March Madness is back. In a special episode of Edge of Sports, Dave Zirin takes a retrospective look at past interviews with Washington Post journalist Danny Funt on sports gambling, and with professor Diane Williams on the NCAA’s checkered past regarding women’s basketball.

Studio Production: David Hebden
Post-Production: Taylor Hebden, David Hebden
Audio Post-Production: David Hebden
Opening Sequence: Cameron Granadino
Music by: Eze Jackson & Carlos Guillen

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Dave Zirin:

Welcome to Edge of Sports only on the Real News Network. I’m Dave Zirin. In this special March Madness edition, we are proudly airing two interviews that could not be more timely as college basketball and the road to the final four take center stage. The first is on the explosion of app-based sports gambling in the United States and the second on the hidden history of NCAA women’s basketball. So let’s start with gambling. You may not realize this, but more people bet on the NCAA basketball tournament than even the Super Bowl. We’re talking $3.1 billion and that’s just the legal betting. The Final four may not be the Super Bowl in terms of ratings, but it is the profiteering Super Bowl for FanDuel, DraftKings and all of those gambling apps that have not only colonized the commercial time during games but are also integrated into the sports commentary itself.

Who is Charles Barkley betting on in the tournament he’s supposed to cover? He’s about to tell you. What they don’t tell you is that these wildly popular apps have led to a crisis of gambling addiction, particularly a youth gambling addiction. Thousands of young people are calling hotlines for addicts feeling like they have lost control of their impulses and their bank accounts. They’re learning a hard lesson from which the young used to be insulated. The lesson that the reason those casinos look so nice is because the house always wins. This proliferation of addicts has become a mental health crisis so deep that Congress is even taking a look to see if more regulation is needed, but rest assured that oversight will be resisted. The facts are that this addiction economy has become the financial lifeblood of sports, and we need a deep dive to understand what this is all about, whether we are sports fans or not, and there is no better person to guide us into the underbelly of this world. Then reporter Danny Funt. This is Danny Funt’s beat sports gambling. He covers it for the Washington Post and he has a book coming out that breaks it all down. So he knows this world and this interview could not be more relevant. I started by asking him how big legal betting is for the economy of sports and where the trend lines are pointing to. Let’s go to it now, Danny Funt.

Danny Funt:

Yeah, I’d say it’s transforming every aspect of the business of sports, the fan experience, certainly the laws that affect sports and those aspects. Yeah, it’s a game changer. 38 states and DC have legalized sports betting several more expected to in the near future and from teams to commissioners to certainly the ncaa. Everyone is trying to cash in on that legalization, making some suspect choices in the process. And yeah, I mean they’re sort of facing the consequences as we’ve seen in some pretty shocking headlines recently, but it’s only going to continue. I still think we’re in the early innings of this sports betting experiment in the us.

Dave Zirin:

So you’re saying that the recent headlines, you’re talking about some of the betting scandals involving athletes as well as some of the statements of coaches and players who talk about being heckled or even being threatened because of fans not making their gambling quotas. Is that what you’re referring to?

Danny Funt:

Yeah, exactly. It was kind of funny. March Madness is one of the biggest betting periods of the year, certainly a time when the sports books want to get positive coverage and attract as many new customers as they can, and yet there was just an onslaught of grim news from the sho Otani betting scandal, an NBA bench player who got caught up it looks like with some basically a version of point shaving involving his prop bets to the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers saying he gets menacing voicemails from people when the Cavs cost betters money, the list goes on. It was a rough month for betting advocates.

Dave Zirin:

Yes. So is a reckoning inevitable if these stories keep continuing of players finding themselves with spare time, their phones disposable income and wanting to make bets? I mean, it’s such a perfect stew for more scandal and what would a reckoning look like and is it just too much money for the leagues to even want to have a reckoning for the effects of gambling?

Danny Funt:

That’s such a pressing question. I don’t know exactly. I think I’m skeptical that leagues would actually, that have recently legalized betting would go so far as to outlaw it. I think they might reign in the sorts of things you can bet on. One of the things that leads to all sorts of suspicious betting is that obviously you can bet on much, much more than just who’s going to win nowadays. You can bet on basically every facet of the game down to how a certain play is going to play out. So I think things like that could face stiffer regulations, the ways you can bet on college sports already are being reigned in. But yeah, I think the leagues have placed their bet, lawmakers have placed their bet and they’re kind of having to live with it, and I don’t know what level of addiction or what level of corruption would have to go down for them really to pull back in a meaningful way, but they’re being tested recently.

Dave Zirin:

You mentioned addiction, gambling addiction. What are we seeing on that front in the United States especially? Obviously since the legalization,

Danny Funt:

Pre legalization, the number that was floated was that roughly 1% of the population is susceptible to gambling addiction post legalization. Now that basically every smartphone is a casino, those rates could be as high as 4% I’m told, which is really a staggering number. You think about it like in a full NFL stadium, maybe 3000 people could be suffering from gambling addiction. It’s kind of incomprehensible. I think beyond that, it’s important to recognize there’s a clinically diagnosed gambling addiction that needs a medical intervention, but then there’s all sorts of problem behavior. Just like with drinking alcoholism is one thing, but people might drink more than they ought to along that spectrum, and the same thing is proven true with gambling, and it’s so important to note with that, that it’s not just can I gamble or can I not gamble? It’s the ways you can gamble and some of the most profitable types of betting, some of the most popular types of betting are some of the most addictive, and that’s certainly driving addiction rates across the country.

Dave Zirin:

I’m speaking just anecdotally, but my son who’s in high school has come home and told me about kids placing bets with other kids because they got their parents FanDuel accounts and my son said, dad, we’re creating a new generation of bookies out of our high schools. Is that just my son’s massive public school experience or are we seeing indicators about youth gambling addictions?

Danny Funt:

No, I don’t think that’s one-off. How old’s your son, by the way? I’m curious.

Dave Zirin:

Actually, he’s 15. He turns 16 tomorrow.

Danny Funt:

Yeah, that’s a classic time of life to start playing around with this. No, I think sort of an irony of legalization is it’s shown a lot of people, a lot of entrepreneurs, Hey, bookmaking is a winning business. Maybe I should get involved in that. I was just talking, I live near Colorado State University. I was just talking with a student there who said the legal betting age is 21 by 19, as soon as he got to college, he was betting through offshore sports books that are unregulated and through some campus bookies who just like your son’s classmates got inspired by all the betting around them and said, Hey, this is an easy way to make a buck. No, I think the argument for legalization was we’ve got this robust black market, let’s bring it into the sunlight just as the same way that happened with cannabis and regulate it, tax it, implement some consumer protections.

In reality, yes, some of that has happened, but it’s also caused the black market to surge for a number of reasons with adults and certainly with young people. Young people, I don’t know exactly what age definitely are more susceptible to compulsive bedding, which is obviously dicey because they probably have a lot less disposable income, but it’s a reason why advertising that targets college students. You can understand why they’re attractive new customers, but that’s some of the most controversial types of marketing and some of the partnerships that Sportsbook struck up in recent years literally with universities in some of those cases got shut down pretty quickly just because that seemed like a line too far. Even for gambling advocates.

Dave Zirin:

Do the legal gambling concerns, the fanduels, et cetera, do they give a damn about these issues of addiction? You see they do the 1-800-GAMBLER at the end of their ads, or is this just window dressing the equivalent of a cigarette company saying, oh, by the way, you can get lung cancer?

Danny Funt:

Yeah, so true. I mean, I think whether they give or damn or not meaningful change can’t come from sportsbook self-policing. Just a week ago I talked to a guy who was one of the top officials at one of those kind of second tier sports books, and he was saying the incentives just aren’t there to crack down internally on problem gambling. Those are literally your best customers. Those are your whales who you’re showering with promotions and egging on with these kind of concierge services to keep those people betting. So their rationale as well, they’re our best customers. If we boot them, they’re just going to go to our competitors. We’re going to lose market share. They’re going to find a way to keep betting. So it’s not really in our best interest to do anything meaningful about that, which is why this person and a number of people across the industry are saying regulators need to impose much, much stiffer fines when sports books are caught recruiting or egging on problem betters, and there’s also ways beyond that, just really simple fixes short of banning gambling that would make a difference.

Like one of the tenants of responsible betting is don’t chase your losses. Chasing your losses is like pre-game. I bet on the Denver nuggets to win, they’re down at the first quarter, I place another bet they’re losing at halftime even more. I place a third bet. You can kind of trick yourself into thinking, well, the odds have gotten better, so if they make a miraculous comeback, I’ll make a fortune. Obviously, more often than not, that doesn’t play out classic way to bet over your head. So if a tenant of responsible betting is don’t chase your losses, perhaps sports books could just not take those bets past the point. If I keep depositing money in my account during a game and upping my bets, they could just cut you off and say, you need a cool down period. Things like that seem to me like a lot more practical incremental changes that definitely would make a difference.

Dave Zirin:

Let’s talk about the European experience with legalized sportsbook betting its effect on soccer. Does that have anything to teach us about how bad this could get or where this could go?

Danny Funt:

Yeah, I think absolutely the UK betting market is about a decade ahead of the US as far as legalizing online betting. If you just walk around London, the betting shops are all over town. It’s kind of those people over there are kind of numbed to that culture, but as far as seeing where they are as foreshadowing where the US could be, there’s definitely been kind of an awakening that, not that they’re going to ban petting anytime soon, but the public health consequences that come with it. I wrote it down anticipating that question. There was a study last year that found that what they called gambling related harms cost the UK 2.3 billion annually. So that’s a case where sure, they maybe get tax revenue. Sure, it might create jobs, but the harms are clearly outweighing the gains, at least according to this study. And you’ve got similar studies in the US showing that the economic price of the economic activity goes down in states that have vibrant legal betting markets, even if they’re bringing in a certain amount of gambling tax revenue. Again, the scales are imbalanced Beyond that gambling addiction. There is just a fact of life and it’s ubiquitous if you go to a soccer match just like it’s becoming at all sorts of American sports. So yeah, a lot of warning signs of where the US market could be headed.

Dave Zirin:

Now, I haven’t been surprised to see the explosion of sports gambling. I haven’t been surprised to see the rise in addiction rates. I’ll tell you what has surprised me is seeing how this has been embraced by members of the sports media. What are the implications of seeing so many established grade A trusted members of the sports media embracing this, giving odds during games and becoming spokespeople for sports betting? That has surprised me. What are the implications of that in your mind?

Danny Funt:

I think it’s definitely normalized sports betting and made it seem acceptable to the mainstream. You could argue in a lot of different things whether media is just a reflection like a mirror of society or whether it’s influencing society. I think there’s no doubt that there’s certainly been an influence in making sports betting just ubiquitous and intertwined with the fan experience. One of the first articles I wrote on this topic was for the Columbia Journalism Review. Looking at that question, what caught my interest actually was the ethical question of whether sports reporters should be betting on games. It seemed like a ripe opportunity for gambling’s version of insider trading, and I think some of that is definitely taking place, but just as far as media companies embracing gambling, there’s a lot of factors that made this the perfect time for sports betting to explode in the us.

Definitely one of them is how so many sports outlets are imperiled and facing brutal financial times. I know you looked at Sports Illustrated recently in one of your recent episodes, they tried to latch onto this bandwagon licensing their name to a sports book in Colorado here and a few other states that clearly didn’t write the ship, but yeah, from the biggest personalities in sports to the biggest names in sports, E-S-P-N-I think is a huge example. Recently licensing their name to a sportsbook, and now you go on ESPN’s website, you turn on a game, you’re indicted with appeals to bet on ESPN bet. I actually just spoke with a very knowledgeable bet who worked as an odds maker as well. He was saying similar to you that his 8-year-old son was seeing so many ESPN bet ads. This guy felt obligated to teach his son like the basics of probabilities, why betting is a losing venture for customers. It’s kind of surreal to think that a parent would feel a responsibility to coach their 8-year-old on that as they might responsible drinking or the dangers of smoking, but that’s just the world we live in.

Dave Zirin:

So if you were in charge of the sports world, how would you handle all of this? Is the wine simply out of the bottle and it’s just about managing the crisis? Is it possible to still ban this and get it out of sports? Where are we right now? And if you did have that kind of power, what could be done?

Danny Funt:

As I said earlier, I’m skeptical just practically speaking that any states are going to outlaw sports betting that have legalized it anytime soon. I think definitely when states kind of go online and are a little late to the party like Ohio and Massachusetts in the last year or so in North Carolina in recent months, they’re imposing much strict stricter regulations than some of the early states, just seeing bad examples of things that could easily have been avoided. So risk-free promotions were a reason why millions of people, I think took up sports betting thinking, oh, this is literally free money. I can’t lose. You certainly could lose your money. You could also get hooked on gambling from a false sense of how easy it could be. Those have been kind of stamped out. I think more promotions are basically fraudulent still and deceptive, and those could be police more aggressively.

I think a fairly straightforward fix that if I was this sports betting czar I would see too is in a lot of states, I think the regulatory apparatus just doesn’t cut it. Sometimes the state lottery is in charge of overseeing sports betting. Now obviously the lottery is in the business of raising money for the states. What sort of incentive do they have to crack down on sportsbook operators that are bringing in betting revenue? Even more questionable, I’d say, is when the lottery is in charge of running the sportsbook. In that case, you’ve got someone who’s functioning as an operator and a regulator. It’s no surprise that there are plenty of examples of them not self-policing very effectively. So I think state by state, if you had a truly independent commission that was charged with overseeing sports books, it would be a little bit of a fair fight. So often when customers say, Hey, this is deceptive. Hey, I’ve been screwed over by a sportsbook. The deck is stacked so much in favor of the operators of these companies, those sorts of complaints, even when I think they’ve been wronged, pretty egregiously, just go nowhere. So I think if you had a really aggressive independent regulator state by state, that would make a big difference, and there’s very few examples of that currently.

Dave Zirin:

I want to paint a picture for you and I want you to tell me if I’m being a Cassandra

Or if this is in the land of the possible, a chicken little, if you will, is there a future where sports gambling becomes so hegemonic to the fan experience that people start keeping their kids away, they don’t think it’s necessarily appropriate. The audience for sports thins, the profit margins do not. People start thinking the fix might be in, so they start drifting away, and at the end of the day, gambling, which has been so profitable as a revenue stream actually hollows out sports as we know it. Is that in the land of the possible, like an actual darn near destruction of this incredibly vast athletic industrial complex

Danny Funt:

Man, that really got my wheels turning. I hadn’t thought of that. And yeah, it seems feasible. The leagues are certainly betting against it. You brought up the integrity of the game, like do we think matches are fixed? There was always some of that, but it’s just gone through the roofs post legalization. Even players like Rudy Gobert on the Minnesota Timber Wolves made this money just at a referee recently and got a hundred thousand dollars fine for it. The obvious insinuation is he’s saying the ref is on the take. Maybe he’s looking out for a bet by swallowing his whistle or something. The confidence in the integrity of the games has definitely taken a hit, and yet the leagues aren’t spooked enough by that to really do anything about it. So that’s something that I’m really interested in as far as people saying, let me keep my kids away from sports. I just find American sports are so deeply rooted. I don’t know. I mean, maybe parents don’t take their kids to the race tracks because they don’t want them to start betting on horses. That might be a precedent worth looking at. But as far as football, basketball, golf, baseball, major sports that are the first things we talk about when we meet people, I don’t know. That feels a little out there, but I’ll definitely keep an eye on it.

Dave Zirin:

Hey, horse racing and boxing, were once two of the most popular sports in the United States. So just because something is doesn’t mean it will always be. I can’t let you go without mentioning that you’re doing a book and I was hoping you could tell us something about the book. What about sports gambling? Are you set to explore? What’s your thesis? What are you going for with this book?

Danny Funt:

Thank you for asking. I would say what I’m going for is I want to rewind a bit because I feel like just as a sports fan myself, as someone who follows politics pretty closely, it felt like the Supreme Court opened the door for states to start legalizing, and then seemingly overnight it was just, okay, New Jersey, Delaware. Soon after that, New York, Illinois we’re up to 38 states counting Nevada that have legalized, as I said, more are going to do. So you don’t hear a robust public debate about that. It seems like, okay, this is a moneymaking opportunity for states. We used to be adamantly against it, but now other states are doing it, so we got to get on board. The leagues used to speak about sports betting literally as an evil that was poisonous to sports. Now they’re sports bettings biggest backers, again, seemingly overnight.

So with the book, I definitely want to force us to have a serious conversation about these pros and cons, whether, as we’ve talked about today, the harms outweigh the positives. I also want to pull back the curtain a bit on what goes on inside of sports books. We see ads for FanDuel and draft gigs and Caesars pretty much everywhere. I don’t think a lot of us know exactly how those companies operate, how they think, they think about betters, what their motivations are, and I’m going to definitely get inside of those companies and give a closeup look at how they approach this game and try to anticipate where this is all going. As we’ve talked about, looking at Europe, even just looking at states that are a couple of years ahead of some of the others and the second guessing they’re having about what they’ve signed up for. So it’s a bit retrospective. It’s a bit of making sense of this chaotic world we’re living in and looking forward and seeing, as I said, we’re in the early innings. Is this going to be something that the powers that be are going to wish they hadn’t signed up for?

Dave Zirin:

Wow, that was the truth about the gambling industrial complex. Thank you, Danny. Fun. But now in this special March Madness edition of Edge of Sports, we turned to women’s hoops. Last year, the women’s college basketball Final Four for the first time, drew higher ratings than the men’s, significantly higher. In fact, this was historic, yet much of the way it was explained, centered around the then Iowa Senior Guard, the record breaking Kaitlyn Clark, whose Hawkeye’s team lost in the finals to South Carolina. Others countered this saying that the growth of the game is deeper than one player. A recent New York Times article opined that the NCAA had long set the table for this level of interest to take off, but both of these theories are woefully inadequate. Such a superficial analysis ignores the way that the NCAA suppressed women’s hoops for years. It also overlooks the Hidden history, the very foundation of Women’s College of Basketball that dates back decades to a league called The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, the A IAW, the A IAW is a remarkable story all its own, and was the collegiate hoops home for legends like Lynette Woodard, Nancy Lieberman, and the Queen of the Court, Lucia Harris.

It’s also a history that the NCAA does its best to obfuscate because in this saga, they’re not the good guys. Well, we are about to revive one of my favorite interviews that we’ve done on the show. We are speaking to former roller derby great and current McDaniel College professor Diane Williams, who is the source of knowledge about the history of the A IAW. You want to learn where modern women’s college basketball really comes from. We got you on Edge of sports.

Speaker 3:

So I’ve been a fan of the Iowa Women’s team since I was a grad student there. Got to know a little bit about the coaching stuff, got been watching those teams for the last 10 plus years, and Caitlin Clark is an individual who is incredible, obviously ridiculously talented. I’m thrilled. She went to Iowa. She was an Iowa kid, and she really is an interesting figure in that she’s really taking seriously the idea of being a role model and the idea of being a star. I think in an interesting way, she’s balancing those pretty well and thinking about both her own success, her team’s success, and the broader picture of women’s basketball, of women’s sports, and of just celebrating the potential that is there, and she’s showing us some of that potential in her play and in the way she’s navigating all the different pressures and excitement of this moment.

Dave Zirin:

Yeah, I think she’s really interesting too. I’ve felt like there’ve been times where the media has tried to play her against other players, particularly Angel Reese, Kelsey Plum, who we’re going to talk about a little bit more, and she doesn’t take that bait. I feel like she’s really sort of mature and intentional about being a white superstar, and that’s certainly unique for somebody that age.

Speaker 3:

It’s also such a reminder to me of all those top players on those teams have played together. They know each other, they go way back. And I think sometimes that’s one of those things that when media wants to jump in and divide, we forget that there’s relationships already existing there, and depending on how the players want to relate to each other, Caitlyn Clark seems to be dedicated to the lifting up and supporting across the board, and let’s go. Let’s all get better together. I mean, and relishing the competitiveness and the She’ll trash talk. She’s dedicated to her team. She’s going to defend what she thinks is right, and she always has, and she wants everybody else to too, right? Yeah.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. Now, when she hit that 30 footer to set the NCAA women’s scoring record breaking Kelsey Plums, mark, the announcers were really big on saying that Caitlyn Clark has now scored the most points in college women’s history. Now, that’s not quite correct, is it?

Diane Williams:

No, it is not. So before the NCAA offered women’s intercollegiate sport period, the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics, the A IAW, they had for 10 years been hosting Women’s Intercollegiate Sport. It was led by women. It was the entire athletic governance organization was founded by women who were physical educators and who were really dedicated to creating a different kind of sport culture and one that was for women, and it was educationally rooted. It had, the organization was focused on student athletes rights, their wellbeing, sport being a part of their educational experience, something that the NCAA sort of has a different take on a little bit more of a commercial view on that side. And so the scoring record, actually, Kelsey Plums record was from the NCAA years, which started in 82, but there’s 10 years of history before that that were also, there was another important record that Caitlyn Clark broke a few games later.

Dave Zirin:

Yeah, speak about that. Who was the A IAW all time scoring leader?

Diane Williams:

Yeah, so there’s two. The big college scoring leader was Lynette Woodard from Kansas, and she set that record right at the end of the a I W’s time, even leading intercollegiate athletics for women. And actually, if you watched the game when Clark broke that record, Lynette Woodard was there. She was at Carver Hawkey Arena in Iowa City. They interviewed her before the game. They gave her a standing ovation, and both her and Clark have talked about the significance of both of them being there, and the idea that partly Woodard said, Clark is helping to bring attention to this history that has been really ignored. Some would argue buried that there’s so many women in intercollegiate basketball we don’t even know about. We don’t know their stories, we don’t know their glories, and yet this history is just, it was 10 years before the NCAA offered sport, and it was big.

Dave Zirin:

So you used the word buried. Why do you think this history is so buried and because that certainly speaks to an intentionality, to use that word again about the A IAW and honestly, I love sports history. Without your work, I never would’ve known about the A IAW. Why is this history obscured?

Diane Williams:

Well, so I don’t know if I can necessarily say why I don’t know the intentions, but I can tell you a little bit of the story. Right? When the a IW started, the NCAA didn’t have interest in facilitating women’s sports, and the folks, the women who went on to lead the organization said that, great, we’re going to go do it ourselves then. And they created a nationwide governing organization that was, at its peak, it was 970 plus members, colleges and universities across the country hosting 19 different sports, which is more than the NCAA has ever offered for women or men in three different divisions. So in 10 years, they grew from nothing to huge, and were really proving that there was, I mean, a lot of appetite for women’s intercollegiate athletics, which was feeding down to high school and youth, right? There’s this whole revolution happening, and they were leading it when Title IX was finally, so Title IX was passed in 72.

It took a number of years for it to be interpreted, and it wasn’t intended to be applied to sports. It was an educationally focused bill about academic programs funding. But immediately, particularly on the women’s side, they realized, oh, this could help us get some money, and we sorely need money. We have the resources. Were laughably small for what they were trying to build. And so during the seventies, title IX is being interpreted. The Congress is figuring out how do we even apply this to sport? What does it look like to have gender equity in sport? Sports are really different than who gets led into a dentist program or dental training program. And so ultimately, in 79, some standards come out of how we’re going to actually account for gender equity in sport. They’re both clear and kind of convoluted in different ways, but it became clear that it was actually going to be enforced.

Well, that was the idea. And really, I think the NCAA got nervous that while the NCAA as a governing organization and the A IAW, they weren’t subject to Title ix, but all of their member institutions were. And so if they were not in line with the law, it could be a problem. And so the NCAA had been sort of working with the A IWA little bit on parallel tracks in the early part of the seventies. They had verged away from that by the later part of the seventies. And by the time that this all happened, not only was the NCAA and men’s sport organizing against Title IX being applied to athletics against football being included, they were trying to get it exempted. There’s all kinds of things happening. But the NCAA was working actively against Title ix, including athletics, but it decided to switch course and start offering women’s championships without discussion with the A IW, without even recognition that there was already a massive infrastructure in place that was hosting women’s championships and the A IW.

