 - those those, factors that determine whether orders are relatively stable or whether they're in, periods of, of transformation, whether they're challenged. and it, it's, it seems to me that events like sports mega events, are key sites where all of these factors come together and can be reflected in, rising fortunes or appear, attempts to maintain, orders, or, sites of decay.

03:46 - and so that's, that's, that's how I see Cox applying to these kinds of spaces. There is an astoundingly large number of, academic sources that focus on, sports mega events in general, and the Olympic Games and Olympism in particular. and they do so in a panoply of ways in many different ways. but, and, and there are definitely, sources that,

04:18 - have grappled with these broad gauge, issues. but what I had not seen was an attempt to directly read sports mega events in relation to these processes of world are to change that we're increasingly preoccupied with. and I also, saw it as necessary to think about these, these events not as one-off events or as particular sites, but as part, part of a long cycle of, of, changing fortunes of these events

04:54 - and the, the patterns that these events together constitute in terms of a story that they tell about both, sports mega events, but also about these longer term processes of, of transition and change. in terms of other sources that I think have been really important in this area, and that I draw inspiration from, scholars like, John Hoberman, who talks about Olympic internationalism and it's, and, and the way in which,

05:22 - the Olympic movement in the early part of the 20th century, mapped onto ideas of internationalism, in world society, work like that of, of, Rick Reno and John Horn on, sports Meg events and their relationship to, late stage global capitalism, if you like. I think these have also, they, they've been very influential and helpful. but, but the particular angle that I took, I, I think was, was, somewhat novel the point that I am,

05:54 - I'm trying to get at, and I used It for illustrative purposes because I think that this, this relationship that I'm talking about can be traced throughout the history of the emergence of, of the, the modern Sports Mega event. but I wanted, I could see it particularly, acutely in relation to the period of what some have called world order inter agni that we're moving into by tracking the rise, the adaptation,

06:23 - and then the erosion of, what I called in the paper high, high neoliberalism. and so really the story here is that there was a kind of 10 year cluster or pivot point around the sequence of the, Los Angeles, the Moscow Games in 1980 and the Los Angeles games in 1984, which was, initiated with, the boycott of the Moscow Games, which greatly diminished the prestige that, that the Soviet Union Union was attempting to seek

06:58 - through hosting these events. And, not withstanding the controversy about the Boycott illustrated, the capacity of the United States to mobilize support for its cause, that was then followed by 1984 when the Soviet Union and several, of its allies boycotted the Los Angeles games. But rather than diminishing the impact of those games, they, they, they align with us kind of with a, well, for one thing, the emerge of, emergence of,

07:31 - of a fully capitalist, fully marketized, Olympic model in Los Angeles. and also, with, a, a, a surge of optimism and patriotism and, bravado, if you like, from the, the Reagan administration in the United States. and so this, the sense that you could see the tide turning, you could see that the, the, the stalemate of the Cold War was, was, starting

08:03 - to turn and was illustrated and manifested by these two events that then fed into a long cycle of what I call the sort of rise, adaptation and decline of, of the neo, the exclusively neoliberal model of the games, which, which was reflected in the numbers of bidders for these events. It was reflected in the range of bidders. So more and more, they weren't just, rich states from the, the global north.

08:31 - They were, the full array of, of rising states from Asia, from Latin America, bids for, to host these events from places like Cape Town and, and Cairo and Africa. So, and of course, this was sort of initiated with the Soul Games, which also held up the promise that the games could be associated with rising developmental success, but also growing democratization. and then, over time, as the,

09:03 - the commercial promise, the urban regeneration promises all of these, positive branding promises associated with these games, sort of reinforce the neoliberal model of development. then you saw growing disaffection as they were also associated with extremes of, of, sometimes the misuse of public funds, of, degrees of corruption and of, post, post-event hangovers of, of white elephants. So you saw that with, with, the hyper capitalizing,

09:43 - character of the Atlanta Games, then the 2004 Athens games, which were, precursors to the, the, the deep economic crisis that was faced in Greece, there immediately thereafter. and, and I think, most strikingly so far, the, the 2016 Rio Games, which when they were awarded to Rio, seemed to embody the promise of rising prosperity through joining the ranks of, of, the neoliberal world. But by the time the they took place had actually come

10:20 - to reflect the excesses and abuses of that promise. and, and then that was overlaid with the emergence of a growing trend towards, illiberal regime seeking to host these kinds of events with Sochi in 2014. Well, Beijing in 2000, Beijing in 2008 is really interesting because there was still the hope that Beijing would become, as it were, a normal capitalist power, that it would reform and become, a part of, this, this neoliberal hegemonic model.

10:54 - but by 2022, that, hope had dissipated. and, it was also, it was also reflected in the 2018, FIFA World Cup and, and, and, Russia. And, and so, so I think you see, you see a, a, a pivotal cluster, a long cycle. And then in a sense, we're in, in a current, another current moment of great uncertainty and how the, how, the games reflect and navigate these kinds of processes is going

11:25 - to be telling in terms of the kind of world order that emerges. There are conclusions and implications for students of, of world order change, of, of world orders, of the question of, of world order and international relations. And there are also, interestingly enough, I think, important conclusions for students of the politics of sport and sport diplomacy. I think, in terms of the former, I, I, my,

11:51 - my general point is That if we want to understand, what is going on, where the current is running in terms of the, the, the process of world order breakdown, but also the, the emergence of a landscape of change, what might a future world order look like then? I think one of the key sites to look is actually these kinds of events. I, I think that they, they become, fulcrums, if you like, they become focal points for contestation by,

12:23 - of ideas, contestations of, of models. there's this whole question of, for example, with the Paris Olympics coming up this summer, how will, participants respond to the presence of Russian athletes? What questions, what, what question, or what approaches, will participants take to human rights issues and this, and future contexts? what decisions will be made about who future hosts are and, and the terms under which, they,

12:58 - they adopt these roles? So I think looking at these kinds of events as key sites in this process of, of transition, and potentially transformation is an illuminating window on the, the, the, the, the problem at of world order, what kind of world order are we living in? What kind of, world order are we moving towards for, the many people who are engaged in sport politics and sport diplomacy? There's this whole parallel universe of sport,

13:31 - international sporting organizations, national sporting organizations, national Olympic Committees, and of course, all of the civil society organizations that mobilize around these events, that we've probably paid too little attention to. and, and as a result, they have often not been very sophisticated in dealing with the kinds of challenges that, that, befall them, if you like, when they, when they take on these,

13:57 - these kinds of hosting roles. And I think that they are going to have to become much more sophisticated in, in nav in, in recognizing the, the degree to which they are in fact, central sites of, of, world order contestation. And they face enormous challenges in, in terms of navigating, that space and also, seeking to do so in a way that protects the integrity of the events

14:26 - that they are trying to, to manage. And, and the, the brands or the identities or the movements that they claim to, to speak for. This is particularly true of the International Olympic Committee. but it's also true of, of the national Olympic committees, international sports federations. They're gonna have to, to become more adept at, at, managing these kinds of spaces.

14:47 - It's been a trend that's been taking place, for, for, for about a generation now, but it, it, it needs to, to, accelerate.

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