There was some movements to try and work together. Maybe we can come together and find the best of both worlds, right? A highly competitive, financially sustainable model pulling from the NCAA side, but that valued the student athlete experience more and the wellbeing of the student athletes that quickly got dismissed by the ncaa, and instead, they chose to offer competing championships the same weekends as the A IW championships. In some cases, they financially incentivized schools to join their championships. They had the money and resources to say, we can pay for your travel, pay for your food, pay for your lodging. If you come to our championships. The A IW was just starting to generate some cash, just had some media contracts, couldn’t compete. And within a year, the A IW had ended ceased operations. And so the NCAA won in some ways, and there was a pretty big loss of an emphasis on student wellbeing for women’s sport and women having women role models in leadership positions in sport.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. Ruthless by the ncaa. Talk about intentionality.

Diane Williams:

Yeah.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. Before we stay on that, the time in which the A IAW came to be feels very much in the middle of the Women’s Liberation Movement. Were there direct connections between the broader struggle and the emergence of this organization?

Diane Williams:

So ideologically, yes. In that it was a movement to bring women into spaces that they had been told they weren’t allowed to be in.

And in a very public way, the organization itself was trying to navigate bringing together women who wanted to expand women’s sport opportunities across the country from different geographic regions, different political persuasions. Some of those women would’ve been all for identifying as feminist, and plenty of them would’ve been absolutely not to mention if they did, they could get fired if they were rocking the boat too much. They were all sort of navigating these expectations while trying to push forward something that was actually pretty radical, bringing women’s sport into the mainstream in this way. And so there was a lot of negotiating happening, which I think is often the case behind the scenes a little bit more. The A IW was working with some of the education and legal organizations in DC and they were hooked in. They had convinced them that women’s sport was actually a really important part of this whole conversation around women’s liberation and society. Then the Women’s Sport Foundation started around this time. There’s a lot of connecting happening, often a little bit more behind the scenes from the A IW what they were putting out front, but the connections were happening and it was helping when they needed to lobby congress say that they could call in some of those networks to talk about the importance of women’s sport and young girls in as a part of educational equity as a part of women having a more viable and a more vibrant role in society.

Dave Zirin:

So what at Long last do you think is the legacy

Diane Williams:

So many

Dave Zirin:

Of this organization, what is their living legacy today?

Diane Williams:

I see as you and I’ve talked about, I see some of their legacy in the movements around student athletes being active, demanding better conditions that they’re playing in just speaking up in realizing that they should have a say in the organization that is leading intercollegiate athletics. And that is something that is so different than the NCAA’s norm. Some of the shifts that have happened in the interest of student athlete rights has really been a part. Often there’s connection to people who are involved with a IW actually both in the leadership of the NCAA or schools, if they stuck it out, they often were there making change at people like Dr. Christine Grant and Charlotte West and plenty of others. So I mean, I really see the positive legacy is, and student, this is kind of cool because student athletes don’t necessarily know that they’re actually a part of a legacy.

Dave Zirin:

Yeah, I was thinking about

Diane Williams:

Dartmouth,

Dave Zirin:

The men steam forming the union and about how even if it’s not conscious, there is a thread that exists because of what you said, of demanding a voice

Diane Williams:

And

Dave Zirin:

Demanding some sense of ownership and autonomy over your life as a college

Diane Williams:

Athlete. Yeah. One of the former presidents of the A IW that I interviewed Pig Burke at the University of Iowa, said, well, paraphrasing, she told me when they’re college athletes, they’re 18, they’re legally adults. They should have a say in what’s happening out there in sports out there in their sport experience. And so that the union move is so exciting, and I’d like to imagine that a governing organization would consider how the student athletes are experiencing what they’re experiencing on teams and in the championship structure and in the schedules and all these things. And yet the NCAA has proven that they don’t care. They haven’t, there hasn’t been nearly enough attention paid to that and meaningful engagement of student athlete voice in governing that is so different than the model that is so top down that they have set up and was something that was integrated in the A IAW model. Student athletes had representation on the executive board on down to the school level, really different set up. So I hope that is, I see some of the legacy in there. I see the legacy for sure in some of the women coaches who are still coaching who go back to a IW days players who are in coaching sport media positions. There’s an interesting spill out from people who are connected to sport through the A IW and took those values into the jobs that they had even when it was under the ncaa.

Dave Zirin:

This history is actually getting a little bit of life with Lynette Woodard coming to the fore. It seems like this whole history is just ripe for a book. Is that something you’d be interested in pursuing?

Diane Williams:

I’m working on that. I’m working on

Dave Zirin:

That. You are working on a book. I’m about this. Terrific. Will you return to the program when the book is in print so we can go through what you learned?

Diane Williams:

Absolutely.

Dave Zirin:

That’s fantastic. And one last question, please. When you teach about this organization at McDaniel College, what is the reaction? I mean, I assume few if none know about it, but is this something that makes the students’ eyes go wide?

Diane Williams:

I think so. And I will say one of the neatest things about this organization that makes me want to talk about it to everybody, one is that it was visionary. It was a group of people who said, what exists in the norm isn’t good enough and we think we can do better. And then they did. And that to me is exciting because it reminds us that it’s flexible, how we manage sport, how we think about sport, what sport even looks like, who gets to be involved. And two, every single school had people, usually women that were leading the women’s athletic department, that were coaching their teams that are local heroes that that school may or may not even know about. And so when I teach about this at McDaniel, I get to talk about Carol Fritz, who was the women’s athletics director there. We have a beautiful display of women’s sport history like uniforms and field hockey sticks and things that I can point them to. And we can bring this history to a very local level and learn more about someone who’s like her name is on this beautiful display, but we don’t see her around as much anymore. But we can also learn more about the kinds of struggles that she and every other institution had. Somebody there that was doing that work and encountering a whole lot of resistance and deserves their flowers, deserves their thanks and deserves some cheering on from a generation that is now learning about it. Again,

Dave Zirin:

Thanks everybody for tuning in. We are so proud of Edge of Sports and hope to bring you more coverage at the collision point of sports and politics in 2025. Now, I want to let you know how you can support sports journalism without Stephen A. Smith, pat McAfee and ESPN’s Confederacy of Jackasses. Join the Real News Network now and power the independent media you believe in. Become A-T-R-N-N member. Do it today because that means more fearless journalism, more hard hitting investigations and more stories the mainstream media will not touch. Your support isn’t just appreciated. It’s essential. And don’t forget, subscribe to our channel, sign up for our newsletter and hit the bell icon so you never miss a report. Remember, we don’t get YouTube advertising money or accept corporate funds. Our survival depends on you. You keep us going together. We can keep covering the sports and politics stories, others will not for Edge of Sports in the Real News Network. I’m Dave Zin. I want to say thank you to you, the viewers, the listeners. I want to thank Kayla Rivara, Maximillian Alvarez, David Hebden, and the entire TRNN team that keeps us going. Please support this work because in this era, if our media is not independent, if our media is not fearless, then truly we are lost.

As the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles prepare to square off in New Orleans for Super Bowl LIX, security has been unprecedented both in the wake of the deadly Bourbon Street attack on Jan. 1 and in preparation for Donald Trump’s planned attendance. As a result, police, secret service, and even the Department of Homeland Security are turning New Orleans into a garrison city. Residents and local activists are pointing out the inherent dangers of so many police swarming their streets, not to mention the political priorities on display as tremendous resources are mobilized to protect out-of-state fans in a city where most residents still feel the effects of Hurricane Katrina 20 years later. Edge of Sports speaks with frontline New Orleans activist Deon Haywood, executive director of Women with a Vision, about the impact of this and past Super Bowls on The Big Easy.

Studio Production: David Hebden
Post-Production: Taylor Hebden

Transcript

Dave Zirin:  Welcome to a special Super Bowl edition of Edge of Sports TV, only here on The Real News Network.

Look, given everything horrifying going on in the world, you might only be vaguely aware that the Super Bowl is coming up this Sunday, pitting the Kansas City Chiefs — Again — Against the Philadelphia Eagles. Even if you are focused on the big game, you might not know that, for the 11th time, the Super Bowl will be played in New Orleans, Louisiana.

And this collision between the great City of New Orleans and the Super Bowl is what we are focusing on today. The immediate backdrop for this Super Bowl is, of course, tragedy. In the early hours of New Year’s Day, a deliberate car attack on crowded Bourbon Street killed 14 people by someone who claimed an adherence to ISIS, but clearly was in the throes of some serious mental health crisis. Because of that, the police and military presence in New Orleans is going to be, according to the NFL, like none in history. The head of NFL security is Cathy Lanier, the former chief of police in DC. So someone very familiar, let me tell you, with over-policing large events.

Now, the goals of over-policing aren’t just about calming down wealthy tourists who can afford $10,000 Super Bowl tickets. It is also about isolating the most vulnerable residents of a city, building a moat of heavily armed bodies between haves and have-nots.

But that’s not all — 2025 is also the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and the memories of the Louisiana Superdome — The site of the game, of course — Becoming a deadly hurricane shelter from hell. And when the ball is kicked off on Sunday, this should also not be far from people’s minds.

And then there’s the state of Louisiana in the present day, a right-wing political horror show where members of the state legislature are saying that they will crack down on human trafficking this week, which, at mega events like the Super Bowl, is always code for attacking sex workers. It’s all part of a broader racist and reactionary agenda that surrounds the big game.

Look, if we care about the Super Bowl, then we should care about the people upon whose community this game will land. That is why I am honored this week to be speaking with Deon Haywood. For more than 30 years, Ms. Haywood has been a frontline fighter in New Orleans for the rights of those who need it the most. She was named executive director of the organization Women with a Vision after Hurricane Katrina, and utterly transformed it into an organization that has built and practiced solidarity as a way of life. I’m so honored to speak with her today. Let’s bring her on, Deon Haywood.

Deon Haywood, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports.

Deon Haywood:  Thank you so much for having me.

Dave Zirin:  We mentioned in the introduction that this will be the eleventh time New Orleans has hosted the Super Bowl.

Deon Haywood:  Yes.

Dave Zirin:  In regular times, regular times — And these are, of course, not regular times — What kind of strain is it on the most marginalized communities when the big game comes to town?

Deon Haywood:  So New Orleans is one of those cities, like many cities, where the people, in some way, we talk about the economic boom that the state or the city will have from people coming to town from whatever the event is. And we host large events, massive events all the time.

I think the strain is how do people get to work, how do they make it to take care of their everyday activities? Because it’s hard. It’s even difficult for me. It also puts a strain, this Super Bowl. I think the strain is basically because we just had such a tragedy in the French Quarter. And so local people are still struggling with that moment, with that moment of violence, senseless violence, as always, but it makes it more difficult for the people who live and work in the areas where people will be for the Super Bowl. It just makes it hard to navigate and hard for people to get around and hard for people to get what they need here.

Dave Zirin:  I’d love it if you could talk a little bit more about the aftermath of the Jan. 1 Bourbon Street attack in the context of the Super Bowl, in the context of the mood in New Orleans, and the whiplash feeling that must exist of having to play host in the context of mourning.

Deon Haywood:  So I think New Orleans is a party city. I often tell people the only reason that I can cope or what makes it easy to cope with so many really hard moments in the world, in New Orleans, in the US right now is because it’s like every day our head is on a swivel. We do host a lot of events. We’re known for hosting large events, everything from ESSENCE Fest to Mardi Gras every year. And so it’s not unusual. And normally, we fall right into it, and we know what we need to do, we know how to set up, we even know how to direct people what to do and how to be safe and have fun.

But what makes it difficult this time is coming off an event that, in my opinion, really, we didn’t do enough to take care of the people here. We didn’t do enough to make sure that people who worked in the Quarter and witnessed what happened, that their mental health and care were taken care of. It’s like business as usual. And because of the economy today, it just makes it harder because people have to go to work. They have to work if they want to survive, they have to be able to get their kids where they have to go, and they have to come home and function away from their jobs.

New Orleans is a place where we feel deeply when something like this happens. I have talked to many people, both my staff at Women with a Vision but also just around the city about this moment, and most people feel like it happened so quickly and it seemed like we just glossed over it. And I don’t think that was the intention all the time that we glossed over it, but it’s like the next big thing is happening, so we gotta move.

So we had New Year’s Eve, we had the New Year’s Eve tragedy, and now we’re moving between Mardi Gras and Super Bowl, Super Bowl and Mardi Gras, large events where so many people in surveillance and policing are going to be large. I do believe that New Orleans has always done a great job with large events, with crowd control. We do it because we do it all the time. Mardi Gras is huge. You’re talking about millions of people, not just tourists, but locals. Our police department normally does a really good job.

But I think after witnessing what took place for New Year’s, it’s added more policing. It’s added surveillance without really addressing the issues. But this is what we always do, not just here in Louisiana, but I think in the US period. We do not address root causes. We are not good at addressing root causes of a situation and why we got here and who those people were. It’s just more police. And as much as I understand the idea of security, police don’t keep us safe.

Dave Zirin:  I’m glad you said that, and I’d like to dig into that a little bit more because, of course, New Orleans, the people of New Orleans, are legendary for being able to figure out how to host these events.

But this year there will be an unprecedented, according to the National Football League, military and police presence, as well as police from out of town. That level of policing — And you mentioned surveillance, which they also say will be unprecedented — How does that affect the lives of the people with whom you work?

Deon Haywood:  It’s difficult. So let me give you an example. At Women with a Vision, we have worked for all of our existence, 35 years, with street-based sex workers, dancers, anybody involved in sex work, we’re normally a go-to for those people. But then we also have operated a robust harm reduction program where people are either functioning and working through their addiction, or they may be homeless and just need support. It puts a strain on all of us who provide those types of services, because how do those people get to us if they’re feeling the pressure of just moving around the city that they live in? Regardless of how hard their lives may be, it just makes it even more difficult for them to navigate.

So I’ll give you an example. My office is located in Central City, New Orleans, historic neighborhood on a historic street. When I drive to work in the morning, I drive from my house all the way to my job without making a turn, without doing anything because it’s a straight shot. I haven’t been able to do that with all the preparation for Super Bowl because everything is blocked off, the streets are blocked off. And New Orleans is a very pedestrian city, which is why I find it interesting when people are saying, oh, let’s make the French Quarter pedestrian only. Majority of the French Quarter is pedestrian only.

Dave Zirin:  Exactly.

Deon Haywood:  So I feel like we are regurgitating these ideas of safety, these ideas of policing, but they really won’t keep us safe. And it just makes it difficult for not only the people here who live here, but tourists who come here. Most people have been to New Orleans quite a few times, so they know where to go, know how to navigate. I’ve got questions from people and they say, will I be able to get to all the things I normally do in the city when I’m there? And my answer was, I don’t think you will. I think this year is going to be really different.

So if you think about the location of the Superdome, and you think about the neighborhoods around the Superdome outside of the central business district, which many people get to see from the TV side. But the other side of that is everyday people who are living their lives trying to get back and forth and live and navigate. And those people, and all the preparation — We’re opening up a food truck park. It’s beautiful. That’s great. But where was that months ago or a year ago? And in doing so now we’ve gathered up all the unhoused people and taken them to a secured location so people don’t see them. That is how people are affected.

And I’ll just quickly say this, I know you have other questions, but I can’t —

Dave Zirin:  No, please [crosstalk]. The attacks on the unhoused is so important to this conversation. Please, please continue, please.

Deon Haywood:  It really is. And we saw this, and again, it’s not just isolated here to New Orleans. We see this across the country, globally: Paris, the Olympics, we saw them taking busloads of unhoused people out of the city so people visiting don’t see them, as if we don’t know that this is an issue globally.

And so knowing that housing advocates here, many who I’m in partnership with, I know personally, I know their work, many of them were so upset in this moment that the governor of Louisiana had all of these people gathered up when many of these people are already working with housing groups to find housing, to get housing. There was a recent initiative where they were doing really well, and I don’t remember the dollar amount and I apologize, but to take millions of dollars and pay the Port of New Orleans to house unhoused people for a week, when that amount of money would’ve housed them for three years. It’s just at a time where everybody’s talking about good government and making sense. We don’t have a good government right now, I’m sorry — I’m not sorry. It’s facts [laughs].

Dave Zirin:  Yeah. Sorry, not sorry, as they say.

Deon Haywood:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave Zirin:  You mentioned sex work earlier and the work you do in that area and the work your organization has done in providing support for so many years. Every time there’s a Super Bowl, the government likes to talk about, as they put it, the crackdown on human trafficking. They usually do some kind of photo op in the process of the Super Bowl. But what really goes on in these “crackdowns” on human trafficking?

Deon Haywood:  So not my favorite time at all. Again, a waste of resources. We as a society don’t do well with our people. Some of us do better, most of us do not. The fact that people think it’s okay to remove unhoused people so that people don’t see them, put your poor cousins in the back so nobody sees the poor side of the family.

And then when you talk about sex work, we know that trafficking does happen. It does happen, but also we’ve allowed it to happen. And when I say we’ve allowed it to happen, it is because we are so good at figuring out how we are going to incarcerate people and throw them in jail, but yet, you won’t legalize sex work. And when I say legalize, I’m not just talking about, oh, make it legal across the country, but really making it what it is. It’s work, sex work is work. People work, people make the decision to be involved in sex work to survive. It might be the best thing for them. And we don’t need everybody to agree, we just should agree that criminalization is not the answer.

And then you have, for women who dance, again, in economies where people are really struggling, arresting people, oversurveillance of people is not going to stop trafficking. But maybe if we have programs where we’re really in community and working with women who know what’s going on, that they would be a support and a help to the movement.

But trafficking is going to continue to happen because now it’s a black market. Anything that people can’t access, what happens? It becomes a part of the black market, something to hide, steal, and sell. But those conditions are created.

Dave Zirin:  Yeah, that’s right. And you keep going back to that issue of root causes. I think that’s the discussion this country is so weak at having.

Deon Haywood:  Yes, absolutely. Because we can’t heal — Oh, I’m sorry. Go ahead. I’m sorry.

Dave Zirin:  No, I was just going to say also there are certain people from certain class backgrounds who don’t want to have discussions about maybe the roots of their own empires and their own funds.

Deon Haywood:  Yes, absolutely.

Dave Zirin:  So you do such terrific work on these issues. How does your state legislature either help you or undermine you in the process of trying to do this work?

Deon Haywood:  Right. So as I mentioned, Women with a Vision has been around for 35 years. And in those 35 years, we have had great support from people who are congresspeople for Louisiana, state representatives, local government, from the mayor to the city council we have had support. It’s according to who’s in office at the time.

And up until the election this year, we did feel supported by quite a few people. We actually sponsored a sex worker decrim bill that was sponsored by State Representative Mandie Landry, and she was with us 100% and really spoke out about how people are targeted and how an arrest record wouldn’t help someone in this situation. And so we tried. It didn’t pass, but we tried.

And it’s not the first time we’ve done it. We’ve done it before where we actually challenged Louisiana’s crime against nature law. And at that time, state representative Charmaine Marchand [Stiaes] sponsored that bill, and we actually won. We worked with the Center of Constitutional Rights attorney Bill Quigley and attorney Andrea Ritchie, and we won, ended up removing over 800 people from the sex offender registry who was charged with this. And not only did we win and remove people, we’re still removing people.

So we know that the work can progress, but when we have conservative extremists at both state and federal levels, it makes it hard for us to get things done, to make our communities better, to help people find their feet, to find a second chance. We just make it really difficult for them.

And so hosting events like the Super Bowl, yes, I get the economic impact, but how does that filter to the people? When we talk about public safety, sex workers aren’t making you unsafe, unhoused people aren’t making you unsafe. Maybe if public officials thought that, oh, lighting, something as easy as lighting will change a situation, crime is less. Most of us has read stats around public safety. We did a thrive study here a few years back, and it really was about how people interact with police. And it turned out to be how people are keeping themselves safe. Because again, police come in for the reactionary part, their presence. They react after a crime, but they do not prevent crime.

Because when someone sets their mind on doing a thing, which we saw for New Year’s, they’re going to do that thing, right?

Dave Zirin:  Right.

Deon Haywood:  It doesn’t matter if a barrier was up. He had been here multiple times, scouting the city, and looking at things, and recording it. That is addressed through mental health, making sure people are getting what they need and addressing, again, the root causes of why people commit crimes like this and why they’re willing to go through with it.

Dave Zirin:  Now, 2025, that’s the year we are in. And it means, and I can’t believe this, we are going to be, I do believe the right word is commemorating the 20 years since Hurricane Katrina and the levees breaking.

Now, since the site of the Super Bowl is the Louisiana Superdome, I was wondering if you could perhaps share what it was like to see that space at the time being used as a shelter for thousands of residents. If you could take us back there, please.

Deon Haywood:  It was probably the most, one of the most difficult times in my life. As a person who is a native New Orleanian, I was born and raised here, and a person who fights for Louisiana and the people of New Orleans in particular, it was one of the most painful images I think I’ve ever witnessed, especially because it was home. And many people I knew was in the Dome at the time, between the Dome and the convention center. Major institutions of parties and the Super Bowl and football games and basketball games and concerts. It was extremely painful.

But yet, again, I feel like we do better now. But in that moment, I don’t think people knew what to do because I think what people don’t remember is that Hurricane Katrina did not hit the City of New Orleans. The levees broke in the City of New Orleans. When we’re talking about natural disasters versus manmade, this was both. This was both. And being manmade is the part that caused the destruction that we saw, the suffering that we saw.

And so, I’ve been in the Dome multiple times since that time. It doesn’t change the reality of that painful day. I know people who still won’t enter the Dome because it’s too traumatic for them. But it’s just the example of how we’re not prepared to care for our people, the US, in most states in the US. We just don’t do a good job at caring for our people. And that was that moment. And as a person who’s rode out many hurricanes here in the city, nobody ever thinks they’re not going to come back. We would’ve been fine had the hurricane hit. We weren’t fine because the levees broke.

Dave Zirin:  You can’t say that enough.

Deon Haywood:  Yeah, it makes it a game changer, right? It’s one thing to have food and shelter for people because rain, wind, a possible tornado is coming. It’s another thing to have people’s homes and entire communities wiped out because our levees were substandard and weren’t built correctly.

Dave Zirin:  New Orleans is one of my favorite cities, and when I’m there, it’s always a topic of conversation how the city has changed over the last 20 years, and how those changes have really landed on the backs of some of the most marginalized people in the city. I’m hoping you could speak to that, particularly about Black culture in the city, and what the last 20 years has done to the soul of the city as well.

Deon Haywood:  Growing up in New Orleans, the beauty of it is we had neighborhoods that I could walk around the corner and I’m going to my aunt, I could walk around the corner and I’m going to see my grandmother. New Orleans is a very walkable city. Most people, if I say, oh, I’m from the Third Ward, or I live in the Ninth Ward, you probably got 50 family members that live there with you. That is no longer the case in New Orleans. Gentrification, the selling of New Orleans, the buying up from New Orleans, people from Chicago, California, New York, buying up property that they didn’t even see. And now we have a culture of Airbnbs. They’re everywhere. A culture everywhere. And it’s also raised housing.

I’ll give you an example. There was a bar called Mimi’s in the Bywater. Mimi’s was truly a place where it didn’t matter who you are, who you were, who you love, who you like, your ethnicity, everybody went to Mimi’s, and everybody danced. After Hurricane Katrina, they did reopen, but then all the people who moved here was upset because they’re playing music in the neighborhood. Are you kidding me? Trying to get local government to create ordinances, noise ordinances.

So just the disruption of culture. It is not unusual for us to walk down the street and have young people playing their instruments on a porch, on a corner. It is the voice of New Orleans. It’s the sounds of New Orleans, and much of that has been taken away since Hurricane Katrina. Mimi’s is no longer in existence because the people who bought up that area, who are living in that area, are renting it out, felt like it was too much noise. But you chose here.

Dave Zirin:  Exactly. I mean, complaining about music in New Orleans is like complaining about pizza in New York City.

Deon Haywood:  It’s insane. It’s insane.

Dave Zirin:  It’s ridiculous.

Deon Haywood:  It really is.

Dave Zirin:  I just have one last question for you, and you’ve been so generous with your time. I just would love for you to speak about your organization, Women with a Vision, and particularly the book written with Laura McTighe, I believe I’m pronouncing her name correctly.

Deon Haywood:  Yes. McTighe, yes.

Dave Zirin:  And it’s called Fire Dreams: Making Black Feminist Liberation in the South. Please, if you could, speak about organization and book.

Deon Haywood:  So thank you for asking that question. I appreciate it. Women with a Vision, last year was our 35th year, our 35th anniversary. And Women with a Vision was started by eight Black women who brought harm reduction to Louisiana, and it’s been steeped in harm reduction ever since. And for those people who may not know what harm reduction is, it is simply a modality used to get you from today to the next day. Somebody may be struggling with addiction today, but tomorrow might be the day they want to change that. And that’s what harm reduction does. We meet the needs of community and meet them where they are.

We are a reproductive justice organization, and we do a lot of anticriminalization work, a lot of reentry work, as well as all the other things, but all under the umbrella of reproductive justice.

Dave Zirin:  Got you.

Deon Haywood:  The book written by Laura McTighe and the organization, Laura is a friend and board member of Women with a Vision. And in 2012, we had an arson attack in our offices in Mid-City, and it destroyed everything that we had, which was all our history. And so we were really trying to rebuild the history, and it turned into this beautiful offering to the world, because the book really talks about how we got started, the fact that we ran an underground syringe exchange program for 27 years here in the state — In the state, but based here in New Orleans. And so we decided to write this book about how we organized and how we were able to do that.

And we believe that it is critical in this moment. We just got picked up by AK Press. The book exceeded expectations for last year. It was just launched, so March would be our one year of the book being out. And it’s been a beautiful experience, and I love that so many universities and schools are using the book as a guide for how do we move in this moment where we might not be able to say all the things we would normally say.

But I feel like myself and Women with a Vision, we’re up for the challenge. Because everything that we take for granted today, how we fight, how we use social media, is sometimes the only way to communicate with people. We’re still boots on the ground. Yes, we do social media, but we are constantly, every day, on a weekly basis, spending time in our community. And this book, our hope with this book is that you realize that you could do this too.

Dave Zirin:  Wow.

Deon Haywood:  That your voice is powerful. We actually all have guides. And our stories will take us where we need to go.

Dave Zirin:  I can’t imagine a more timely message for 2025. The book is called Fire Dreams: Making Black Feminist Liberation in the South.

It was such a thrill to speak with you. It’s such an important issue. It’s the story the football networks are not going to tell, and it’s so, so vital to be part of the tapestry of the big day, that people know who this game is landing upon. Thank you so much.

Deon Haywood:  Thank you so much, David.

Dave Zirin:  Well, that’s all the time we have this week for this special Super Bowl edition of Edge of Sports. Thank you so much to Deon Haywood for joining us. That was beyond memorable.

Thank you so much to the whole team here at The Real News Network: Dave Hebden, Maximillian Alvarez, Kayla Rivara, and the whole team that makes this show happen.

And please, please stay tuned to The Real News Network, like the YouTube page, get on the website — Not only to see back editions of Edge of Sports — And we are so proud of the work we have done at the collision of sports and politics — But also because this year we’ve got so much planned, and we want you to be on the cusp of everything that we are going to do. We want you to be watching us in the months ahead because we’re going to have a new studio, we’re going to have a series of absolutely amazing, titanic, incendiary, and important topics, and we’re going to show you how sports can be part of the resistance in the year ahead.

For everybody watching, please stay frosty and be safe. We are out of here. Peace.

The 2024 Olympics have come and gone. For an entire month, The Real News’ Dave Zirin was on the ground in Paris covering the stories corporate media wouldn’t—from the struggle of Paris activists against homeless sweeps to the stories of the Palestinian delegation. In a special recap episode of Edge of Sports, Dave Zirin and Jules Boykoff look back on the highlights of the real stories of the Olympics.

Studio Production: Jules Boykoff
Post-Production: Adam Coley

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Dave Zirin:

Hey, this is Dave Zirin from Edge of Sports TV, only on The Real News Network. I hope you’ve enjoyed the videos that have been produced out of Olympic Paris. And if you’ve enjoyed these videos, then you might be wondering at times, “Well, who the heck is holding the camera this whole time?” And I can’t wait to answer this question because the guy holding the camera, the cinematographer if you will of the whole operation, is also the person who thought through and produced every segment with me. And he just happens to be probably the foremost expert on the politics of the Olympics on Earth. That’s who I had holding my camera, which if you take a step back from it, pretty damn cool. And he’s on right now.

This is our sum up. We’re going to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of what we saw in Paris. If you don’t know his name, you should Jules Boykoff. How you doing, Jules?

Jules Boykoff:

Hey. I’m doing great, David. It’s so fun to see you on the screen. Miss you here in Paris.

Dave Zirin:

Yeah, Jules still in Paris. I’m back in Takoma Park, Maryland, which they do say is like the Paris of suburban DC, so not bad. Actually, you know what? They say paris is like the Takoma Park of Europe. I don’t know if you’ve-

Jules Boykoff:

There you go.

Dave Zirin:

… heard that. So Jules, I wanted to start off just by you and I going back and forth about the good that we saw in Paris. Anything that we saw. It could be on the field. It could be off the field. It could be in the streets. And I’m curious because we’re going to go good, the bad, and the ugly. And I’m curious for you, when you think the good of the Olympic Paris experience, what comes to mind?

Jules Boykoff:

Well, for me, the good was twofold. One, it’s the athletes. I mean, it’s the athletes in the Olympics that make the Olympics worth anything, and some of them really shined in huge ways. I think everybody knows Simone Biles was amazing. Léon Marchand was bigger than Jesus here in Paris. But there were some athletes who maybe didn’t make the headlines who I think also deserve props.

Dave, we were in the stadium that night when we watched Layla Almasri, the Palestinian runner in the 800 meter, set a national record for Palestine. That was special. And later that night, we watched a runner from India cross the finish line well after all the other competitors. And yet, the crowd was going wild as if she’d almost won the race. And that was really cool too. And for me, that is really more the Olympic spirit than you often see in those hyper-competitive arenas.

But in terms of off the field, I think there were a lot of wins. First of all, there were lots of activist struggle in the streets. We were there for pretty much all of it. This is a total David versus Goliath situation, and it wasn’t just that they were there. They organized in really smart ways. They crossed boundaries in regards to strategies and tactics and came together for the Olympic moment, and they performed a lot of really important duties during the game, such as giving informational tours to journalists who are visiting from afar to let them know the situation, Saccage 2024 was doing that, or taking journalists out on tour and doing outreach like Médecins du Monde and the Revers de la médaille did.

The Revers de la médaille was a really important group that we came to know quite well. And their leaders, people like Paul Alauzy, Antoine de Clerck, were instrumental in creating these moments for people like us to really learn what it’s like to be an unhoused migrant youth in the city during the Olympics. And it got harder for them. It got harder. From every single Olympic migrant that we talked to from the Olympics, they said life got harder under the Olympics.

So those are my goods, people standing up for justice when it’s not even easy to do. But I want to know what you think, Dave. What are your goods for this one?

Dave Zirin:

Well, I mean, I’ll take your lead and go good on the field and good off the field because we know that what happens on the field can ricochet in dramatic and electric effect off the field. And to see Imane Khelif, the boxer from Algeria, succeed and even win gold despite a torrent of abuse from some of the most powerful right-wing and fascist mouthpieces on earth was amazing.

For folks who are unfamiliar with the story, people like Elon Musk, Donald Trump, J.K. Rowling, a true rogues’ gallery of people decided on their own with their own expertise that Imane Khelif was trans or Imane Khelif was a man. I mean, they misgendered her constantly. And all it really was, at the end of the day, was bigotry, pure and simple, and racism, pure and simple. And it was also a hell of an explanation for everybody about the ways that transphobia really affects all women and the way it affects cisgender women as well like Imane Khelif, who don’t conform to white Eurocentric standards of what women should be. And to see her succeed in the face of that, I mean, I can’t imagine what it took.

And one other aspect of this that I think didn’t get talked about nearly enough is that she was also able to accomplish everything that she accomplished as an Algerian boxer and to do this as someone from Algeria in Paris has a symbolic import that I think the global media did not grasp. Because Algeria, of course, was a colony of France. They had to wage a bloody, brutal national liberation struggle against some bloody, brutal oppressors to gain their freedom. There is a monument in Paris for the 140, and that’s by the way a low number, 140 Algerians who are drowned right in the Seine. Drowned in the Seine frankly just a few years before you and I were born. This is not ancient history. And they were drowned in the Seine for no reason other than bigotry, cruelty, and to put down a national liberation movement. And of course, Paris is home to a lot of Algerian immigrants, migrants, Algerian French citizens. And so to see that in the context of all the other abuse that Imane was facing, I mean, that’s something that honestly gives me chills.

As far as off the field, I mean, I got to say it can feel very embattled here in the United States to stand up for Palestinian liberation in the face of a genocide. And to be in Paris and to see the graffiti on the walls, you did an amazing collection of photographs of just people writing, “Free Gaza, free Palestine,” in all sorts of ways across the city, that was beautiful too. It’s going to sound corny as hell, but I kept thinking of the Simon and Garfunkel song Sound of Silence, where they say, I believe, the signs of the prophets are written on the subway walls, tenement halls.

Okay, maybe they’re not going to speak about Palestine, or they’ll do their best to not speak about Palestine, but guess what? Palestine has the hearts of the people of Paris. What you and I of course saw not only in the opening ceremonies, where they got a huge cheer in the bar that we were in when the Palestinian delegation went down the Seine, but you and I also heard it in the closing ceremonies when the Palestinian delegation was announced and the crowd went absolutely wild. I mean, for a people who sometimes seem to be so absent of global solidarity in the face of just horrific situation, to see that was just very heartwarming.

And I’ll just throw onto that our experience meeting Fadi Deeb, the only person in the Palestinian Olympic delegation from Gaza, the only Palestinian who’s going to be in the Paralympic games. To meet him and be witness to his heart and his resolve, I mean, that was worth the trip all in itself.

Jules Boykoff:

Hundred percent agree. It was just such a treat to meet Fadi. Never forget that moment. And when we went in that Turkish restaurant with him, and the men who owned the restaurant just were so excited to see Fadi. They served us on the nicest plates that night. We got the best treatment because of Fadi. And I think he’s just this incredibly charismatic, strong, beautiful human. And I just share that with you, Dave. It was an unforgettable night.

One thing I just want to add, the night before the Olympics officially opened, activists put together a big counter opening ceremony event. Had well over a thousand people there, and this really beautiful thing happened because there was also a Palestinian protest right next to it. And the two events merged together, and you saw the people who were there for the counter Olympics going and supporting the Palestinians, who are yelling across the street at some people that were heckling them. And then you saw the Palestinians coming and supporting the people that were speaking on the dais that night. And I thought, “Wow, this is really interesting moment of these movements coming together to support each other in the context of the Olympic games.”

Dave Zirin:

Mm. And one quick joke that I heard that I loved. You mentioned the Palestinian runner, Almasri.

Jules Boykoff:

Mm-hmm.

Dave Zirin:

Her first name was what? I’m blanking. What was her first?

Jules Boykoff:

Layla.

Dave Zirin:

Layla. I knew it was Layla. But Layla Almasri is that some right-wing hack posted that Almasri in Arabic means Egyptian as a way to say, “Ha, ha. There’s no such thing as a real Palestinian people. Even her last name is Egyptian.” And someone responded, “Well, you’re going to be pretty upset when I tell you about Michael Jordan.”

Jules Boykoff:

Wow. Oh my God.

Dave Zirin:

That was just a great, great one. I just loved it.

Jules Boykoff:

I love… Say her name over and over again. I realized when I mentioned the Indian runner in the 1500, I didn’t even say her name, and I really should. It’s Ankita Dhyani. And it was beautiful to see Ankita push on through to the finish line, and it was beautiful to see all the people around us cheering for her as if she were winning the gold medal. So yeah, I learned a long time ago from some smart people say people’s names, and I just want to make sure I did that too.

Dave Zirin:

Glad you did. Absolutely. So let’s go to the bad right now. There was plenty of bad. What strikes you in your brain stem right away when I say the bad of the Paris Olympics?

Jules Boykoff:

Well, maybe we can go back and forth on this one. So I’ll just do one for starters, and it was so interesting. Macron, Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, was so bad and he was so trying to take advantage of the Olympics as a trampoline for his own political career and his own ego. And walking up to all the athletes after their matches and cupping their heads against their will in his hands, just being a little grabby fella, it didn’t go over well here.

And Dave, after you left, I went to one of the fan zones. It was at Place de la Bataille-de-Stalingrad, where, as a side note, that’s where a lot of unhoused people were living, and they were cleared out to make space for this fan zone. I was there for the United States playing against France and for the gold medal match in men’s basketball. And as you probably know, when Embiid, Joel Embiid, came on the screen, he got a fair amount of booing. He could’ve played for France, chose to play for the United States. It was more playful, but I’ll tell you what. When they put Emmanuel Macron’s tanned visage on the screen, it evinced thunderous boos and jeers from the crowd. I just found that so interesting.

So you know full well politicians try to use things like the Olympics to boost their political careers. And with Macron, it absolutely flopped. He was pulling at around 25% people saying that he could solve the problems of society in France around early July. It only went up to 27% by early August when the games were in full flow. So big L for Macron in these Olympics.

What about you? What’s a bad for you?

Dave Zirin:

Yeah, it’s hard because the bad and the ugly cross back and forth, back and forth. So I’ll just say for me, one of the bad things for sure was the treatment of some of the athletes who deserve better. And I’m really thinking of, first of all, Jordan Chiles, the bronze medalist who they’re trying to strip her bronze medal away as we’re having this conversation, even though she and her Romanian counterpart have talked about sharing the bronze medal. I’m sorry, I don’t have the Romanian counterpart’s name at the tip of my tongue. Maybe you could look that up or something, because you’re right. You got to say people’s names.

I mean, it was just so IOC, International Olympic Committee, to be like, “Oh, you came up with a collective, athlete-driven solution. Yeah, we’re not having that.” I mean, that to me was just wow. This is Thomas Bach in an absolute nutshell. And while this isn’t bad, it’s good although I’m scared who’s in the wings, I couldn’t be more thrilled that Thomas Bach is going to step down as head of the International Olympic Committee because I think his reign is really, I think, going to be defined, when we look back, as one of an Olympic games built on a foundation of injustice.

Jules Boykoff:

Yeah, no question about that. I was actually a little surprised that he decided not to run for another term and have them bend the rules for the International Olympic Committee because under his reign, the organization has clearly become much more autocratic and authoritarian. So.

One of the bads I want to point to is the repression that activists face, over-the-top repression. Now, everybody knows with the Olympics, the security forces used it as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to amplify all their weapon stocks, get special laws on the books, and also just basically do whatever they want in the streets as a free pass. And thankfully, there were no terrorist attacks during our time here in Paris or during the entire Paris games. But the security forces in charge, they turned their attention to activists. And this all too often happens with the Olympics. When terrorism doesn’t happen, and thank God it doesn’t, they turn their attention to activists.

And we interviewed one young man, Noah Farjon, who was part of the group Saccage 2024 who was bringing a couple journalists to a toxic tour, they called them. They were just informational tours. We went on one, Dave. It’s just some information. There’s not even a loud megaphone. It’s just somebody talking about, in this case, Natsuko Sasaki, one of the members talking about “Here. Here’s what happening in Saint-Denis. This is how the gentrification has happened. Here’s the environmental effects.” Total informational tour. Nothing spiky, nothing nonviolent. And when Noah was bringing these two journalists to the place where we all met up, he was scooped up by police and detained, him and the journalists, for 10 hours.

It doesn’t end there. He actually… They tried to do another toxic tour that focused on police repression and ironically, the police swooped in yet again and issued 135 Euro citations to every single person there who did not have an official journalism card. And so Noah, once again, was scooped up. They called him a leader of this illegal protest. I don’t think this is a protest. This is just a gathering and informational tour. And they brought him in, this time only for seven hours of questioning. And when they questioned him, he told me that they focused on his politics, which was just fascinating to me and really harrowing as well.

I mean, you think about what would’ve happened if the Rassemblement National, the right-wing party that almost got power from these recent French elections, if they got power, you know they would’ve taken full advantage of that situation. He might be still sitting in jail somewhere given the language that they used to talk about protesters around the Olympics. And so I just want to say it is bad what happened here in regards to the ramping up of the security structure and the use of it against people just simply exercising their democratic rights.

Dave Zirin:

Yeah, I’m going to build on that because this was one of my bad things, too, and I really hope that people in Los Angeles are going to listen to what I have to say. They talk about terrorism. There are thousands upon thousands of heavily-armed troops and police officers from over 30 countries, from the United States to Western Europe to the Middle East. Now, the part that’s bad in all of this in my brain is not just the cracking down on activists, but also the fact that they were miles and miles from the security zone. I mean, we saw it. They weren’t just protecting Olympic facilities and foreign dignitaries and wealthy tourists. They were in working-class neighborhoods, middle-class neighborhoods.

Performative force, performative violence or the prospect of violence, the specter of violence. And you imagine that in Los Angeles. And the part that really chills me is the memory of seeing that all these police officers and soldiers and elite special forces, people from all these different countries, were all wearing an Olympic patch on their shoulders almost as if to say, “Yeah, do not think for a second you’ve got the democratic rights that may exist in France. This is IOC autocrat land, and we’re going to make sure that these Olympics come off without a hitch at the barrel of a gun.”

And a very interesting thing happened. I don’t know if you saw this. After the men’s gold medal basketball victory, the US men beating an incredibly plucky French team that I was rooting for heart and soul, I got to tell you, is that Ayesha Curry, Steph Curry’s wife was brought to tears by one of the armed officer people about the way she was treated and pushed along in horrible fashion. And there’s footage of one of Steph Curry’s teammates yelling about it like, “What’s going on here?” And she was with her kid and all this stuff.

And there was a small part of me that was like, “Wow, this is terrible,” but also like that line from Bruce Willis in Die Hard like, “Welcome to the party, pal.” It’s like, “Let people…” Because that was so hidden in the coverage that this specter of violence and armed force existed everywhere, all around. And that, to me… I mean, combing the mainstream sports pages. And I got to be clear when I say mainstream sports pages, that was the only sliver of oxygen that I saw that said, “Wow, you just really were not free to come and go as you please in Olympic Paris.”

Jules Boykoff:

Yeah, that’s a really interesting point. And partway through our experience here, we realized that every single video that we were shooting for The Real News Network, every single one was interrupted at one point by a police siren. And we said in one of the pieces we wrote that it was like the soundtrack for the Olympic games. And that kept-

Dave Zirin:

That was your line. Credit where it’s due.

Jules Boykoff:

Is it?

Dave Zirin:

Say your name.

Jules Boykoff:

I didn’t even remember that.

Dave Zirin:

Say your name.

Jules Boykoff:

All right, all right. But, I mean, that’s incredible. We weren’t shooting 10-hour-long videos. We’re shooting five-minute, 10 minute here. Every single time, it was interrupted by a siren. I just thought that that was absolutely incredible.

Dave Zirin:

And don’t forget getting interrupted at one point by a guy with a submachine gun.

Jules Boykoff:

They were everywhere. And hey, look. We were joking one night. We were going over to do an interview, and we were coming back through and we had a big gaggle of people with their machine guns. They weren’t always pointing at the ground either, which was a little unnerving. And we were a little bit worked up and we were like, “Yeah, we’re in our 50s, white cis guys from the United States, and yet we’re worked up.”

And every time we saw somebody that had been pulled over by the police, every single time it was a young man of color. And it wasn’t just once. It wasn’t just twice. It was dozens of times that we saw this. And so that’s living in the Olympic city as a young person of color, and that was just harrowing and really obvious too.

Dave Zirin:

Other than the fact that I’m 38, I agree with everything you just said. Okay, so let’s go ugly, Jules, before people turn off their TVs right now. What, to you, was the ugliest part of the Paris Olympics?

Jules Boykoff:

Well, one ugly part that I just want to talk about because I think we really uncovered something important in our reporting here was around the water with the Seine. Now, first of all, you and I are both on the same page. Totally, let’s clean up the Seine. It hasn’t been swimmable for more than a hundred years. If you can make that for people in this city available, great. Wonderful. I think we both support that. Let’s do it. If the Olympics help make it a little bit faster, great.

But the fact of the matter is the Surfrider Foundation, this organization here in Paris that was doing a lot of testing of the water month by month as it got closer to the Olympics, their testing revealed that the water just wasn’t safe. They were testing for E. coli and Enterococci, so two bacteria, and they were finding that the tests were failing time and again. The tests finally passed in July 2024, the very same month that the Olympics began, but we found something really interesting when we started pressing a little bit further the spokesperson from the Surfrider Foundation, and that was this: that they’re only testing for two bacteria. They’re not testing for pesticides flowing through the river. They’re not testing for toxic effluents from metals. They’re not testing for pharmaceutical refuse. They’re just testing for these two bacteria. That blew my mind.

So when you hear about these swimmers getting sick and they’re saying, “Well, the water was fine. It didn’t have too much E. coli in it,” well what about if you take a little bit of E. coli and you mix it with a full stream of some random pharmaceutical refuse that comes flying through and they gobble that down? Obviously, it’s impossible to know, but it just blew my mind that this really wasn’t reported on aside from what we did in our reporting for The Nation. And it really was disconcerting, too, especially when you think about Paris organizers said this was going to be the greenest games ever. They were always, of course, looking out for the athletes. But I think they jeopardized athlete health by making them swim in that river to support the Olympic spectacle. I thought that was quite ugly.

Dave Zirin:

Yeah, my ugly… I’m with you on that. My ugliest part, and I know you’re going to agree with me, is just being in a city with 12,500 ghosts, 12,500 people forcibly removed, really for the purposes of the Olympic games, even though sometimes they would obfuscate that with language. And then learning from one of the NGO workers who works with unhoused people and works with people who live in precarious housing that they were splitting up families, prioritizing mothers and children, leaving fathers behind, and about how she said this to me, and I looked it up and it’s true, the European Union has passed dictates against breaking up families when you have forcible sheltering of people, which is its own issue. But the EU said, “Well, look. If we’re going to do this, we’re not going to break up families.” And then here’s the IOC, Thomas Bach, Macron being like, “Well, actually by hook or by crook, we’re going to get people off the streets. We’re going to get people out of precarious housing.”

And it’s such an assault because 300,000 people in Paris live in temporary or precarious housing because of the prices of housing. It’s an incredible number with between six and 12,000 people living on the streets at one time. And that, of course, doesn’t include people living in squats, or what they call in Paris collectifs, and so many of them African migrants.

There’s an ugliness. It was like living amongst a human rights violation for the purposes of our collective entertainment. And when you allowed yourself to put on blinders, it was very possible to feel the narcotic of the athletes, the excitement, the competition, the beauty of sport. But then you take a step back from it and the sheer ugliness of what they did to the most vulnerable of the populations there was something to behold.

But meeting people like Paul Alauzy, who does that work, meeting as you did more than I did some of the unhoused people and migrants themselves and hearing their struggles, although I did get to hear some of them for sure at some of the rallies and press conferences and the like, I mean, you saw resilience. You saw strength. But you also had to take a step back and look at the reality that these folks are basically standing in front of bulldozers when the Olympics come to town. So that was my ugliness.

Jules Boykoff:

Yeah. Just adding one thing to that. In that ugliness, there was incredible beauty in the people that were fighting back for the rights of the people. And one thing I witnessed that I’ll never forget is a doctor named Bertrand Chatelaine.

And he was there and it was getting late and our shift was supposed to end with doing outreach, but all these young African migrants came out, mostly from Ivory Coast, and there were literally 40 people there who wanted to see the doctor. And he’s an 88-year-old man, and he just patiently went through, boom, boom, helping each one of these young men getting medications that they needed, figuring out what it was that was their malady. And we stayed till nearly midnight. We were supposed to end our shift at 10:00.

This guy is 88 years old and I thought, “Wow, this is actually the embodiment of the values that are in the Olympic Charter much more than a lot of the things that we’ve heard out of the mouth of Thomas Bach and his fellows in the International Olympic Committee. This is actually the spirit of the Olympics, and yet it’s shuffled into the darkness.” And it was just a privilege to be able to see that just even for a few hours. Five hours one night with him is something I’ll never forget.

Dave Zirin:

Yeah, and to put a button on that, the story about athletes in the Olympic Village taking advantage of the fact that there’s free healthcare in the village to do all sorts of checkups and treatments that they otherwise cannot afford back in their home country, it makes you think that a lot of these athletes have far more in common with the migrants than they do with people like Thomas Bach and Emmanuel Macron and Tom Cruise.

All right, let’s spin this forward real quick, and then we’ll wrap it up, Jules. You and I have both been involved in for quite a few years in Los Angeles 2028. That’s where the next Olympics are going to be, of course, the next summer Olympics. So to you, Jules Boykoff, based upon what you saw and learned in Paris, what advice do you have for not just activists, but citizens in Los Angeles as 2028 approaches?

Jules Boykoff:

Well, this is a question that you and I asked a lot of the people that we were interviewing here, from activists to doctors to outreach workers to everyday people on the streets that we were talking with. And across the board, every one of them who is involved in advocacy or activism said to the Los Angeles City, “Folks, organize early and often and dig in your heels. And get ready to work with people who you might not normally work with, but it’s going to be crucial during that Olympic moment.” That’s something that you and I have seen in city after city, but it’s definitely something that every single person we talked to gave as advice to folks in LA.

And there’s a lot of spirit and zest in Los Angeles. You and I have both spent a lot of time down there. There’s NOlympics LA, the anti-Olympics group that’s done great organizing down there. They’re working with a lot of different groups, the LA Tenants Union, lots of other amazing groups that are down there. LA CAN, Los Angeles Community Action Network. You name it. Stop LAPD Spying. They have the infrastructure there to push back, and they have a lot of people in Hollywood that are not going to be Tom Cruise jumping off the top of a stadium at the closing ceremony, but are actually going to be asking big questions about Los Angeles. There’s been numerous celebrities, and I hope that they can get more celebrities on board to be outspoken about the downsides that you and I have been talking about tonight. So I think that would be my advice for Los Angeles.

Last point. I was really interested to see an elected official in LA, the LA controller, a guy named Kenneth Mejia, who posted on Twitter this really interesting graphic comparing Paris to Los Angeles. Because all too often, Paris and Los Angeles were placed in the same bucket. They were going for the Olympics at the same time. There were supposed to be these two democracies after a wave of anti-democratic hosts. But wow, the differences between Paris and Los Angeles are huge.

I know you have a lot to say about that, but Kenneth Mejia was pointing out the transportation system in LA is a nothing burger compared to here, where the metro system was amazing. The number of unhoused people living in the streets in Los Angeles is off the charts compared to what you saw here, even though it’s a significant issue here as well. And he laid it out. So I think following Kenneth Mejia’s lead, early and often, that’s the only way to deal with what’s coming to Los Angeles four years hence.

What about you though? What would you say to those activists?

Dave Zirin:

Start talking to the unions now about being part of the resistance, because that’s one of the things I do pull from the Paris experience, is good for the workers of France, the union workers in France, in that they were able to leverage the Olympics to get higher pay, benefits, beat back the reform of their pensions. People might remember the mass protests in 2023. They raised the slogan, no raise, no Olympics. I mean, all of that is beautiful and inspiring, and I’m definitely glad they’re going to have more coin in their pocket, but it also felt to me in Paris that it also meant separating the unions from the people who then the Olympics fell on their backs. Talking about the unhoused populations, the people in the outer suburbs, the people affected by the security state, et cetera.

I’d really like to see and hope to see in Los Angeles, where union density is far higher than your typical American city even if it’s not Paris, I would love to see them truly joined in 2028 and through the Olympics not just for their rights as workers, but for the rights of the people who are most vulnerable to the Olympic monolith.

Jules Boykoff:

Mm-hmm. I love that. Great point.

Dave Zirin:

Well, that’s all the time we have here. Jules, let me just say that doing this with you, the work, both planning these clips for The Real News Network and writing for The Nation was a true honor on my part. I appreciate you. I love the work you put in. Brilliant, sharp, cohesive, thoughtful, measured, and oh so important. So thank you so much, Jules, for being part of our Paris 2024 project. If you’re down, I look forward to doing it again in LA.

Jules Boykoff:

Hell yeah. We had a great time. We worked hard. And I feel the same way about you, Dave. It was just a real highlight of my life to do this. It was so fun. We worked hard. Met some amazing people. We learned a lot. And yeah, I hope people slow down and check out some of the videos and some of the writing that we did because we really did our very best work here. So thanks, Dave.

Dave Zirin:

Amen. Right back at you.

And I also want to give a shout-out right now to Maximilian Alvarez over at The Real News Network, Cam Granadino at The Real News Network, Dave Hebden at The Real News Network, and the whole team at TRNN who were able to produce these videos quickly, incredibly professionally. Terrific B-roll. That means footage while people were talking when we did interviews. Just top-notch work from The Real News Network. Just shout out to all of y’all.

And for all of you out there who followed up with us, who’ve been watching the clips, who’ve been reading the articles, much respect to you. You are appreciated. We are going to build a movement out of this, because from knowledge comes power. For everybody out there listening, please stay frosty. We are out of here. Peace.

The Olympics weren’t the only place new world records were set this summer. Across the globe, sweltering temperatures shattered previous climate records. As the climate crisis continues, these new records will only be broken time and again. The impact is already being felt on the world of sports, and the effects will only become more acute with time. Climate and sports scholar Dr. Madeleine Orr speaks with Edge of Sports from the streets of Paris to discuss what the future of sports, and the Olympics, could look like in a rapidly warming world.

Studio Production: Jules Boykoff
Post-Production: David Hebden, Adam Coley

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Dave Zirin:

Hey, this is Dave Zirin, here at Edge of Sports TV, only on The Real News Network, coming to you from Olympic Paris. Thrilled to have with me on the show someone who’s been on in the past and we all know the number, she did great, and so we’re thrilled to have her back on with us. Madeleine Orr, author of Warming Up: How Climate Change is Changing Sports. Madeleine, thank you so much for talking to us here in Paris.

Madeleine Orr:

What a city, and I’m happy to be here.

Dave Zirin:

That’s awesome. That train is going by right now, and that just makes this more authentic. So Madeleine, real quick, just give us a sense of the main thrust of your book, please.

Madeleine Orr:

So my book is about what happens when climate change starts to impact the sports we love, whether it’s the athletes, the events, the teams, the venues, and we’re starting to see that. We’re seeing it in the Seine this week. The water quality is still gross. The air quality has been very mediocre in Paris the last few days. The heat is noticeable. We’re starting to get some hot days. Today was pretty hot. It’s only going to get hotter from here. So we’re seeing those impacts happen and we’re seeing it not just in summer sports, but winter sports as well, and pro sports around the world.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. So based on everything we’re seeing in Paris, the big question, can the Olympics be environmentally sustainable?

Madeleine Orr:

So Paris is a spectacle, and if you walk around the city right now, you might notice that there are streets blocked off. There are entire sections where you can’t approach. We’re on a street right now that is blocked off to cars and there is gendarmerie, the police, standing at the edge, making sure you can’t get in here. So massive disruption, and that’s because they’re bringing in 15 million tourists, and on top of 15,000 athletes and all of the staff and volunteers. So you can imagine there’s no version of bringing that many people to one place, for what’s functionally a big party, that’s going to be sustainable. That’s an oxymoron. A sustainable Olympics is an oxymoron and the model is completely untenable. They’re not going to be able to continue to do it for much longer.

Dave Zirin:

Well, our show is based in the United States and of course 2028, the Olympics go to Los Angeles. What message do you have via sustainability for people in LA?

Madeleine Orr:

If you live in LA, please get public transit. Get on them for public transit, it’s the best thing you can do, not just for your city, for yourselves, for your well-being, for your health, for your community, but also for everyone who’s going to inevitably descend on Los Angeles. Second thing you want to do is pressure them to have tickets for locals. Make sure they sell you tickets first. And when they do that, we can lower the number of international tourists that descend, and that reduces that carbon footprint. So that would be number one and two. Keep holding them to their promises. They said they’d have a sustainable games. It’s not possible to do that, but you should hold them to every promise they’ve made in terms of the little stuff, the bus lanes, the bike lanes, the pedestrian areas, all this stuff. Make them do it.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. Now I want my audience to know that you’re not just somebody who writes books, not just somebody who is a university professor, but you’re actually connected with a lot of these athletes who are dealing with political issues, and also with the issues of how they manage environmental catastrophe and world-class sport. I know, I’m not going to ask you to name names of the athletes who you’ve been speaking with, but can you speak a little bit about that work?

Madeleine Orr:

Sure. So in the last three, four years, there’s been groups of athletes organizing behind closed doors. So in Zoom calls, and LinkedIn groups, and WhatsApp groups, trying to figure out how do we take on the powers that be and get our message heard on things like sustainability, on things like racism, on things like Palestinian liberation. And those efforts are really interesting and beautiful to see. Now, it’s not easy for athletes to do that if, for example, they compete for a team like USA whose government is aligned strategically with Israel and has been supporting Israel, or Canada, where I come from, one of the big sponsors and they’ve just extended for eight years is Petro-Can. So very hard to talk about sustainability in that context.

Dave Zirin:

Wow.

Madeleine Orr:

So what’s happening there is they’ve solicited, I guess, a few of us academics to help them on the backend, fact check their messaging, support them in how they’re going to talk about it, and make sure that they feel confident when they go and create their activist work.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. Do you see a day in the near future where an Olympics are called and they quite literally cannot happen because of the climate?

Madeleine Orr:

I think that’s going to happen on the winter side sooner than we think.

Dave Zirin:

Wow.

Madeleine Orr:

I think we’ll get through in the next couple rounds, but if they don’t start really culling where they’re going to go, we are going to see places be too hot to host the Winter Games. And on the summer side, 2016 study out of the UK said, “Actually there’s maybe a dozen cities across the Northern Hemisphere that will be tenable to host the games by mid-century if it continues to be in July and August.” So we’re either going to see a scaled down games or we’re going to see a games in the shoulder season, so not summer as we know it, but a May, June, or a September, October, or we’re going to see them go away. Something’s got a give.

Dave Zirin:

Staggering. I know you’ve done a lot of media, but do you feel like the message that you have is getting out there and is part of the conversation around the Olympics? It seems to me it’s the question, will we have an Olympics? Only if we’re in some way heal the planet and radically refigure what we mean by international sports competition. Do you feel like this is a discussion, a debate that you’re seeing in the broader media landscape?

Madeleine Orr:

I think every Olympics has the discussion, right? There’s a discussion every time. In Rio it was inequality and then it was Zika virus. In Tokyo it was COVID, and here I think we’re finally having a conversation about sustainability. Is it as robust a conversation as I would hope we’re having in public? No, it’s still a lot of greenwashing, but it’s starting to be on the tip of people’s tongues. We’re starting to talk about what’s this going to look like in the context of a world on fire? And it’s important that we have that conversation, that we ask those questions, that we keep pushing the organizers.

Dave Zirin:

And then just the last question is about greenwashing. I’m hoping you can explain what that means-

Madeleine Orr:

Sure.

Dave Zirin:

… in the context of the sustainability message that comes from the International Olympic Committee.

Madeleine Orr:

Yeah. So there’s two versions of greenwashing at the Olympic level that are really nefarious. The first one is, they will tell you that these are a sustainable Olympic Games and, y’all, that’s not possible. It doesn’t exist. So they’re labeling things as sustainable because really there’s nobody to tell them not to, so they’re just using it. The other thing they do is they use a lesser of two evils argument. And this is also really pretty nasty, where they’ll say, “Oh, well these other Olympics in the past had a carbon footprint of X. We aren’t going to have that.” Well, that doesn’t mean your games are suddenly sustainable because it’s slightly better than that other thing. The bar for these things, frankly, is on the floor. And so any action is good and we want to see more of it, but you can’t jump from awful to slightly less awful and all of a sudden call it good.

Dave Zirin:

Her name is Madeleine Orr, she’s the author of Warming Up: How Climate Change is Changing Sports. If you care about the future of sports, this is a book you have to read. Madeleine Orr, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports.

Madeleine Orr:

Thanks for having me.

There are always two sides to the Olympics: the glamor of the games broadcasted throughout the world, and the gritty reality of evictions, anti-homeless sweeps, and securitization faced by local working people. The Paris 2024 games have been no exception to this uglier side, but it’s also been an occasion for French unions to score victories. Axel Persson, General Secretary of the CGT Rail Workers Union, explains how French workers used the impending Olympics to their strategic advantage in collective action, and how workers in Los Angeles can draw on these lessons ahead of the 2028 Olympics.

Studio Production: Jules Boykoff
Post-Production: David Hebden, Adam Coley

Transcript

Dave Zirin:  Hey, this is Dave Zirin from Edge of Sports TV, only on the Real News Network, and I’m thrilled to be speaking to Axel Persson right here in Olympic Paris. Axel Persson is a rank and file labor leader with the Railway Workers Union. Axel, thank you so much for joining us.

Axel Persson:  Thank you.

Dave Zirin:  First things first, Axel. I was hoping you could share with our audience a story that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention, and that’s how the workers of France were able to pressure the government for concessions in the lead-up to the Olympics. Can you speak about that?

Axel Persson:  Yeah. For example, in my industry specifically — Unfortunately this cannot apply to all industries to be fair — But in my industry and others, for example, as a transport industry, the railway industry, we managed to force through a deal saying very simply and putting a very simple message saying that, if you don’t give into our demands in a satisfactory manner, there will be no Olympics.

Because, as in any of these events, these events can only happen if workers make them possible, whether it be transport workers, hotel workers, restaurant workers, all the workers who run the city, basically, who make it a livable place. If we’re not here to do the work, there can be no such a thing as these events.

We said, we have demands, and if you don’t cave into them, we will strike at these occasions. So in industries such as mine, for example, the railway industry, already back in April after several 24-hour strikes that paralyzed the network, we managed to force through a deal that gave back not all of the ground we have lost, but that, for example, allowed me and my colleagues to retire earlier despite the fact that the government had forced through pension reform in 2023.

To make things a bit understandable for the wider audience, I, for example, in my personal situation, will be able to retire at 53 with a full pension. My demand being, our demand being 50, so we haven’t gotten there yet, but we’ve gotten closer.

We’ve also managed to secure a deal, after a few strikes, that basically doubles our pay during the Olympics period, which we found not necessarily satisfactory in the terms that we thought that more people should have been covered by the deal, but quite a lot of the transport workers in Paris are covered by the deal, and so we have benefited from raises in the wages.

But the gist is, and the lesson to be taught, is that in order to force through your demands, you have to wield your industrial muscles and strike, threaten or strike, be good on your threats when you do it because without our labor, nothing can be done. And they have no choice but to give into our demands because they can only comment on society. They can only give their opinion, but without our labor, nothing can be done. That is not the case of our enemies who rule the society. They’re the real parasites, not us.

Dave Zirin:  Yeah. Also, because you work for the Railway Workers Union, I do need to ask you about what happened before the Olympics, if you had any thoughts about that, the sabotage that took place on the train lines that prevented thousands of people from coming into Paris. A story that has seemed to be wiped off the front pages in the whole fever around the Olympics here.

Axel Persson:  Yeah, for the opening ceremony of the Olympics last Friday, so on the 26th of July, if I remember correctly, there was this organized, coordinated sabotage that took place at four different places in the territory very far away from each other, where groups of people basically arsoned installations that are vital for the railway network, which led to major disruptions.

Out of these four attacks, one was thwarted in the sense that there were colleagues, railway workers who were doing maintenance work, spotted these people, and when they saw them, these people fled. The perpetrators fled.

As things stands now, well, the disruptions were minimized by the fact that, for once, we were not understaffed because of the Olympics. So actually the disruptions were important, but were managed to be resolved and treated actually quite quickly by industry standards. Within the day after, things have started getting back to normal, which is actually quite a feat given the spread of the damage that had been done.

But nobody knows exactly who did this. There are many people and forces speculating on who did this. Of course, the right is pointing towards what they call the ultra left, but no group has claimed the attack.

There’s been an anonymous group that have expressed support for the attack, but has not claimed it. It can very well be a foreign power given the current geopolitical situations with rivalries between the different powers and Russia with the war in Ukraine and France standing with NATO countries against Russia. It could be foreign interference, destabilization, or it can be any other reason.

Nobody knows for now. The inquiry hasn’t yielded results yet, but maybe it will at one point. But for now, unfortunately, nobody knows who and why they did it.

Dave Zirin:  Now we’re here at Père Lachaise Cemetery, a famous place here in Paris, and we’re just steps away from the Wall of the Communards.

Axel Persson:  Yes.

Dave Zirin:  I’m asking all of that because, at the Olympic opening ceremonies, they paid tribute to someone named Louise Michel, but they didn’t exactly give a lot of context to who Louise Michel was. I was hoping perhaps you could.

Axel Persson:  Yeah. So Louise Michel is a very famous political figure in France. She’s a woman and a teacher who was a leader of the Paris Commune, one of the many leaders of the Paris Commune.

The Paris Commune in itself is widely acknowledged to be the first worker state. It was very, very short-lived because it arose and was born in a very peculiar context in France, in Paris, actually, in 1871. It was a consequence of an uprising of the French working class in Paris that seized power, kicked out the ruling class of Paris, and administered the city in an autonomous fashion and instituted workers’ democracy, direct democracy, voting rights for all the workers, even immigrants, because they said nationality doesn’t matter. What matters is if you work or not, forbid the child labor, forbid the prostitution, which heralded a lot of the social rights the working class still benefit from today.

It was very short-lived in the sense that it was completely crushed, very violently so, by the newborn third French Republic that arose after the second empire led by Napoleon III, and it was crushed almost in a genocidal fashion. Some people qualify it as a genocide, some qualify it as a massacre, but that’s pretty irrelevant. It was a massacre which ended up in 15,000 to 50,000 depending on the estimates, of workers being randomly executed in the streets of Paris.

The last stand these commune fighters managed to take was in this cemetery. And in one of the walls here of the cemetery that we call the Communard Wall or the Wall of the Federates, [inaudible] the same place, and the last one was executed there. So you can still see the bullets where the last one was executed.

Since then it has become acknowledged that this part of the cemetery more or less belongs and is administered by the radical labor movement, so mainly the CGT Trade Union of which I am a member and representative of, but also the French Communist Party, given the very importance and weight and influence it had in the working class.

So that’s where all, not all, but many of the heroes of the French working class are buried or where monuments paying tribute to their memory and to their fight, their legacy, are here. Not all of them, but quite a lot of them.

History is gazing upon you when walk through these areas going back from the Paris Commune to all those who were deported and exterminated by the Nazis and those who fought for the liberation of the working class and also from the liberation of Nazism.

So I find it a very interesting place, and very often when we have international guests, such as you, we insist on taking you to visit it because it’s part of the history that is less taught in history books, and it is only taught by the working class. So that’s why we insist on bringing… I know it may sound a bit peculiar to people when they hear it, no, we insist. We have to meet at the cemetery, but there’s a reason for it.

Dave Zirin:  So the Olympic organizers, just to put a fine point on it, paid tribute in front of a global audience.

Axel Persson:  Exactly.

Dave Zirin:  To one of the leaders of the first successful revolutionary workers state in world history.

Axel Persson:  Exactly. Exactly.

There’s also a funny anecdote about this I mentioned to you a bit earlier is that I don’t remember if it’s a footage or if it’s just a picture, but there’s an anecdote, at least, of Lenin, the Russian revolutionary who danced in the snow in the winter of 1918. The people asked him, comrade Lenin, why are you dancing? Tovarishch Lenin, why are you dancing? He said, you didn’t notice, but it’s been 72 days now since we’ve seized power, and the Paris Commune lasted for 71 days. So ourhistorical purpose has been filled. We managed to last one day longer.

This is also why the Paris Commune — And we actually saw that before, there were Chinese people who came here and took pictures in front of that area — Working class organization from all over the world, even the US, from Africa, from Asia, from Central Asia, from Iran. Everywhere across the world, people from the working class movement come to the cemetery to pay tribute to the heroes of the Paris Commune.

Dave Zirin:  Amazing. One last question for you, Axel. 2024 Olympics here in Paris, 2028 in Los Angeles.

Axel Persson:  Exactly. Exactly.

Dave Zirin:  A place with a real labor movement.

Axel Persson:  Yes.

Dave Zirin:  There is strong labor movement in Los Angeles by US standards.

Axel Persson:  Yes. Yes, I know.

Dave Zirin:  I’m hoping that perhaps you could give some advice to the labor movement, to the radical workers’ movement of Los Angeles about what they should do when faced with the Olympic monolith.

Axel Persson:  Well, I’d like to start by giving a very personal shout out and hi to all my friends in the Roofers Union, LA Roofers Union Local 36, because they’re in Los Angeles, as the name indicates. But I know they’re not alone because, as you said, Los Angeles has a very strong labor movement by US standards, and what applies in Paris and Los Angeles is pretty much the same.

Events such as these will only be made possible if transport workers show up, if those who build the facilities will do it, if those who will take care of the tourists who come there in the hotels, who will eat at the restaurants, if they show up, the event will be able to happen. If you decide to not do it, if you decide to withdraw your labor, things will not be possible because we make the wheels of society turn.

The advice I would have to give is that use that power. We have the power, we just need the conscience and the awareness that we have that power, and we have to wield it. So put forth your legitimate demands. I’m not saying you have to wait until the Olympics in 2028 because, of course, if you have an opportunity to do it now, you have to do it now.

But when the time comes, use it as leverage to bring forth and force them to give into your demands, whether it be over wages, over public services. Any demands you have, it will be an occasion to turn this into an opportunity for the working class to rise up and set forth their demands.

I think the most important is that the working class wins their own medals, and those medals are measured by other standards than those of the capitalist state. It’s measured in terms of workers’ rights, wages, pensions, and just the right to live in a dignified manner out of the fruit of our labor. That’s what I would have to say.

Dave Zirin:  Wow. Hey, Los Angeles, go for that gold medal in striking.

Axel Persson:  Exactly.

Dave Zirin:  What do you think? Okay [laughs].

Axel Persson:  I would agree completely to that. [Speaking French], as they say in France —

Dave Zirin:  [Speaking French].

Axel Persson:  Which means long live to the strikes.

Dave Zirin:  Axel Persson, thanks so much for joining us [crosstalk].

Axel Persson:  Well, thank you for being here. It was a pleasure.

For as long as it has existed, the Olympics has shrouded itself in the language of international fraternity and peace. Yet more than 10 months into Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has yet to take action against the pariah state’s participation in the Paris games. Edge of Sports host Dave Zirin speaks with Jibril Rajoub, head of the Palestinian Olympic Committee, for an exclusive interview. Rajoub describes the hardships and obstacles Palestine’s athletes have overcome from the “fascist, racist occupation” to attend the Paris Olympics, and calls out the silence from the IOC regarding Israel’s genocide.

Studio Production: Jules Boykoff
Post-Production: David Hebden, Adam Coley

Transcript

Dave Zirin:

Hey, this is Dave Zirin from Edge of Sports TV, only on the Real News Network. I’m speaking with Jibril Rajoub, who, among many titles, is also the head of the Palestinian Olympic Committee. We’re coming to you from Olympic Paris. Mr. Rajoub, thank you for joining us.

Jibril Rajoub:

Appreciate your kindness. Hopefully that, through this platform, I can convey the message of my people to the French people, which is a message of hope, peace, love, and determination to enjoy our fundamental rights. Right of self-determination, to live in peace, security, in our sovereign, independent, Palestinian state.

Dave Zirin:

What has the challenge been for you to bring an Olympic team to Paris, given the context of everything that’s been happening since October?

Jibril Rajoub:

I have the worst challenge, which is exclusive for the Palestinians. A fascist and racist occupation trying to liquidate, to destroy my Palestinian people through official terror, aggressions. Trying to negate us. But the other face of the picture is our commitment, our ambitions, and even our commitment to expose our justice cause through the ethics and the values of sport. Sport is a strategic choice. Athletes, to expose our justice cause, [are] the most effective tool, and this is… I think the Israelis don’t like and don’t want [this], because they want to present us totally in a different shape and character.

But I am insisting, and I am working in spite [of the] closure, killing, suffocation, ethnic cleansing in Gaza, destroying all the facilities of sport—and even some of them are used as concentration camps in the West Bank. We had to suspend all official sport activities, because of the Israeli crazy and stupid and fascist choices on the ground. But in spite of that, you see that we came with eight athletes trying to convey a message to the international community: It’s the time to end the suffering of the Palestinian people.

Dave Zirin:

What makes sports so effective in conveying your message and your cause?

Jibril Rajoub:

I think sport today is a global language. Sport is a humanitarian, peaceful means. [And] therefore, I myself—I suffer. And I don’t want to see anyone suffer. I have spent 17 years in Israeli jails, which was worse than the Bastille. But in spite of that, I don’t want to cause suffering to anyone, no matter who is he and where is he coming from. I do believe that using sport, using athletes as an asset in our resistance and in our struggle, it’s very effective. And even here in France, the way that we were received, and all over the world, is encouraging me and motivating me to continue this path. A peaceful, a non-violent tool—sport, athletes, football, and so on.

Dave Zirin:

That goes to my next question. How has the Palestinian delegation, the Palestinian athletes, how have you been welcomed, treated, received here in Paris?

Jibril Rajoub:

Very friendly. With roses, smiling. Wherever we go, the French people, the normal people, are welcoming us in a friendly, smiling, lovely way. Even the president of France received me well and encouraged me to continue. And also, he’s trying to send a message of hope to our people. And I think he can. He can [play] a great role in the current situation, to send a message of hope to the Palestinians. Frustration, losing hope, will lead to bad consequences. We expect France—French people, French parliament, government, and the president—in the current situation, to play [a] crucial [role]… It’s important not to let the Palestinians [lose] hope. It’s the time. Believe me, it’s the time. Otherwise, pushing us to the vicious cycle of bloodshed and killing, they are playing on the hands of this fascist, crazy, stupid Bibi and his racist government. Bibi is the same model of hopeless. Bibi and his government is a real threat for regional stability and global peace. They’re expansionists, they’re fascists. The way that they are behaving, the way that they are talking about the Palestinians, as if we are not existing.

They cannot deny that more than seven… about seven million Palestinians live in historic Palestine. Could they ignore? Could they continue on this apartheid?

Dave Zirin:

Wow.

Jibril Rajoub:

The ball is in the court of the international community, the free peoples, France. The French Revolution two centuries ago inspired the whole world. 13th of July, 1789 inspired the whole world. It’s the time. It’s the time for the disciples of that revolution to come up and say, “Enough is enough.”

Dave Zirin:

As you well know, there is the Olympic Charter. There is also something called the Olympic Truce. Israel has violated the Charter and the Truce flagrantly.

Jibril Rajoub:

Israel is insisting to violate all the principles, all the truces, all the charters, and continue their crazy and fascist doctrine to dictate facts by killing, by destroying, by occupying, by suffocating the Palestinians. The Israelis have no right because of the Holocaust, which we denounce, which we are against. We did not do that. Someone else! Why should we be a scapegoat? Why should we pay the price? Do the grandsons of the victims of the Holocaust have the right to do the same against the Palestinian people? The killing of tens of thousands in Gaza. The destruction of the whole infrastructure. What does this mean? For what? Do they have the right? [What is their] justification? Because of the Holocaust? We are not responsible and we should not. And this inferiority complex for the Europeans should be removed. And even for the Jews themselves, they have to understand that this crazy and stupid and rightist, fascist government is a real threat for their own existence.

Dave Zirin:

So why, given that they have violated the Olympic Charter, that they have violated the Olympic Truce—why is Israel allowed to still compete at the Olympics?

Jibril Rajoub:

The athlete who raised the flag, a judo champion, he himself signed a missile, sending it to the kids of Gaza, ‘From me to you.’ Does he have the right to attend? The president of the Olympic Committee of Israel visited, encouraged. And even some players and athletes were part of the Israeli occupying forces killing [inaudible]. Having official sport activities in the Occupied Territories—East Jerusalem, West Bank—is a clear cut violation of the Olympic Charter and [inaudible] statutes.

The ball is in the court of Europe, who are responsible for the Holocaust. And it’s the time for them to raise [inaudible]. It was not a great honor for France and for the IOC to have the Israelis. It’s not a political issue for me. It’s a moral issue. It’s a legal issue. It’s a sport issue. It’s ethical issue. But this is the Holocaust inferiority complexity in Europe, which is leading, which is motivating.

Dave Zirin:

What does the International Olympic Committee not understand?

Jibril Rajoub:

Brother, I am not the expert person. I did my best, and I will continue on two directions. From one side, I will keep developing sport, encouraging the youth in Palestine to follow the ethics and the values of a sport as an effective platform to expose the suffering of our people. And, at the same time, to keep on working on all fronts in order to have Israel sanctioned, being punished by IOC and FIFA. Believe me, when I go to the history of South Africa, 60 years, 80 years, last century, it was kindergarten [compared to] what the Israelis are doing against the Palestinians.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. I also really wanted to ask you about the Algerian judoka who did not compete against… I know that’s Algeria, not Palestine. But should athletes not even compete against Israeli athletes here? What counsel would you give athletes, especially athletes who are appalled by what’s happening?

Jibril Rajoub:

Once again, I think the Israelis did lose their right to attend and to compete. And I don’t think that anyone who, for sport reasons, cannot play should be sanctioned. I would like to address an Israeli athlete with the ethics of the game. Could he tolerate competing against a Nazi athlete? Believe me, this is the same. This is the same. Don’t ask the victim. Ask the criminal.

Dave Zirin:

Our show is, of course, in the United States. Our article that we publish will be in the United States. What message do you have for the people of the United States, and the politicians of the United States who are arming Israel?

Jibril Rajoub:

They are arming, they are supporting, they are defending, and they are protecting, I think, for their own ethics and values, right of self-determination, human rights principles, and even for their own national security interests in the Middle East and all over the world. I call for them to raise a red card to Israel. The Israelis have the right to live in peace and security, but within their internationally recognized borders. The establishment of a Palestinian sovereign state next to the state of Israel. The emergence of such a state will contribute to regional stability, global peace. And the Israelis, I am sure, then have the right and will enjoy security and stability. The Israelis cannot continue their expansionist and their fascist policies on the ground and at the same time think that they can enjoy security and being integrated in the Middle East. No security, no integration without the emergence of an independent sovereign state.

Dave Zirin:

You’ve been so generous with your time, but one more question. What do sports mean?

Jibril Rajoub:

For me?

Dave Zirin:

No, no, no. To the people of Gaza. And how has this war taken that away from them?

Jibril Rajoub:

Please, please, please, please. All sports facilities in Gaza, 100 persons, destroyed—athletes, employees, staff of a sport, killed. Hundreds still missing. I don’t know whether they are under rubble or in Israeli jails. And also hundreds have been injured. Sport is no more existing in Gaza. What is existing is our determination, our commitment, our principles. In the West Bank, because of the Israeli suffocation policy, we have to suspend all leagues and sport activities. The movement with those settlers, fascist settlers, the disciples of Baruch Goldstein who are behaving like the bully of neighborhoods against the Palestinians. We cannot move. We cannot do anything. And also sport is no more working in the West Bank. It’s the time. It’s the time now.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. And I must ask you one last question. Does it feel sometimes like your head is just going to explode when you have all of this Olympic pageantry and joy while people in Gaza suffer so much?

Jibril Rajoub:

Not easy. Not easy. But frustration, giving up, surrendering is not part of my Palestinian national doctrine. My commitment to my people, [our] national aspirations—it’s a genetic issue. Giving up? White flag? Never, never. And I will keep leading the youth, the athletes, the fans in the right direction to achieve our people’s national aspirations and our people’s legitimate right, fundamental right, to live in their own independent Palestinian sovereign state, according to the UN resolutions and legitimacy. Okay, brother.

Dave Zirin:

Jibril Rajoub, thank you so much for joining us on Edge of Sports.

Jibril Rajoub:

All the best. Thanks to Catherine.

Dave Zirin:

We’ll be back after this.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Thank you so much for watching the Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories, and struggles that you care about most. And we need your help to keep doing this work, so please tap your screen now, subscribe, and donate to the Real News Network. Solidarity forever.

On the same day that Israeli forces bombed a girls’ school in central Gaza, killing at least 30 people and injuring over 100, Israel’s soccer team was allowed to compete without sanctions at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Even though Paraguay defeated Israel 4-2, TRNN’s Dave Zirin reports that “Israel actually won this, because they were allowed to play at all.” In this on-the-ground report from Paris, Zirin covers the protests and politics surrounding Saturday’s soccer match.

Studio Production: Jules Boykoff
Post-Production: David Hebden, Cameron Granadino

Transcript

Dave Zirin:  Hey, this is Dave Zirin from Edge of Sports TV, only on the Real News Network.

I’m here standing outside Parc des Princes Stadium here in Paris, where the Israeli soccer team is about to take on Paraguay.

Now, why am I here? Because the question about Israeli athletes and them having the permission to play in these games is one of the hot-button issues in Paris right now, and, frankly, around the world, particularly on this day of all days where an Israeli airstrike killed 30 people sheltering in a school in Gaza.

So we’re wondering, are there going to be protests here? You hear some noise in the background. What are those protests going to look like? We’re going to find out right here at the stadium. Maybe there’ll be nothing. Maybe there’ll be something. But I’m excited to find out, because the resistance at these Olympics are the politics they do not want to talk about.

Just a few things about the mood outside the stadium. You do see some folks in Israeli flags. I’m not seeing yet Palestinian flags, but Paraguay has shown up in a big way. So that’s something, and we’re going to keep recording and keep finding out what’s happening as Israel meets Paraguay at a contest where a lot of people think Israel has no place on the field.

The security outside the Israel-Paraguay game, it was like nothing you can imagine and nothing I’ve ever experienced before a sporting event. Incredible amount of police, your body was checked twice, machine guns everywhere.

And yet despite all of that, look at this man, in a wheelchair, with a Palestinian flag, somehow got it into the arena. I got to tell you, if he was able to do all that, it’s actually humbling to think about what he went through. Humbling to think about how important it was for him to make a statement of dissent against Israel’s presence.

Okay, the match is over. Paraguay won 4-2 over Israel, but that’s not the story here. Because Israel in a way, actually won this because they were able to play at all, and that’s a problem.

Here’s the problem at play. Look, Israel should not be in these games at all because of what’s called sportswashing. Right now, Israel is acting like a pariah nation. It is bombing Gaza. It is bombing Rafah, and yet they are allowed to come to these games and be sportswashed and accepted as a legitimate part of the international sports community and the international community. And that’s the problem.

A huge number of Israeli players are members of the Israeli Armed Forces, and yet here they are playing. Meanwhile, Russia was sanctioned because many of their players were in the Russian Armed Forces. The hypocrisy is blaring, and yet there Israel was. Their national anthem played, a whole stadium of people stood up and paid respect. There were Israeli flags everywhere. And this is the problem.

And that is exactly why we need to be vigilant about saying that Israel has no place in international sports competition as long as it is acting like a settler-colonialist state. For Edge of Sports TV, I’m Dave Zirin.

Fadi Deeb is the only member of the Palestinian Olympic delegation from Gaza, and he is the only Paralympian athlete from Palestine to compete in the 2024 Summer Games. While he has experienced great personal tragedy due to Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, Deeb has come to the Paris Olympic Games to represent the people and the indomitable spirit of Palestine, and to send a message to the world: “Nothing can stop us… Palestine is not dying, we are still here.” In this exclusive interview, recorded from Paris, TRNN’s Dave Zirin speaks with Deeb about the importance of sports in Gaza and what it means for him to represent Palestine in this year’s Olympics.

Studio Production: Jules Boykoff
Post-Production: David Hebden, Adam Coley

Transcript

Dave Zirin: Hey, this is Dave Zirin from Edge of Sports TV, only on The Real News Network. I am honored, honored, to be speaking with Fadi Deeb, who is the only member of the Olympic delegation of Palestine from Gaza. And he’s also the only Palestinian who’s part of the Paralympics, correct?

Fadi Deeb: Yes.

Dave Zirin: That is amazing. Thank you so much for speaking with me.

Fadi Deeb: Thank you, too, for you coming, for this happening, for speaking with me. I’m very happy to see you.

Dave Zirin: Me too. Before we started, you said one of the reasons why you want to compete at the Olympics is that you want to show people in Gaza—you want to show them that there is life. Is that correct?

Fadi Deeb: Yes, people think that life in Gaza is just war and [killing] and the blood. Yes, there is, but there is life. There is people searching [for] life, there is many success stories. There is many youth, many [children], many women searching [for] life. They have [much] knowledge, for example, about sport and disability. As a Paralympic Palestinian community, we have more than 140 international medals, and more than six Paralympic medals. So there is life, it’s not just blood and [killing] and war, no.

Dave Zirin: What is it like to train in Gaza, given the privation, the walls, the lack of equipment, the facilities blocked off by Israel? What is it like to train there?

Fadi Deeb: If you want to talk about the equipment in the Gaza Strip, it’s nothing [compared to] what we have here in Europe or around the world. So the equipment in the Gaza Strip—we just [use] anything that looks like or can be similar [to] normal equipment. But because the energy and the power is coming from inside of us—this is why we are not stopping. We just have a goal. We have dreams, we have energy. So, we don’t care about what we have now, we want to fight to be like champions, to show Palestine how beautiful [it is]. 

Sometimes we are training in the land without equipment. Sometimes we don’t have a discus, so we use something similar to a discus, like a metal or something like that. Maybe [it’s] more heavy, but it’s no problem, but you [get] the idea. Sometimes we don’t have enough shot put or the same kilo of shot put. We use a stone or something similar like that. So, nothing can stop us.

Dave Zirin: Wow, “nothing can stop us.” It’s a tough question, but I have to ask: How is your family? How have they been affected by Israel’s war on Gaza?

Fadi Deeb: It’s a very hard situation. First, on the 7th of December, [I lost] my brother and also two of my nephews—[out of my] whole family, I lost more than 15 persons. And for my special family, there are four groups… The idea now [is to keep] the families in the Gaza Strip [from being] together. So if there is any group, they still attack the others [who are alive] to finish the family. It’s a very hard situation. 

So, as a professional player, you must focus [on] what you are doing, on your playing, on your league and everything. And at the same time, you have family—you cannot separate the [two]. For example, my club—I have a Euro-club with my club in Germany—they asked me, “Fadi, we know it’s tough. It’s very hard. Can you stay home and relax?” I say, “No.” What I’m doing now here is to show there is a Palestinian player [who] is under all of these hard things, [just like] there are people searching [for] life, they still have humanity, and [they] want to send a message to all of the world: The people in Gaza are human, they need the same human rights [as] everybody in this world.

Dave Zirin: What are your thoughts on Israel competing in these games, even with the war and even with everything they are doing to the people in Gaza?

Fadi Deeb: I don’t know really [how] I can answer this question, because normally the sport must be celebrated above everything. But now everything can become [political], also in sport. So my message as a Palestinian: I’m raising my flag here in Paris 2024 [to show] Palestine is not dying. Palestine is there and we have a message for all of the world. But at the same time, I want to ask the Israeli players something: What is your message? What do you want to show [about] yourself to the world? To show the genocide that has happened in Gaza? To show what? What do you want to show? What’s your message for the world?

Dave Zirin: Right, that’s a great point. I also want to ask you about Paris. How have you been received since you’ve been here? How has the experience been for you as a Palestinian Olympian?

Fadi Deeb:

As a Palestinian, my body is here, but my mind, my everything, is in the Gaza Strip. When I started playing outside of Palestine… 10 years as a professional player—seven years in Turkey, one season in Greece as a player, [and] as a coach, and this is my second year in France as a player, and also I’m a coach. 

So, [all the] time, I have online contact with many national teams, with my people in the Gaza Strip, [I talk about how] to improve the sport in the Gaza Strip, how to improve the clubs, [I] give them new information about the games, everything. There [are] many things in Gaza you can improve to [help make] very strong national teams and very strong people. And with Cambodia, I’m working with a technical manager for the Cambodian national teams, [doing] some advising with the Syrian national team, with Yemen, with Libya.

And here also, [I’m] a player in a French league, and I’m also a coach for a club. I have two teams, one in the Fourth Division and one in the Fifth Division. And sometimes I have a session in the schools, in the college and the university, to teach the people how to work with people with disabilities, [how] to show their sport to every party. So this is my job when I’m in Turkey and when I’m in France. Because I believe one thing: You don’t need to be a French man or a Palestinian man to support. Just easy things: to share your information, to be human; it’s about [being] human. So [as] a Palestinian man living in Paris, I respect the rules, respect the people, respect my humanity, and I share my information. And I hope that the same thing will happen for the other people [from] my country, Palestine.

Dave Zirin: How important is sports in Gaza?

Fadi Deeb: Sport in Gaza is very, very important. But politics [makes the importance of sports] smaller and smaller. Because the priority now is for food, for many different things. 

But if you want to talk, for example, when I had my disability in 2001, [there] were not too [many of us], maybe 200 or 300 people with disability. But now, you talk about more than 120,000 people with disabilities in Gaza… Before one week in this war, [we had] more than 10,000 new people with a disability. And sports [provide] the first type of social inclusion for these people, [it] encourages them in their family, in their life, in work, to show them [through] sport… So sport is very important, like studying in school. Sport teaches people how to respect, how to start to have a life, how to build in your life. Yeah, it’s very important.

Dave Zirin: And the last question – you’ve been generous and I think we want to get some dinner – so, I want to ask you: As a Palestinian Olympian, the only Paralympian from Palestine, and the only Olympic representative from Gaza, what is your message to the world?

Fadi Deeb: My message for the world is: just be human; give us the same human rights [as] other people. We have life, we have goals, we have dreams. You don’t need to be in the same religion or the same culture, or the same nationality. When you [stand up against] the war in Gaza, you defend your humanity, not just us. This is my [request] for the world: Just give us the same human rights. I want to raise my flags here in Paris to show people that Palestine is not dying. We are still here, we are still fighting, we are still alive.

Dave Zirin: Well, I really need to end this interview before I start crying. So for Edge of Sports TV, thank you so much.

Fadi Deeb: You’re welcome.

Dave Zirin: I’m Dave Zirin.

The 2024 Olympic Games have provided the perfect excuse for French authorities to turn Paris into a hyper-securitized police state. Recently, two journalists on a critical tour of the Olympics hosted by the anti-Olympics activist group Saccage 2024 (“Destruction 2024”) were arrested and interrogated by police—despite not engaging in any form of disruptive or illegal activity. Reporting from the streets of Paris, TRNN’s Dave Zirin speaks with Noah Farjon of Saccage 2024 about his arrest and what it says about the state of democracy in France under the spotlight of the Olympics.

Studio Production: Jules Boykoff
Post-Production: David Hebden, Adam Coley

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. An updated version will be made available as soon as possible.

Dave Zirin:

Hey, this is Dave Zirin here from Edge of Sports TV, only on The Real News Network. I’m here with Noah from Saccage 2024. Saccage 2024 is a counter-Olympic organizing collective, here in Paris. Noah, thank you so much for joining us.

Noah Farjon:

Thank you for inviting me here.

Dave Zirin:

You were in a very difficult situation involving the police in an arrest the other day. Can you tell our audience what happens?

Noah Farjon:

Yeah. Me and two journalists got arrested yesterday when we were trying to do what we call a Saccage Toxic Tour, which is just a little tour of the Olympic area around the Stade de France, just to show some of the buildings that got destroyed or impacted by this Olympics. It was a very calm event that was supposed to involve 10 journalists and a few of our members, just to show those-

Dave Zirin:

The effects?

Noah Farjon:

Yes, the effect of the Olympics on the city of Saint-Denis. But I found two other journalists, [inaudible 00:01:35] Toxic Tour and was trying to guide them to the beginning of the Toxic Tour. When we arrived, when we were just out of the metro, there was a lot of plainclothes police that was just watching us and pointing. It was clear that we were watched. Which is something that happen in all of our Toxic Tours, there is always some police following us to see what we’re doing.

But what was [inaudible 00:02:01] is that as soon as we started moving, four police car arrived immediately to block the way and 30 cops got out to do an identity check. And when they found leaflets and some stickers… Some leaflets were for a past protest that was accepted by the police, that happened without an issue, but they still took two hour, were doing a lot of phone call, taking picture of us, and trying to put pressure on us, being very rude.

And eventually say, “You are now under arrest for trying to gather and do degradation.” Which was entirely false, because once again, it was just a journalistic event, just to show the city. They took us to the police station and we stayed there for 10 hour.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. Before you go on, I just want to make this really clear for the audience. You were attempting just show journalists the effects of the Olympics on Saint-Denis, and because of that you were arrested and held for 10 hours?

Noah Farjon:

Yeah. Yeah, both me and the journalists were very surprised because… The journalists clearly were… They had what is called [French 00:03:19].

Dave Zirin:

[French 00:03:19], yes.

Noah Farjon:

Which is an official document saying, “We are from the press and we are going to go there.” One even had an Olympic accreditation. But the police told them, “Yeah, but we can’t know if it’s not a fake one, so you are still going to be taken with us.” This person had specifically a press pass from the Olympic, which should give her access to a lot of backstage area. She shouldn’t at all have been arrested. Everybody was very surprised by that arrest.

They took us to the police station. We stayed for a long time. It took me six hour before I got interrogated. During the interrogation, the question was very surprising because it was not… They could only [inaudible 00:04:12] about what we’re doing here. It was mostly about, “Are you on the left? Are you against [inaudible 00:04:20]? Are you part of Saccage 2024? Are you against the Olympic?”

It was a lot of political question about my political view and my political view about the Olympics.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. They asked if you were on the left?

Noah Farjon:

Yeah.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. We hear much about France being one of the great old democracies. What does this tell us about democracy in France?

Noah Farjon:

Democracy in France is having huge issue right now. What Macron is doing by refusing to name a prime minister from the majority that got chosen, and he’s using the Olympic to make that last longer. He said, “I am doing an Olympic ceasefire on politics and therefore will not nominate a prime minister until at least the Olympics are over, but perhaps before the Paralympics.” He’s using the current events to block everything.

This Toxic Tour or events that we did a lot of time before the Olympics and never had issue with that. Because these are always short events. The biggest we did was 35 people on bikes.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. I want to lay this out for the audience. The left coalition received the most votes in the last election. They are waiting to have one of their members named as a prime minister, by all rights, but President Macron is saying, “We’re going to wait off on that because we’re having an Olympic ceasefire on politics.” Basically, that’s what’s happening?

Noah Farjon:

Yeah. It’s what’s happening.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. That doesn’t sound very democratic.

Noah Farjon:

Oh, it is not. It is not. Macron, this is the first mandate, but especially his second term, he has less and less of a majority, and used all of the political and legal way he has to ignore the fact that he is extremely unpopular and have less and less elected official. What he did, for example, also for these elections that happened just before the Olympics, was that he said that all the people that are still minister were going to vote to choose the leader of the Assembly.

Which is highly illegal, because for the separation of power, if you’re in the cabinet of Macron, you are not supposed to vote on that and to vote in general as a deputy. So, he tell them to vote, and gave them [inaudible 00:06:54] vote to have the leader of the Assembly being someone of Macron, despite him being the only second-biggest.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. You’re talking about what Macron has meant to democracy in Paris and in France. What have the Olympics meant to democracy in Paris?

Noah Farjon:

For me, a lot of things, because many laws that were passed for the Olympics or laws that will be kept after. In France have been huge protests that we fight hardly, against drones and against algorithmic camera. But there was an Olympic law to test this technology, so right now there are drones and cameras that use AI all around Paris for the Olympics, because those laws were passed, thanks to the Olympics. And there was no protest this time, because the Olympics make everything more okay, basically. People will not protest as much if it’s something that’s done for the Olympics.

But to me, one of the worst things that happened is, Paris is under basically occupation. It’s the biggest police and army presence in the city since the occupation during the Second World War. We’re not even free to circulate anymore because we need what’s called a QR code, which is a flash code to say, okay, I have the right to take my car in all of this area of Paris. The lockdown around the Seine, just here, for the opening ceremony was so big that there was less people there during the week of lockdown before the ceremony, that there was less people there than during the COVID lockdown.

Dave Zirin:

Wow.

Noah Farjon:

Because nobody had access to the Seine for a week.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. And-

Noah Farjon:

And a lot of people-

Dave Zirin:

Please continue, sorry.

Noah Farjon:

And also, a lot of people got what’s called in France, [foreign language 00:08:56], which is like house arrest, not just in Paris, but in many other cities. Which basically said, you have not the right to leave your home during Olympic event or not to go in Paris because we think you are an issue for security. There was people that were on the left. A lot of leftists got arrested.

Basically, anybody that was a bit under surveillance of the police and had any kind of legal issue before, got arrested. A lot of people that had no legal issue but were having mental issue also were forbidden to go out on their own. And mental hospital, that were supposed to be some hospital where they could leave and go back in, said, “Okay, you cannot let your patient leave for those days.”

It’s a huge threat on our freedom to move. It’s not becoming a freedom, but a right that we have to ask and that has to be given by the prefecture of police.

Dave Zirin:

The left came together to beat back the National Rally and the fascists in the last election. But, there’s a socialist mayor of Paris, Hidalgo.

Noah Farjon:

Yeah.

Dave Zirin:

Are there now splits on the left in terms of how to deal with the Olympics and the policing and Macron’s attacks on democracy between those who are cheerleading the Olympics and those who are protesting?

Noah Farjon:

Yeah. Sadly, at least the more mainstream [inaudible 00:10:34] left. I’ve never been too much against the Olympic. We can see the way it is talked about, the opening ceremony. Most of elected official are talking about this ceremony as a big success for the left. Because they said, “Oh, look, there was some marginalized communities that were represented.”

But in fact, it was still a very elitist event because there was still the army everywhere, there was still police everywhere. Yes, there was Aya Nakamura singing, but she was singing with the [French 00:11:04], which is the army. So, it was just the elites saying, “Look how cool we are and how much we like France.” But for the media and Parisian, they still couldn’t go there. Only the spots that were on big incline could see what was happening in the Seine. Many people that took ticket and that got there were like, “Oh, I just cannot see.”

All they were talking about was like, “Oh. Look, how cool we are.” An example I have is Gojira, which is a metal band that work with Sea Shepherd at some point, got a castle to do a war song about Ah! Ca Ira, which is a French revolutionary song. But they were protected by the police for more than a week with the castle being closed off. Meanwhile, Watson is getting arrested by the police in Greenland. It’s completely disconnected from what’s happening.

Dave Zirin:

I think we call that irony.

Noah Farjon:

Yes.

Dave Zirin:

Which the French are very good at.

Noah Farjon:

Oh, yeah.

Dave Zirin:

The Olympics are coming to Los Angeles in the United States in 2028. Do you have any advice or words for the people of Los Angeles about what it means to have the Olympics come to your town, and how the left in Los Angeles should be responding?

Noah Farjon:

Yeah. For Los Angeles, there is many things to say, but what’s important for you is to organize and try to show that whatever they promise to you for this Olympics, it’s not worth the humane cost. It’s not worth any of the costs that they will try to impose on you. For sports and for entertainment, you cannot justify to evict people. You cannot justify to just clean up the city and make it a tourist attraction.

You need to protest and you need to do everything you can to make it as hard for this Olympics to happen, not just for those ’28 Olympics, but also for the next ones they will try to put on you. I know Salt Lake City got a bid-

Dave Zirin:

Yes.

Noah Farjon:

… that is recurring very often. For example, Salt Lake City, all of the cities should keep fighting against this Olympic, just to show that it is an event that shouldn’t happen anymore-

Dave Zirin:

Wow.

Noah Farjon:

… because the cost is too great.

Dave Zirin:

The cost is just too great.

This is Noah from Saccage 2024. Noah, thank you so much for joining us here on The Real News Network.

Noah Farjon:

Thank you for [inaudible 00:13:42].

Dave Zirin:

Of course. Absolutely. We’ll be back with more news from The Real News Network from Olympic Paris before you know it.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories and struggles that you care about most. And we need your help to keep doing this work, so please, tap your screen now, subscribe and donate to The Real News Network. Solidarity Forever.

The start of the Summer Olympics has put Paris in the spotlight as athletes and fans from around the world converge for the international games. But as the city rolls out the red carpet for tourists and athletes, it is also accelerating a process of “social cleansing” targeting migrants and the homeless, advocates say. TRNN’s Dave Zirin reports from the streets of Paris at a press conference held at a former encampment for unhoused people that was cleared out by French authorities.

Speakers include: Paul Alauzy, a project manager at Médecins du Monde (Doctors of the World) and an organizer of Le Revers de la Médaille (The Other Side of the Medal) campaign; Jules Boykoff, Professor of Politics & Government at Pacific University, a former professional and Olympic soccer player, and author of numerous books, including Power Games: A Political History of the Olympics; Francesca Morassut, a coordinator at the humanitarian aid organization Utopia 56; Aurélia Huot, a human rights lawyer with the Barreau de Paris Solidarité (Paris Solidarity Bar association).

Studio Production: Jules Boykoff
Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Dave Zirin:

Hey, this is Dave Zirin from Edge of Sports TV, only on the Real News Network coming to you from Paris, where we are showing the Olympics that the networks are not showing you, namely the things happening not inside the lines, but outside the lines. And I’m here in Saint-Denis, where there is going to be a press conference by an organization called The Other Side of the Medal, where they’re going to be speaking about the attacks on unhoused people, as well as all the ways that the Olympics are hurting marginalized communities here in Paris, and believe me, it is happening a lot.

They’re doing the press conference from this location precisely because it’s an example of what they’re talking about. If you look behind me, you see this tunnel here, and under this tunnel was an unhoused encampment, rather large one. Now, the unhoused people were moved out of here at the tip of a gun by French authorities and in their place are these 24 Lego blocks that are precisely here, so unhoused people have nowhere to sleep. Now, this is just the beginning of anti-Olympic protests today. They’re also going to be announcing at this press conference a large demonstration taking place tonight. So we’re going to have footage for you from the press conference and from the demonstration. For Edge of Sports TV and the Real News Network, I’m Dave Zirin.

Paul Alauzy:

So this is Olympic grounds, and when the flame goes by, the poor people has to go away, apparently. So they put this, it’s obviously done in a way that the human body cannot lie on it, stay on it, and sleep here, and they added this horrendous thing. If you don’t like poor people, you can enjoy the dolphins because they have beautiful dolphins and Olympic colors on it. I think this really represents social cleansing in a nutshell, blocks that you cannot remove in order to replace the body and the tents, coverup of the misery, and everything clean with Olympic flags, and symbolism in order to have the clean of the [inaudible 00:02:34], and a clean Paris to welcome the passage of the flame, and all the cameras of the CIO.

Speaker 4:

So he says that him, if he can dream of everything, he would love to be a footballer, professional footballer, but he would also have to be a plumber to learn that job. And then, to just have a regular, normal life here in Paris, have a family, and just be [inaudible 00:02:57] this.

Speaker 5:

This displacement is very much a Paris problem. But it’s important to remember that what you’re also witnessing here is an Olympic problem that was imported into the city, and it is exacerbating the displacement that was already happening. When I say that this is an Olympic problem, what I mean is it happens in city, after city, after city.

Speaker 6:

There are thousands of people who live in the streets, migrant people who live in the streets of Paris. And even though maybe they don’t see them, they exist, and as much as them, as these people that have come here to see the Olympic Games, want and have right to identified life. And these people are here and are just like anyone. People who have children, who have parents, who have a family who are here too. Because either they were obliged to come here and because of war, because of climate catastrophes, or to find just identified life. So there are solutions for these people. The problem is political choice is to hide them because we don’t want migrant people from some social status. We don’t want people who are in an irregular position, but this is just a political choice. And immigration all over the world is not an emergency. It’s a phenomenon, and it’s a right.

So these people are here and they live in the streets, and we try to help them as associations with exclusions and in trying to put them in content with institutions to have the rights, but it’s not working because the state doesn’t want them. They are evicted on a regular basis. Right now, there are families, there are hundreds of family that are in front of the municipalities of the 18th around this month asking for a place where to stay, a place where to sleep with their babies, with their children, but no solution are right now being found. We hope that a solution will be arriving during the day from institutions, but it’s been 48 hours. They are there with no water, no food, just the help of volunteers. But the state is not doing anything, and they are there. What’s the response? And we cannot find just temporary solution. We need to find solutions for these people. And there is the capacity of doing that.

Dave Zirin:

If you could say anything to President Macron, what would it be?

Speaker 6:

I would ask him to take in consideration of the proposal that we made to make the Olympics better and to have a better social inheritance, because he’s saying that it’s the best Olympics that has been organized because of the social inheritance it’ll leave behind. And I would tell him that it’s not true that the 200 housing that they proposed is not enough, that the sort of cleansing doesn’t represent what France should be like. It’s not dignified. So I would ask him to put a little more money on housing, on social inheritance that this has been talking about.

Dave Zirin:

One more question. What would you say to the world watching these Olympic Games and to the thousands of people coming into Paris for the games? What do you want them to know?

Speaker 6:

I want them to know that we’re not against the Olympics. We share the same values of friendships, [inaudible 00:06:59] between the people, the sports values also. But we want to say that we want these games to be organized differently in the future. And we all have a social responsibility to make these games better for the ecology, for the social inheritance that they leave behind. And we all have this responsibility as citizens. It’s not only NGOs, lawyers, or social workers that have the responsibility, but each one of us, we can do something. So if a game or a big, big sport event is organized in your city, organize yourself to have a social mobility to denounce and to ask for real social inheritance.

The Paris Olympics have provided an excuse to turn the host city into a security state overrun by police, military, barricades, and AI-powered surveillance technology. In brutal yet predictable fashion, authorities have reportedly been sweeping homeless encampments, rounding up unhoused people, and expelling them by bus to other parts of France ahead of the Olympics Opening Ceremony. Reporting from Paris, TRNN’s Dave Zirin speaks with Paul Alauzy, a project manager at Médecins du Monde (Doctors of the World) and an organizer of Le Revers de la Médaille (The Other Side of the Medal) campaign.

Studio Production: Jules Boykoff
Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Dave Zirin:

Hey, this is Dave Zirin for Edge of Sports TV, only on the Real News Network. I’m thrilled to be in Paris looking at the other side of the Olympic Games. The story they’re not telling you on NBC. Not so much what’s happening inside the lines, but outside the lines. And I have a perfect guest for such a show. His name is Paul Alauzy, and he is an activist here working on a host of issues regarding the Olympic effect on the city of Paris. Paul, how are you, sir?

Paul Alauzy:

Good, good. Busy, tired, but motivated.

Dave Zirin:

I want to hear what’s making you so busy and tired these days?

Paul Alauzy:

Unfortunately, the social cleansing. Last week we had the biggest week of evacuation that I never saw, actually in Paris. They evicted 10 cities in only four days, 500 people were moved, put into buses, so it was super intense. We had to wake up every day at 5:00 and follow the people, and then we have to raise awareness. So there’s the medical watch we do, and then there is answering the media, organizing protests. So it’s intense.

Dave Zirin:

We should talk about your organization so people have a better sense of who you are. It’s two organizations in English. It’s Doctors of the World.

Paul Alauzy:

Yeah.

Dave Zirin:

People can see [foreign language 00:01:12], and also The Other Side of the Medal. Yeah. Can you speak to us about both of those groups?

Paul Alauzy:

Yeah. So Doctors of the World, they’re the ones paying my salary. I’m a project manager for them, so it’s been six years. I have an amazing team of doctors, psychiatrist, nurses, translators, social workers, and we go towards refugees who unfortunately lives and survive in the streets of Paris and its surroundings. It can be 10 cities, it can be squat in abandoned building that people occupy in order to be out of the streets. And then we have a great network of partners, other NGOs, activists with which we work. And so we organized a year ago and we created [foreign language 00:01:58], The Other Side of the Medal because we started to just suffer the effect of the Olympics.

And it’s not just the refugee community, it’s every homeless person, whether it’s a drug user, sex worker, a refugee, people from Eastern Europe. Everybody got affected. All the numbers of expulsions, harassment, even sometimes control and police violence got bigger, new practices started to develop. So we had to organize to shed light on this matter and also to offer solutions in order to avoid that.

Dave Zirin:

Now there are attacks on homeless or unhoused people in cities, certainly across the United States and in major cities throughout the world. Do you think the Olympics have been an excuse for this crackdown, or do you think it is happening because of the Olympics?

Paul Alauzy:

I think it’s a bit of both. I think for the states and the states in general, it’s an opportunity. Because when they do the social cleansing, they’re going to push the population away and they’re going to replace the tent city with big rocks. They’re going to build new walls, they’re going to put barbed wire.

So I think for them, it’s not just about the games, it’s also an opportunity to transform the city and to select the population. And most unwanted population is the one in public space that they have to push away. So there is opportunity and then there is an effect. There is an Olympic effect, and I think it’s in the DNA of the games. They want to do the [inaudible 00:03:35] village. You have to clear out the streets of all the people you don’t want to so it’s a bit of both.

And here there is a lot of evacuation that you can link to the Olympic village being nearby the passage of the flame. Today it’s the bicycle. Bicycle.

Dave Zirin:

The cycling.

Paul Alauzy:

The cycling race happening today. So they kicked a slum last week because it was on the tour of the bicycle. So there is a lot of things that you can directly link to the Olympics, but I think it relates to a more general spirit of big capitalist states being violence and mistreating the homeless population in general.

Dave Zirin:

You mentioned about them being moved out, put on buses. Where are they going?

Paul Alauzy:

That’s a good question. Yeah, so I heard a lot about the buses living at [inaudible 00:04:34] before the games, the buses living Vancouver before the games. And here we witnessed this. So it used to happen a lot in France to take the people in buses and send them somewhere else. But France, right before the games in March, 2023 created a new system. It’s called the SaaS system, and they created 10 spots everywhere but in Paris.

So it’s going to be close to [foreign language 00:05:00] transport in smaller cities, like small cities, like with 5,000 inhabitants tops, in which people get taken in charge for three weeks. They have three weeks in a hotel or something. After three weeks, 40% of them they will have solution meets long-term solutions in that region. All the others, they are being sent to emergency shelters sometimes for nights, two nights, two months tops, and they end up homeless in another smaller cities where they don’t have the same community outreach and everything.

To give you a very concrete example, just today, two hours ago, I had some patients, they have guns. They’ve been living in the streets for a couple of months here. They just received a new guy. He is an Afghan, too. They know him. He’s been kicked out of Belgium. So that’s his first day in Paris because they’re in Paris called an NGO. I was able to give them a tent. I was able to give them sleeping bags, and they will try to find somewhere to sleep because it’s very tense now with the Olympics, but at least they have this. You have a community and then you have a community that has a network. If you go to a smaller city to reach the states doesn’t give a dime to receive that population. It’s just going to be horrible for their health and dealing conditions.

Dave Zirin:

Through the Olympic activism. Have you been able to meet new people who take this issue of the unhoused more seriously? Have more people gotten involved in the struggle for the rights?

Paul Alauzy:

Well, the beautiful thing, the right side of the Olympic effects is the fact that everybody’s coming up together. We never regrouped that many association and NGOs working with so many different publics. Usually it’s going to be, oh, you guys work with refugees. You do your thing. Us, we work with the sex workers. We will do our things on the side. And now everybody come up together. Sometimes people with very different positions. So that’s a good thing.

And then the campaign was crazy because when you have a subject of the homeless or whatever, usually people don’t care that much. If you add Olympics to it, then it blows out of proportion because then you have the BBC making inquiries. You have you coming to ask me questions. You have the international attention. So we really spread the world in a way I couldn’t even imagine. This year, we have media from every country in the world asking to make inquiries about this. And I think it’s not just the Olympic effect, but it’s also the ethic of journalists all around the world that want to not just serve the good side of the Olympics, but also do their job. And it’s nice to meet that many journalists from that many country taking their job very seriously to treat every side of that event.

Dave Zirin:

This must be very bracing for you to see all of this attention paid to this work that you’ve been doing for a long time.

Paul Alauzy:

Yeah.

Dave Zirin:

It must be head spinning.

Paul Alauzy:

Yeah, it’s kind of unreal. Sometime two weeks ago, I had ABC Australia here in front of the building. I’ve been working in for six years, and I’m like, oh, we’re going to have the games in Brisbane in a couple of years. What advice do you have for the people Brisbane and of Australia? What do you have to say to them? I was like, I’m a social worker from France, but it’s a bit a spinning is the world.

Dave Zirin:

Yeah, surreal is the word that I was reaching for. Oh, I know what I wanted to ask you. Okay. So you just had this election with national rally. You beat back the fascists.

Paul Alauzy:

Yeah.

Dave Zirin:

Congratulations.

Paul Alauzy:

It was a close one.

Dave Zirin:

It was very close. But people in the coalition trying to beat them back include people like the Socialist Party, Mayor Hidalgo, I mean people who are very much pro Olympics. Is there tension now in that united front because of different opinions about the Olympics?

Paul Alauzy:

Well, we already see that. For example, we have the party of the [foreign language 00:09:22] France assumies. We are organizing tomorrow a protest against the Olympics. It’s going to be the counter opening ceremony of the games tomorrow, the day before the real opening ceremony. And the Francis Suis party put out communique and appeal to rally everyone up to go to that protest, which is a good sign for us. But for sure, we have been seeing people from the Socialist Party and from Paris City saying that they don’t even believe in social cleansing. So we can see the difference of position in that coalitions, which seems a bit crazy to me to have people denying social cleansing and hard on facts that are being brought by lawyers, doctors, NGOs, researchers, journalists. So yeah, we’ll see if they happen to form a government, we’re not going to let go any of them. We’re going to arrest them every day.

Dave Zirin:

And just for our viewers out there, we are going to cover those counter-Olympic protests. So you’re going to get a bird’s eye view of what that looks like. And I couldn’t be more anticipatory in my thinking about that. That’s going to be very interesting. Is there anything that we’re missing? Is there anything about your work, anything about the Olympics that you’d like to share?

Paul Alauzy:

Well, I’d like to say that of course there is the great work of the [foreign language 00:10:54] and we’re so proud of it, but there have been so many example of community resistance to that social cleansing. We had a lot of homeless people, refugee sex workers, whatever, coming to France conference to spread the message themselves.

Some young migrants, they formed a collective and they occupied a lot of places during the year to resist that social cleansing. And they won to have some housing in some gene in Paris, and they stayed in Paris, thanks to the mobilizations. Now as we speak now, there is between 203 homeless families, people in families protesting. It’s been 24 hours now protesting in front of one of Paris city saying that we want house, we want house [inaudible 00:11:42].

So of course, we have a lot of activists and I’m super proud of what we did. But one of my proudest achievement is that we managed to also support communities the good way and to make them in touch with politicians, in touch with journalists. And there have been so many examples, really admirable examples of resistance, because we had so many medias asking, Hey, can I meet a victim of social cleansing? No, you’re going to meet people who are resisting. It’s not just victims.

Dave Zirin:

Right. The day we’re doing this interview, it was announced that the French Alps will be hosting the Winter Olympics in 2030, at great financial expense, of course. I wanted to ask you what your thoughts are about that and what you have to say to the folks in the Alps.

Paul Alauzy:

Well, we’re already in touch with some people in the Alps. We put out today in one of the biggest newspaper [foreign language 00:12:39]. We put out an open letter signed by more than 80 organization, not just about social cleansing, but also about the environmental impacts, the economic impact, the impacts on just surveillance and democracy. And at the end of that letter, we asked for a referendum because yeah, the CIO validated today that the Alps could hold the games in 2030, but I really think we need the people of the Alps to vote.

So that’s going to be our next campaign. We started today, we’re going to talk about it at the rally tomorrow. We hope that there will be soon a new Parliament government, and we really need a referendum about this. And that’s what the work, I think we kind of lost for Paris 2024 in terms of direct protection and benefits for the populations targeted by the social cleansing. But we still have six years, and I read in one of Joe [inaudible 00:13:38] books that the games in Denver were canceled in ’72. It was 50 years ago, and you still have six years to go. So we were out for that fight.

Dave Zirin:

Love that. Love that. You mentioned earlier about media coming from all over the world to speak to you. How are you now thinking internationally about the Olympics and other mega events and connecting with activists in other cities who are trying to figure out how to resist the Olympic monolith?

Paul Alauzy:

Well, it’s one of the heads spinning thing. So when we started the campaign, after about two months of MCG public, we were contacted by some folks in Vancouver working on drug risk reductions and everything. And they lived through the Winter Olympics of 2010. So we went there.

So for the first time in my life, I crossed at the Atlantic. I went to Canada, and when one of the first talk that we had, one of the activists, he said, you have to understand that this is a global international movement, and that now you are part of this, and so you have a responsibility to feed it and to make it stronger. And it really amazed me, and even if we didn’t add all the solutions that we were expecting for bias 2024 to be really inclusive and protective and whatnot, I’m deeply convinced that all the work that we’re doing now will be of use. And one of the things I’m thinking the most about is the people of Vancouver. They made themselves available 14 years later because the games they were in 2010. So we were in this for the long run, I think.

Dave Zirin:

Absolutely. I remember Vancouver in 2010, I was there. Those are some serious activists.

Paul Alauzy:

Oh, yeah, they kick ass.

Dave Zirin:

That’s amazing. And that they’re still doing the work 14 years later. It speaks to not just that people are in it for the long haul, but how it affected and changed people to be part of this struggle. I mean, it does change people forever because the priorities of a city are so at odds with the social needs of a city, the priorities of the Olympics. It’s like a train that runs headlong into what the people, the most vulnerable and marginalized populations need.

Paul Alauzy:

And when you read about the Olympics, you realize that at first it was only for white people, only for men. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, they were doing anthropological experiments. I mean, it was very bad. Then they did the games with the Nazis, and now when they organized the game, they’re going to try to do something about the environment. They’re going to try to talk about a social legacy for their homeless. So seeing those people and meeting them from Vancouver really made us realize that we can transform the game. Even now, after nine months of craziness and social cleansing and violence, I’m still convinced that maybe in a few years we can make significant change in the games.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. Paulo Alauzy, thank you so much.

Paul Alauzy:

Cheers.

Dave Zirin:

Thank you so much for joining us here on The Real News Network, edge of Sports TV, more footage and stories coming from the other side of the Olympics here in Paris.

It’s been six years since the IPCC released its 2018 report warning that mean global temperatures would rise past 1.5 Celsius unless drastic action was taken by 2030. While climate change is already impacting all aspects of our lives, there is one area where relatively rapid and meaningful steps could be taken, but have yet to materialize: sports. Rising temperatures, seas, and emissions all call into question the sustainability of current sports practices. Can athletes continue to compete outdoors under current game conditions in scorching climates? What happens to athletes from island nations threatened by rising sea levels? How can mega-events like the Olympics and the carbon footprints left behind by associated construction and tourism continue to be justified? Professor Madeleine Orr joins Edge of Sports to discuss these questions and other topics addressed in her book, Warming Up: How Climate Change is Changing Sports.

Studio Production: David Hebden
Post-Production: Taylor Hebden
Audio Post-Production: David Hebden
Opening Sequence: Cameron Granadino
Music by: Eze Jackson & Carlos Guillen

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Dave Zirin:

Meet me on the edge. Welcome to Edge of Sports, the TV show only on the Real News Network. I’m Dave Zirin. Right now we’re going to do, ask a sports scholar where we’re going to speak to a professor at the University of Toronto, Professor Madeleine Orr, who has a book coming out called Warming Up: How Climate Change is Changing Sports. Let’s bring her on right now. Professor Orr, thank you so much for joining us.

Madeleine Orr:

Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Dave Zirin:

Yes. Look, I know your goal from an email you sent me is not just to write a climate book, but one that appeals to sports fans. How are you endeavoring to pull that off?

Madeleine Orr:

Yeah, I think sports fans are; it’s such a huge tent, so it’s hard to catch them all, but I think they want to hear sports stories; they want to hear human stories, and often with climate, we get science stories, and it just doesn’t resonate in the same way. So what I tried to do here is to tell those human stories, to bring up athletes and coaches and how this is impacting them in different ways around the world. And so, I hope that comes across in the book. I’ll let readers decide for themselves.

Dave Zirin:

Yeah. I want to ask you what story is really resonating with you as you look back on the writing, but first, can you give our audience a sense how is climate change changing sports?

Madeleine Orr:

Yeah, so the big one is it’s getting warmer, which global warming, it’s in the name, but that means winter sports are starting to get squished on the schedule. So we’ve basically lost November and April skiing on both sides of the Atlantic in the last 30 years. We’ve also seen in the summer side, it’s getting too hot to play. So at the moment, in North America, heat stroke and heat illness is the leading cause of death among youth athletes. We don’t often hear about it because it often gets chalked up as basically anything else because they don’t want to talk about heat, but heat is the big, big one.

The second issues tend to be related to water, so either not enough water or too much water. Both are not good if you’re playing on drought-based fields; it’s hard. It injures you more when you fall, and if you’re playing on a wet field, well, we’re looking at slip and falls, and we’re looking at all kinds of issues with flooding. So really, kind of across the gamut, it’s either too much water, not enough water, or heat that’s really changing the landscape around the world.

Dave Zirin:

Yeah. As you said, you are trying to tell the story of climate change in sports by telling the stories of athletes, of events, of the problematic nature of this current moment. Can you tell us one of those stories that really sticks with you as you’re coming out there with the book?

Madeleine Orr:

Yeah, so I spent some time in California with communities impacted by fire, and Paradise, California, got razed to the ground in 2018 with the campfire. The story that I tell in Paradise is the high school football team, and from the lens of the coaches, who essentially had to stop all football and evacuate the city with their athletes, and then over the course of a year build a program back up from the ground with very traumatized athletes, a bit of a problematic space in terms of where they were playing and what resources were available to them.

There were athletes who were homeless following the fires. There were athletes who had experienced months and months of insomnia and associated mental health issues. There were coaches that were landing in the hospital from related injuries to the fire, and because of the let’s get after it, macho football culture, a lot of that went unheard, right? The idea was let’s get everyone on the field as fast as possible, get “back to normal,” and all of these mental and physical health issues got pushed to the side, which ended some athletes’ careers, it ended some of the coaches’ careers. And so four years on, I was talking to some of those athletes and coaches and trying to figure out what happened there and how do we keep athletes safe when big events like this come to town.

Dave Zirin:

Are we looking at the end of youth sports in the foreseeable future in big swaths of the world, or is there time to wind this back?

Madeleine Orr:

I don’t think we’re looking at the end of sport. I think we’re looking at a huge shift in sport. I don’t think that we can continue to play on the seasons that we currently have. So your American football in the fall, soccer in the spring, that’s going to have to shift. I also know from working with organizations in Oceania, for example, to Southeast Asia, the Caribbean that they’re looking at completely untenable playing surfaces and fields as early as the 2030s. So by Brisbane in 2032 and sport events kind of further into the 2030s, we could see entire nations dropping off the map in terms of playing ability.

And that means that, at the youth level, it’ll happen sooner. So I think there’s a lot of work to be done to preserve playing opportunities. The good news is almost all of these playing opportunities can be preserved, but we’ve got to divorce ourselves from the tradition Latin sports system where we’re married to schedules; we’re obsessed with keeping certain play traditions. The amount of time, for example, in a half or a quarter of a game that might have to shift, there might need to be more breaks to accommodate heat, to accommodate rain or whatever it is. And I think we’re just going to have to get more comfortable being flexible.

Dave Zirin:

What does it tell us about the sports media? And I’m talking about sports radio, ESPN, TSN. What does it say that, in my opinion, they’ve completely missed this story when it can so irrevocably alter or warp sports?

Madeleine Orr:

Yeah, they have totally missed it. So far, there’s a trickle of stories since 2020 coming into play. They tend to focus just on, there’s a hurricane in the South, but they play it off as a one-time event. They’re not kind of drawing the thread from hurricane, to hurricane, to fire, to heatwave, to hurricane, which is what you need to do with climate change is kind of tie these things together and see the bigger picture. What we do know is we’re starting to get pushback. The leagues are starting to push back on 10-year media contracts to try to get them tighter into three to five, which allows for a renegotiation and more flexibility in terms of how those commercial breaks happen and when they happen. And can we get more time? And what does it look like if we need to have a rain delay?

All of those questions are now on the table in these negotiations. It’s not coming out to the public though, and I think that’s a shame because sport has a huge opportunity to tell a story about climate change that’s not necessarily life and death but will hit people right in the feels. In terms of that’s their pastime on the weekend, it might be their passion, it might be what they’re listening to on the radio on the way to work. So if sports is such a big part of our lives and the media is how we receive that information, the media has got to be part of telling the story better.

Dave Zirin:

What are your thoughts about the mega events, the massive mega events like the Olympics or the World Cup that do leave a big carbon footprint, but they always say that they’re doing these events with green principles in mind?

Madeleine Orr:

Yeah, I think that claim that they’re green is, it’s cute; it’s not real, but it’s cute. I have worked with the IOC on projects, I know that it’s not about them not having a few good people in place; it’s that they need a hundred people in place and a totally new model of hosting. The tweaks that are happening at the moment are generally related to using existing facilities, increasing public and active transit in the city once people are there, and changing the way that the events move, meaning when they go from one place to another, that more information and knowledge sharing happens between host cities. That’s not enough, in my view. It’s not even close. In order to have more sustainable events, if they want to use that word, we need to be talking about a huge shift in the scale of the event, meaning much, much smaller.

It would not be a tourism spectacle. It would be mostly reserved for the folks who live in the region where it’s being hosted, but that will be necessarily a hit to the economics of the event, which already aren’t great. And you’ve had Jules Boykoff on; he has written extensively about NoLympics campaigns about folks in the community that get displaced around these events, around harm and violence that happen systematically because of the events related to police and security, et cetera. So there’s already a long list of reasons these events are not great for hosts. In Paris already, we’re seeing quite a few riots related to this summer’s games. I think we’re going to keep seeing it. Are they fun? Sure. Is it worth it? Not from an environmental standpoint, at least not yet.

Dave Zirin:

I was going to ask you if these events were incompatible with the planetary crisis.

Madeleine Orr:

Yes.

Dave Zirin:

It sounds like you’re saying yes.

Madeleine Orr:

Yes.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. You can’t have a healing planet and the World Cup, and the Olympics as they currently exist.

Madeleine Orr:

That’s right. Yep. And I think that they want to sell this idea that they’re green, I mean for their sponsor’s sake. The sponsors want to be telling that message, but also because it allows them to continue business as usual. The problem with that is, right now you can kind of slap a green label or the word sustainable on just about anything because there’s not clear rules on what that means. And so there’s a lot of work happening by organizations like Carbon Market Watch in the UK to break down what these organizations are doing, what’s real and not real. There’s quite a lot of creative accounting on the emissions side, but there is no version of a sustainable games as of yet.

Dave Zirin:

So, professor, or if I put you in the throne and made you the commander-in-chief of all things sports-

Madeleine Orr:

Okay.

Dave Zirin:

-How would you change the current setup? And I’m talking about from youth to the pros, so sports could, in theory, operate ethically with regards to the climate?

Madeleine Orr:

Well, so a couple of things, right? The first thing would be we need healthy people in order to have a healthy climate. If people are unhealthy and they’re on that kind of rat race wheel of stress and frustration around jobs and they don’t have time to do things like care about the planet, or they don’t have money to make choices that care about the planet, then they’ll get discouraged and drop out of that project. So the big thing is I would focus on participation, not medals, which is the model that certain countries have begun to adopt with considerable success. That would mean majority of the funding that goes to sport would be for youth and participation sport. It would also mean that all the big sporting events would be considerably smaller, and that would also link to a huge quota of tickets for any given event reserved for folks that live within kind of a 20, 30-mile radius of the event.

So that kind of scales it down considerably. The other thing I would start to think about is we got really creative during COVID with how the media delivers events to people at home, and we need to start using some of that technology, whether it’s AR and VR, whether it’s holographs of athletes, like if you had an Olympic Games in Paris where only the athletes and the media travel and everyone else in the stands is from Paris, and then everyone who wants to watch around the world, who ordinarily would travel, is going to go to their local venue and watch holograms of the athletes at their local venues. Not only does that bring sport to home and makes it more accessible financially for people to get engaged and involved, it also means that we’re reducing all that travel. So there’s, I think, a lot of ways that we can improve without cutting the opportunity for athletes at the elite levels to play. And without removing fandom completely, it’s just going to look a lot different.

Dave Zirin:

The book is called Warming Up: How Climate Change is Changing Sports by Madeleine Orr. It sounds like an absolute must-read for anybody who cares about sports or the history of the planet. I can’t let you go though, Professor Orr, without talking about something not completely different but certainly on a bit of a parallel track. I understand that you are at the NCAA Women’s Basketball Final Four, which secured bonkers ratings, became a national phenomenon for about 55 different reasons, and I was hoping maybe you could share some of that experience of what it was like to be there live.

Madeleine Orr:

Yeah, so this wasn’t my first Final Four, but it was the biggest hype around a Final Four that I’ve ever seen. I follow the women’s game, not the men’s game, although there were a lot of fun men’s games this year. The vibe in Cleveland was awesome, frankly, in the city. It was the same weekend as the eclipse, so you had women’s basketball fans and science nerds, which is the best possible combo in my book. And it was electric. The venue was sold out, 18,300 people, a lot of kids, way more kids than you would ordinarily see at an event like this. Families were coming all together, and I think that’s something really unique about the women’s game. And then just the number of women in the stands. You go to an NBA game or a Men’s Final Four, and it’s a lot of young men that’s kind of dominating the space.

At Women’s Final Four, it’s hugely diverse, it’s really inclusive, it’s a lot of fun, way less beer sales, way more kind of soda and candy, and that kind of thing. But it was a lot of fun. You had to stand in line for about half an hour to get merch, which is a great sign. And they had merch at every corner, and you still were standing in line. The festival area outside was packed all weekend, and it was free. Even if you didn’t have a ticket to the game, you could go to the fan zones for free. On the Saturday between the Friday and Sunday games, they had an open practice for both the teams in the finals, so South Carolina and Iowa played open practices, and they filled the stadium for open practice. Just the support for these women was amazing, the media presence was awesome. It felt like the women’s game was finally given its flowers, and credit to Dawn Staley, credit to Caitlin Clark, and the two teams that were there for raising the women’s game, for drawing that much attention.

And all I can hope is that people are going to watch the draft this year. It’s in a few days, and the women’s game is wild because you have players competing in Final Four and then literally the following week in a draft, and then within about five to 10 days of the draft, they’re in camps because training camp has to be done for two weeks before the season starts a month later. And in some cases, athletes who get drafted are still writing final exams for college while they’re in training camp and at the draft, and then in the W. So it’s fun, it’s fast, it feels like this space is growing really quickly, and I can only hope that it doesn’t slow down.

Dave Zirin:

Higher ratings than the World Series, higher ratings than the NBA finals, higher ratings than the Men’s Final Four, higher ratings than a lot of NFL games this year. Peak ratings: 24 million people watching. I got to ask you the questions everybody’s asking me: do you see this as a one-time, women’s game, getting its flowers, Caitlin Clark phenomena? Or do you think we’ve hit a pivot point in the history of popularity in women’s sports, particularly women’s hoops?

Madeleine Orr:

I think we’ve hit a pivot point. We’ve got women in the pipeline that are just absolute rock stars that are going to be around for a while. The fun thing about the women’s game is there’s no one and done; they’re there for four years. So the younger players that are absolutely dominating right now, we’re going to see them for a while, and that’s what makes it so fun compared to the men’s game. So I’m hoping, and actually, I’m betting on this being a turning point and not just a flash in the pan.

Dave Zirin:

JuJu Watkins already a star. Can’t wait to see how that popularity explodes in the years ahead, because that’s where I’m putting my hard-earned money. No doubt about it. And I also agree that we’re at a pivot. Professor Madeleine Orr, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports.

Madeleine Orr:

Thanks for having me.

Sports gambling’s rapid takeover of the professional sports industry is arguably the most important development of our time in the world of athletics. The introduction of legal betting has created a powerful new source of temptation with corrosive effects on fans, players, owners, and ultimately the games themselves. Sports journalist Danny Funt joins Edge of Sports to discuss the phenomenon and his upcoming book on the subject.

Studio Production: David Hebden
Post-Production: Taylor Hebden
Audio Post-Production: David Hebden
Opening Sequence: Cameron Granadino
Music by: Eze Jackson & Carlos Guillen

Transcript

Dave Zirin:  Welcome to Edge of Sports, the TV show, only on The Real News Network. I’m Dave Zirin. We are going to speak right now to Danny Funt. Danny is a Washington Post contributor who covers the explosion of legal sports betting in the US, and his book on that subject will be published next year. Let’s talk to him now. Danny, thank you so much for joining us.

Daniel Funt:  My pleasure, thanks for having me.

Dave Zirin:  So I want to lay the groundwork, the lay of the land – For folks who are just waking up to this – How big a part of the economy of sports is legal gambling right now? And where are the trendlines pointing?

Daniel Funt:  Yeah. I’d say it’s transforming every aspect of the business of sports; The fan experience, certainly the laws that affect sports, and those aspects. Yeah, it’s a game-changer. 38 states and DC have legalized sports betting and several more are expected to in the near future. From teams to commissioners to the NCAA, everyone is trying to cash in on that legalization, making some suspect choices in the process. They’re facing the consequences as we’ve seen in some pretty shocking headlines recently, but it’s only going to continue. I still think we’re in the early innings of this sports betting experiment in the US.

Dave Zirin:  So you’re saying that the recent headlines, you’re talking about some of the betting scandals involving athletes, as well as some of the statements of coaches and players who talk about being heckled or even being threatened because of fans not making their gambling quotas. Is that what you’re referring to?

Daniel Funt:  Yeah, exactly. It was funny, March Madness is one of the biggest betting periods of the year, certainly a time when the sportsbooks want to get positive coverage and attract as many new customers as they can, and yet there was just an onslaught of grim news from the Shohei Otani betting scandal. An NBA bench player who got caught up, it looks like with some version of point shaving involving his prop bets to the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, saying he gets menacing voicemails from people when the Cavs cost bettors’ money. The list goes on; It was a rough month for betting advocates.

Dave Zirin: m Yes. So is a reckoning inevitable if these stories continue, of players finding themselves with spare time, their phones, disposable income, and wanting to make bets? It’s such a perfect stew for more scandal. What would a reckoning look like and is it too much money for the leagues to even want to have a reckoning for the effects of gambling?

Daniel Funt:  That’s such a pressing question. I don’t know exactly. I’m skeptical that leagues that have recently legalized betting would go so far as to outlaw it. They might rein in the sorts of things you can bet on. One of the things that leads to suspicious betting is that you can bet on much, much more than just who’s going to win nowadays. You can bet on basically every facet of the game, down to how a certain play is going to play out. So, I think things like that could face stiffer regulations. The ways you can bet on college sports are already being reined in. But yeah, I think the leagues have placed their bet, lawmakers have placed their bet, and they’re having to live with it. I don’t know what level of addiction or what level of corruption would have to go down for them to pull back in a meaningful way, but they’ve been tested recently.

Dave Zirin:  You mentioned gambling addiction. What are we seeing on that front in the US, especially since the legalization?

Daniel Funt:  Pre-legalization, the number that was floated was that roughly 1% of the population is susceptible to gambling addiction. Post legalization, now that every smartphone is a casino, those rates could be as high as 4% I’m told, which is really a staggering number. You think about in a full NFL stadium, maybe 3,000 people could be suffering from gambling addiction. It’s incomprehensible.

Beyond that, it’s important to recognize there’s a clinically diagnosed gambling addiction that needs medical intervention, but then there are all sorts of problem behaviors just like with drinking. Alcoholism is one thing, but people might drink more than they ought to, along that spectrum, and the same thing is proven true with gambling. And it’s so important to note that, it’s not just can I gamble or can I not gamble? It’s the ways you can gamble; Some of the most profitable types of betting, some of the most popular types of betting are some of the most addictive, and that’s certainly driving addiction rates across the country.

Dave Zirin:  I’m speaking anecdotally, but my son who’s in high school has come home and told me about kids placing bets with other kids because they got their parents’ FanDuel accounts and my son said, dad, we’re creating a new generation of bookies out of our high schools. Is that my son’s massive public school experience or are we seeing youth gambling addictions?

Daniel Funt:  No, I don’t think that’s a one-off. How old’s your son, by the way? I’m curious.

Dave Zirin:  Actually, he’s 15, he turns 16 tomorrow.

Daniel Funt:  Yeah, that’s a classic time of life to start playing around with this. No, I think an irony of legalization is it’s shown a lot of entrepreneurs, hey, bookmaking is a winning business, maybe I should get involved in that. I live near Colorado State University, I was talking with a student there who said the legal betting age is 21. By 19, as soon as he got to college, he was betting through offshore sportsbooks that are unregulated and through some campus bookies who, like your son’s classmates, got inspired by all the betting around them and said, this is an easy way to make a buck.

No. The argument for legalization was we’ve got this robust black market, let’s bring it into the sunlight – The same way that happened with cannabis – And regulate it, tax it, implement some consumer protections. In reality, yes, some of that has happened, but it’s also caused the black market to surge, for a number of reasons, with adults and certainly with young people.

Young people, I don’t know exactly what age, definitely are more susceptible to compulsive betting – Which is dicey because they probably have a lot less disposable income – But it’s a reason why advertising targets college students. You can understand why they’re attractive new customers but that’s some of the most controversial types of marketing. The partnerships that sportsbooks struck up in recent years with universities, some of those cases got shut down pretty quickly because that seemed like a line too far – Even for gambling advocates.

Dave Zirin:  Do the legal gambling concerns, the FanDuels, etc, do they give a damn about these issues of addiction? You see they do the 1-800-GAMBLER at the end of their ads. Or is this window dressing, like the equivalent of a cigarette company saying, oh, by the way, you can get lung cancer?

Daniel Funt:  Yeah, so true. Whether they give a damn or not, meaningful change can’t come from sportsbook self-policing. A week ago I talked to a guy who was one of the top officials at one of those second-tier sportsbooks, and he was saying the incentives aren’t there to crack down internally on problem gambling. Those are your best customers, those are your whales who you’re showering with promotions and egging on with these concierge services to keep those people betting. So their rationale is well, they’re our best customers; If we boot them, they’re going to go to our competitors, we’re going to lose market share, and they’re going to find a way to keep betting. So it’s not in our best interest to do anything meaningful about that which is why this person and a number of people across the industry are saying regulators need to impose much, much stiffer fines when sportsbooks are caught recruiting or egging on problem bettors.

There are also ways beyond that – Simple fixes short of banning gambling – That would make a difference. One of the tenets of responsible betting is don’t chase your losses. Chasing your losses is like pregame; I bet on the Denver Nuggets to win, they’re down in the first quarter, I place another bet, they’re losing at halftime even more, I place a third bet. You can trick yourself into thinking, well, the odds have gotten better, so if they make a miraculous comeback, I’ll make a fortune. Obviously, more often than not, that doesn’t play out – A classic way to bet over your head. So if a tenet of responsible betting is don’t chase your losses perhaps sportsbooks could not take those bets past a point. If I keep depositing money in my account during a game and upping my bets, they could cut me off and say I need to cool down, period. Things like that seem like a lot more practical, incremental changes that definitely would make a difference.

Dave Zirin:  Let’s talk about the European experience with legalized sportsbook betting and its effect on soccer. Does that have anything to teach us about how bad this could get or where this could go?

Daniel Funt:  Yeah, absolutely. The UK betting market is about a decade ahead of the US, as far as legalizing online betting. If you walk around London, the betting shops are all over town. Those people over there are numbed to that culture. But as far as seeing where they are as foreshadowing where the US could be, there’s definitely been an awakening – Not that they’re going to ban betting anytime soon – Of the public health consequences that come with it. I wrote it down anticipating that question.

There was a study last year that found that what they called gambling-related harms cost the UK $2.3 billion annually. That’s a case where they may get tax revenue. It might create jobs but the harms outweigh the gains, at least according to this study. You’ve got similar studies in the US showing that the economic activity goes down in states that have vibrant, legal, betting markets, even if they’re bringing in a certain amount of gambling tax revenue. Again, the scales are imbalanced. Beyond that, gambling addiction is a fact of life. And it’s ubiquitous if you go to a soccer match just like it’s becoming at all American sports. So there are a lot of warning signs of where the US market could be headed.

Dave Zirin:  Now, I haven’t been surprised to see the explosion of sports gambling. I haven’t been surprised to see the rise in addiction rates. I’ll tell you what has surprised me, is seeing how this has been embraced by members of the sports media. What are the implications of seeing so many established, grade A, trusted members of the sports media embracing this, giving odds during games, and becoming spokespeople for sports betting? That has surprised me. What are the implications of that, in your mind?

Daniel Funt:  It’s definitely normalized sports betting and made it seem acceptable to the mainstream. You could argue, in a lot of different things, whether media is a reflection like a mirror of society or whether it’s influencing society. There’s no doubt that there’s certainly been an influence in making sports betting ubiquitous and intertwined with the fan experience.

One of the first articles I wrote on this topic was for the Columbia Journalism Review, looking at that question. What caught my interest was the ethical question of whether sports reporters should be betting on games. It seemed like a ripe opportunity for gambling’s version of insider trading and some of that is definitely taking place. But as far as media companies embracing gambling, there are a lot of factors that made this the perfect time for sports betting to explode in the US. Definitely one of them is how so many sports outlets are in peril and facing brutal financial times.

I know you looked at Sports Illustrated recently in one of your recent episodes; They tried to latch onto this bandwagon licensing, their name to a sportsbook in Colorado here and a few other states, that clearly didn’t write the ship. But yeah, from the biggest personalities in sports to the biggest names in sports. ESPN is a huge example, recently licensing their name to a sportsbook, and now you go on ESPN’s website, you turn on a game, and you’re inundated with appeals to bet on ESPN BET.

I spoke with a very knowledgeable sports bettor who worked as the oddsmaker as well. He was saying, similar to you, that his eight-year-old son was seeing so many ESPN BET ads. This guy felt obligated to teach his son the basics of probabilities and why betting is a losing venture for customers. It’s surreal to think that a parent would feel a responsibility to coach their eight-year-old on that as they might with responsible drinking or the dangers of smoking, but that’s the world we live in.

Dave Zirin:  So if you were in charge of the sports world, how would you handle all of this? Is the wine simply out of the bottle and it’s about managing the crisis? Is it possible to still ban this and get it out of sports? Where are we right now? And if you did have that power, what could be done?

Daniel Funt:  As I said earlier, I’m skeptical, practically speaking, that any states are going to outlaw sports betting that have legalized it anytime soon. When states go online and are a little late to the party like Ohio and Massachusetts in the last year or so, in North Carolina in recent months, they’re imposing much stricter regulations than some of the early states seeing bad examples of things that could easily have been avoided. So risk-free promotions were a reason why millions of people took up sports betting thinking, oh, this is free money, I can’t lose. You certainly could lose your money. You could also get hooked on gambling from a false sense of how easy it could be. Those have been stamped out. More promotions are fraudulent still and deceptive, and those could be policed more aggressively.

A fairly straightforward fix that, if I were this sports betting czar, I would see to is, in a lot of states, the regulatory apparatus doesn’t cut it. Sometimes the state lottery is in charge of overseeing sports betting. Now, the lottery is in the business of raising money for the states. What incentive do they have to crack down on sportsbook operators that are bringing in betting revenue? Even more questionable is when the lottery is in charge of running the sportsbook. In that case, you’ve got someone who’s functioning as an operator and a regulator. It’s no surprise that there are plenty of examples of them not self-policing very effectively.

State by state, if you had a truly independent commission that was charged with overseeing sportsbooks, it would be a little bit of a fair fight. Often when customers say, hey, this is deceptive, I’ve been screwed over by a sportsbook, the deck is stacked so much in favor of the operators of these companies. Those complaints, even when they’ve been wronged pretty egregiously, go nowhere. If you had an aggressive, independent regulator state by state, that would make a big difference, and there are very few examples of that currently.

Dave Zirin:  I want to paint a picture for you and I want you to tell me if I’m being a Cassandra.

Daniel Funt:  Okay.

Dave Zirin:  Or, if this is in the land of the possible – Chicken Little, if you will – Is there a future where sports gambling becomes so hegemonic to the fan experience that people start keeping their kids away, they don’t think it’s appropriate, the audience for sports thins, and the profit margins do not? People start thinking the fix might be in, so they start drifting away, and at the end of the day, gambling – Which has been so profitable as a revenue stream – Hollows out sports as we know it. Is that in the land of the possible, like a darn-near destruction of this incredibly vast, athletic-industrial complex?

Daniel Funt:  Man, that got my wheels turning. I hadn’t thought of that, and yeah, it seems feasible. The leagues are certainly betting against it. You brought up the integrity of the game like, do we think matches are fixed? There was always some of that but it’s gone through the roofs, post-legalization. Even players like Rudy Gobert on the Minnesota Timberwolves made this money, got a referee recently, and got a $100,000 fine for it. The obvious insinuation is he’s saying the ref is on the take. Maybe he’s looking out for a bet by swelling with his whistle or something. The confidence in the integrity of the games has definitely taken a hit, and yet the leagues aren’t spooked enough by that to really do anything about it. So that’s something that I’m interested in.

As far as people saying let me keep my kids away from sports, I find American sports are so deeply rooted. I don’t know. Maybe parents don’t take their kids to the racetracks because they don’t want them to start betting on horses. That might be a precedent worth looking at. But as far as football, basketball, golf, baseball, major sports that are the first things we talk about when we meet people, I don’t know, that feels a little out there, but I’ll definitely keep an eye on it.

Dave Zirin:  Hey, horse racing and boxing were once two of the most popular sports in the US, so just because something is doesn’t mean it will always be. I can’t let you go without mentioning that you’re doing a book and I was hoping you could tell us something about the book. What about sports gambling are you set to explore? What’s your thesis? What are you going for with this book?

Daniel Funt:  Thank you for asking. I would say what I’m going for is I want to rewind a bit because as a sports fan myself, as someone who follows politics pretty closely, it felt like the Supreme Court opened the door for states to start legalizing, and then seemingly overnight it was New Jersey, Delaware, soon after that New York, Illinois; We’re up to 38 states, counting Nevada, that have legalized. More are going to do so. You don’t hear a robust public debate about that. It seems like, okay, this is a money-making opportunity for states, we used to be adamantly against it, but now other states are doing it so we got to get on board. The leagues used to speak about sports betting literally as an evil that was poisonous to sports. Now, they’re sports betting’s biggest backers, again, seemingly overnight.

So with the book, I definitely want to force us to have a serious conversation about these pros and cons: Whether, as we’ve talked about today, the harms outweigh the positives. I also want to pull back the curtain a bit on what goes on inside of sportsbooks. We see ads for FanDuel, DraftKings, and the Caesars pretty much everywhere. I don’t think a lot of us know exactly how those companies operate, how they think about bettors, what their motivations are, and I’m going to definitely get inside of those companies and give a close-up look at how they approach this game and trying to anticipate where this is all going? We’ve talked about looking at Europe, even looking at states that are a couple of years ahead of some of the others, and the second-guessing they’re having about what they’ve signed up for.

So it’s a bit retrospective. It’s a bit of making sense of this chaotic world we’re living in and looking forward and seeing we’re in the early innings. Is this going to be something that the powers that be are going to wish they hadn’t signed up for?

Dave Zirin:  Wow, it sounds like a book we desperately need. Will you come back when it drops? Come back on the show?

Daniel Funt:  I’d love to, yeah. I’ll be in touch. I won’t forget it. Can’t wait to do that.

Dave Zirin:  Awesome. Danny Funt, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports.

Daniel Funt:  Thank you, take care.

After more than 50 years, the Oakland A’s announced their departure from the city last year, leaving Oakland bereft of its sports teams after the flight of the Warriors in 2019 and the Raiders in 2020. To the dismay of fans, the A’s plan to temporarily relocate to a minor league stadium in Sacramento before permanently moving to Las Vegas in the 2028 season. Former A’s catcher Bruce Maxwell joins Edge of Sports to discuss the move, its impact on the local community and workers, and the trajectory of his own career and the place of the A’s in his life story.

Studio Production: David Hebden
Post-Production: Taylor Hebden
Audio Post-Production: David Hebden
Opening Sequence: Cameron Granadino
Music by: Eze Jackson & Carlos Guillen

Transcript

Dave Zirin:  Welcome to Edge of Sports, the TV show only on The Real News Network. I’m Dave Zirin.

We are talking baseball right now with former Oakland A’s and current Mexican League catcher Bruce Maxwell. If that name rings a bell, it might be because Maxwell was the first Major League Baseball player to take a knee during the National Anthem in protest of racist police violence.

We’ll be speaking to Maxwell about the Oakland A’s temporary move next year to a Minor League ballpark in Sacramento and their 2028 move to Las Vegas — In other words, the death of baseball in Oakland. Let’s speak with him now.

Bruce Maxwell, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports TV.

Bruce Maxwell:  Hey, good to see you, Dave. I appreciate the invite.

Dave Zirin:  Oh man, there’s so much I want to talk to you about. But before we talk Oakland baseball, can you give my listeners and my viewers a sense of where you are right now and what your baseball life is like?

Bruce Maxwell:  Well, I’m currently in Monterrey, Mexico, at Monterrey Nuevo León. I’m now coaching with the Toros de Tijuana, it’s another team in the Mexican League Baseball, this summer. 

Quick turnaround for me; I was just a player last week for a different team, and things didn’t work out so well. They didn’t see me in their future plan, so they sent me home. And as I was headed home, the GM for this team, who I know very well, he called me and offered me a coaching job. 

So now I’m here in Monterrey, preparing for Opening Day tonight against the Sultanes in Monterrey, and continuing my love for the game, man.

Dave Zirin:  Amazing. It’s certainly a love I share. No matter how much the people who are in charge of the game try to mess it up, somehow the game is still the game.

Bruce Maxwell:  Exactly, exactly.

Dave Zirin:  Wow. So before we talk about Oakland baseball, I did an intro where I spoke about your incredible history where you kneeled during the anthem in such a conservative sport that is baseball. I just wanted to give you the chance to speak on it. Why did you take that move? Why did you kneel during the anthem?

Bruce Maxwell:  When it comes to that, man, these things are very important. That’s a bigger-than-baseball stance that I took.

Growing up where I grew up in Alabama, being biracial, me and my sister being very athletic, we grew up in similar circumstances to those of which can’t have their voices be heard. The racial profiling, the unfair treatment because of skin color. And with my sister and I, we actually got bad things from both sides of our race because we weren’t enough of one or we’re too much of the other.

So it was difficult, especially me being the male. It was difficult for me growing up and being the only Black player on my team literally almost my whole life. I think my junior year of college, I had a freshman who was a young African American kid. 

And then in pro ball, they’re very scattered. Most of the guys when you turn on the TV that you see that are darker-skinned or whatever, most of them are Latin guys. And so as the numbers have decreased since… Hell, in the last 30, 40 years, the significant decrease is something that’s important.

But also in our country, a lot of people don’t understand because they’re not in areas or they’re not affected by it. And we live in a society where if it doesn’t bother your life, it doesn’t really matter.

And I think as athletes, no matter what sport you play, I feel like our job is to speak up for the ones who can’t speak or can’t be heard because their platform and their influence is not big enough. We put athletes on a higher pedestal than the president of the United States in this country.

Dave Zirin:  Yeah.

Bruce Maxwell:  And as those influences, as those ballplayers, I feel like it’s our duty to also stand up for the regular people, the little people that we once were in life. It’s much bigger than the game. It’s much bigger than my salary. It was much bigger than the hate that I received and the problems thereafter.

But I still work in that space. I still tend to Latin and African American ballplayers as young men, as ballplayers. I work with kids here in Mexico because I speak the language. I have guys that I work with that are Dominican. I have a couple Cuban kids, then I have also African Americans and other youth in the United States. So I still live in my truth. I still stand for what’s right, and it’s how my parents raised me.

No matter how difficult it may be or no matter the consequences, you have to have a strong sense of character. And even though you might be the only one standing for what’s right, that means a whole lot more than moving with the crowd.

Dave Zirin:  Yeah, let’s talk about consequences. Because I’ve always been of the belief that you paid a price for it in terms of your career in Major League Baseball — Feel free to agree or disagree with that. Do you think that’s been one of the consequences?

Bruce Maxwell:  Yeah, I agree 100%. I definitely agree. Like you said, it’s a very conservative sport. And again, it’s kind of the whole reason I’m down here in Mexico playing. At the time, I was very, very solid with my analytics and my numbers defensively. I was a very solid catcher in the big leagues. And after that, it changed how people saw me. It was no longer about my play; I could go out and play very well, and it really didn’t matter. 

And it happened with the Mets when I went back in 2020, 2021. I was playing well. I was doing well, but I just wasn’t getting the opportunities to really play. And they had no intentions of taking me to the big leagues or giving me a shot back in the big leagues. I was just kind of there as a just-in-case.

And therefore I was like, all right, well, if I’m going to play, then I want to go somewhere where I actually play and I can contribute. And so I came back down here where I’m respected. I’ve played a whole lot, and I’ve got some championships down here to prove it.

Dave Zirin:  Wow. It is a damning comment on Major League Baseball, especially the way they bathe themselves in the memory of people like Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente, that they’ve treated you in such a way.

Bruce Maxwell:  Yeah.

Dave Zirin:  And I just wanted to say that.

Bruce Maxwell:  Yeah, it’s tough to see. Because you don’t see a whole lot of difference being made, outside of going to cities and giving out free stuff and maybe appearing a time or two or whatever. But the game is still the same. They still frown upon it, and the environment makes it tough for people of the minority to really speak their minds and stand up for what they actually truly believe in because they’re in fear of consequences.

So it’s a tough world, man. But slowly, I feel like if you want to really make a change, you first have to put yourself in that environment of change and change it from the ground up. And that’s what I’m trying to do.

Dave Zirin:  Wow. I’m going to put some church organ music behind you with that last answer. That was beautiful.

Yo, so I want to talk to you about the Oakland A’s, their move to Sacramento, and then their subsequent move that’s coming up in 2028 to Las Vegas. You’re the person I wanted to ask this: What was your impression, when you played for the A’s, of Oakland as a baseball town?

Bruce Maxwell:  It was incredible, the environment. I’m a big history buff when it comes to baseball. My dad’s favorite team was the Oakland A’s, and my dad’s from Indiana. 

It’s just with that team, its history. It’s one of the oldest organizations in baseball. The players that have come through there, the winning environment, what they’ve done for the City of Oakland itself, it’s really given the community a staple in a sports team. And that’s something that you cannot allow to leave. You cannot allow that to move to another area.

Because now you’re turning Oakland into almost like a wasteland when it comes to sports. They lost the Warriors, the Raiders moved, this, that, and the other. But I feel like the Oakland A’s have been more of a pillar of the community than either one of those teams. It’s upsetting.

And honestly, it’s bothersome to see that being allowed to happen. It’s like taking the Cubs out of Chicago. It’s like taking the Dodgers out of LA. It can’t happen. It can’t happen. So it’s devastating to see their moves, and the fact that they’re allowing it to happen because of greed, and because of the lack of stature when it comes to the City of Oakland.

Dave Zirin:  What does this say about John Fisher, the owner of the team? He inherited all the money from Gap clothing. That’s where his $3.3 billion comes from — That’s his net worth. What does it say about John Fisher that he’s so willing to remove the team from Oakland when he clearly has the financial means to keep them there as long as he wants to?

Bruce Maxwell:  It just says that he’s selfish, and it’s about as clear as I can be with that. It’s the fact that the fans in the City of Oakland have seen him gouge our prospects and our players over the years. And then the Oakland A’s fans have still been loyal and stayed loyal while watching their very players be All-Stars and important players for other teams.

The fact that he has the financial means to move the team but not the financial means to upgrade the stadium, to upgrade the locker rooms, the field itself, to put more money into the contracts of players, to keep fans coming and wanting to support the Oakland A’s. The fans took a stand, and I would too in that situation, especially, again, for such a historical team.

These people in Oakland, man, they grow up and teach their kids the love of the Oakland A’s. Even to this day, it’s a culture up there. It’s not just another team. And I think with John Fisher, he doesn’t care at the end of the day.

He doesn’t care about the workers who’ve been working there for 40 years. He doesn’t care about the kids and the grandparents and the great-grandparents that have been coming to Oakland A’s games, that have had season tickets for 40 years. He doesn’t care about that. He wants new and shiny things. 

But he could easily have made those shiny things in Oakland. He just didn’t want to be there. And for him to be able to move the team without batting an eye, it’s disappointing and it’s upsetting for the people of Oakland, but also for a lot of us that… I can’t speak for everybody else, but it saddens me. 

I played seven years with that organization, and the whole time it was history. You have Rickey Henderson, Dave Stewart, Vida Blue, all these guys coming in to spring training, working with the kids. So [inaudible] right? All of that is because of the Oakland A’s.

It’s not because, oh, they’re just big leaguers. No, they spend a good chunk of their careers playing for this team, winning for this team, and it’s part of their lives. So to see it be uprooted to a new place for whatever the reason may be, it’s bothersome.

Dave Zirin:  I’m really glad you mentioned the stadium workers, because as awful as it is to move the team, there have been some articles about how generations of people have worked for that team. And Fisher’s disregard for them is just another mark against him to me, as somebody who cares about the sport. I mean, clearly he does not.

Bruce Maxwell:  He doesn’t. I went back this off season. I was coaching kids with a couple of my former teammates in Palo Alto. And when I got there, I went to an A’s game within about a week, just go see my coaches and things. Because when I was there, the coaches are the same — Minus Bob Melvin, but they’re the same. 

And I walked up in the players area, and same security guards. They gave me a big old hug. They were like, great to see you. It’s been forever. Mind you, I haven’t been in the big leagues since 2018. I don’t remember their names, but 100% they remember me: the people that man the parking lot, the people that check you before you go into the locker room, the people on the field, the grounds crew. I spent most of my time talking to all those people, because those are the people that make the difference in our days every day.

And so for him to be able to uproot that team and put all of those people out of a job willingly, it’s upsetting and it’s cruel. At the end of the day, it’s cruel.

Dave Zirin:  It is cruel. You know the area well. What are your opinions about the fact that, until 2028, they’re going to be playing in a Minor League park in Sacramento? People watching in lawn chairs, God bless them.

Also, they’re not going to be known as the Sacramento A’s or the Oakland A’s. They’re taking the city’s name off of it, and just they’re going to go by the A’s, which to me just feels like a wretched scrawling on the history of Major League Baseball. But please, your thoughts.

Bruce Maxwell:  It is. It very much so is. Because without Oakland, there would be no A’s, period.

Dave Zirin:  Right.

Bruce Maxwell:  You can’t carry that name if you’re going to move the team. And so they’re going to move to Sacramento. Sacramento is… When it comes to big league protocol, it’s not even close.

So instead of putting money into the stadium you already have that holds history with Rickey Henderson, Dave Stewart on the mountaintop, all these things, you’re going to go out and have to shell out even more money potentially to renovate that stadium to make it “big league protocol”.

And you’re in Sacramento. It’s not a Major League park. Even when you renovate it, it’s not going to be a Major League park. So you’re basically downgrading your big league team even more than it was already in Oakland.

Because I’ve heard from a lot of players over my years, they call the Oakland A’s were four-A and everybody else is in the big leagues because of the stadium, because of the locker rooms, because of the field, because of the dugouts, because they feel like they’re not playing in a big league ballpark.

And so you’re more than willing to put in all this money to renovate Sacramento Stadium and then go get a new one in Vegas but you can’t put the same energy and effort into preserving the historic team in the very city that made it what it is today.

Dave Zirin:  Wow. This is a question that I think you are uniquely positioned to answer. We’ve already touched on it a little bit. But we’ve seen some players be public in their disgust with the move, and they’ve been punished.

One player sent to the minors, another player who is the sole All-Star on the team sent to the bench just because they wore little macrame bracelets in solidarity with a group that wants to keep the team in Oakland.

Why can’t baseball just allow some free thinking among players? Why is that so terrible?

Bruce Maxwell:  Because there is no free thinking. Major League Baseball is always and will forever be a very controlled sport. We’re expendable. And the fact that we have a gigantic Minor League system, we have a draft every single year, it makes players expendable. So nobody really wants to share their true thoughts because their job’s on the line.

And when you play for organizations like Oakland where they’re very nitpicky about what you say and how you say it, this, that, and the other, it’s very difficult for you to really get people’s true thoughts about what’s going on.

You have a kid, Ruiz, who got sent down, and they gave him some things to work on for him to get back in the starting lineup. But he was hitting .430 when they sent him down in the big leagues after also setting the rookie record for stolen bases last year and hitting about .280. All because of a bracelet.

I feel like when you play for a team, especially in the big leagues on a stage like that, it’s our job as players to engage and to stand with our community outside of the ballpark. It’s a very, very bad move. It makes Oakland look like a joke. It makes the city look like a joke, makes the whole organization as a whole be frowned upon. Because something as simple as that, wanting to stand for keeping the team in this very historical spot is subject to you losing your job.

It’s a pretty tough take, and I think it’s very immature. I think it’s very selfish. And that just goes to show how much John Fisher and our front office don’t care about the freedom of free thinking and what our players actually really think and feel on that field.

Dave Zirin:  Wow. I got one more question for you, Bruce, but before I ask, is there anything else you’d like to say about the Oakland A’s, the move, your experience, anything else?

Bruce Maxwell:  I feel bad for the fans. I know I’m no longer in uniform, but I just want to say to them, I love all of you. I’ve had some of my best times and met some of my best friends in the seven years I was representing the green and gold.

I lost one of my dearest friends two years ago. She passed away. I met her in spring training. She used to talk to my mom, she used to talk to my father. And I’ve had some great meaningful experiences and relationships come out of my time in Oakland. And I truly feel sorry for the city because I know that this move has broken a lot of hearts, it’s broken a lot of spirits, when all people have ever done in that area has grow up and be A’s fans.

So from my heart to theirs, I love all of you. I feel for you. And everybody that’s ever put on that uniform is affected by this change.

Dave Zirin:  You know what? That’s where we need to end it. Bruce Maxwell, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports.

Bruce Maxwell:  Yeah. And always a pleasure talking to you.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories, and struggles that you care about most. And we need your help to keep doing this work. So please tap your screen now, subscribe, and donate to The Real News Network. Solidarity Forever.

On April 10, OJ Simpson passed away at the age of 76. Although initially catapulted to fame by his career in the NFL and Hollywood, OJ’s early success was ultimately eclipsed by his alleged murder of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her lover, Ron Goldman. The double-homicide, subsequent trial, and acquittal rocked the nation—sparking a media frenzy and a culture war that revolved around questions of racism, police corruption, domestic violence, and celebrity impunity. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez joins Edge of Sports for a retrospective on the OJ trial and its consequences.

Studio Production: David Hebden
Post-Production: Taylor Hebden
Audio Post-Production: David Hebden
Opening Sequence: Cameron Granadino
Music by: Eze Jackson & Carlos Guillen

Transcript

Dave Zirin:  Welcome to Edge of Sports, the TV show, only on The Real News Network. I’m Dave Zirin, and right now we’re going to have some choice words about a subject that is roiling conversations across the country right now. I’m talking about the death of O.J. Simpson at age 76.

And I’m going to speak about it with a familiar face to fans of The Real News Network. I’m talking about Mr. Maximilian Alvarez. So thrilled to have him with me.

Max, how you doing, sir?

Maximillian Alvarez:  Brother, I’m doing great. And it is really, really exciting to get to sit down with you in the studio and chat about this.

And I just want to say, for the record, what an honor it has been to work with you on Edge of Sports. If you guys are watching this, the rumors are true. Dave is just as amazing in person as he appears on screen. And yeah, man, I just can’t thank you enough for all the great work you’re doing on Edge of Sports. And it’s a real honor to have you part of the team.

Dave Zirin:  Well, let’s see if they’re thinking that at the end of this segment [Alvarez laughs]. I don’t know.

Maximillian Alvarez:  All right, let’s dive into it.

Dave Zirin:  So, right at you, Max. I want to bring you back to 1994 and 1995. How did you process the trial of the century, O.J. Simpson on trial for murdering Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman?

Maximillian Alvarez:  Man, it’s a wild question to meditate on, because I feel like, in a lot of ways, I processed the trial a certain way as a kid in the ’90s, and I have processed it in a very different way as an adult decades later.

I’ve told you, I’ve told our audience, I’ve talked about this many times on my show and other shows, that I grew up in Southern California. I grew up in a first-gen, Mexican-American mixed race household, and I grew up deeply conservative. And in Orange County, the heart of the Reagan Revolution.

So, as you can imagine, growing up in that context with the O.J. trial going on, the conversations in our house and around our family were very interesting and definitely left an indelible imprint on me at that time. Because I think this was one of the first, if not the first, major media events where I was fully cognizant and conscious enough to absorb the fact that the entire country was talking about this, that it was something that adults got very animated about. It was on all the time on the TV in our house, the trial. It was a media circus in the truest sense.

But I feel like, looking back on it, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those pictures or if folks watching have seen, when a tree and a forest will grow, if there’s a steel beam, or a bicycle, or a car in its path, it’ll grow around that detritus.

And I bring that image up because I feel like, looking back at the O.J. trial as a kid in the ’90s struggling to develop my own sense of identity and having the complex racial makeup that we had, I feel as if that trial did shape a lot of who I was in the same way that that tree growing around an abandoned car, it still shapes the way the tree grows. But I was growing on a very false understanding of race, of the criminal justice system, of O.J. himself, to say nothing of gendered violence. So much of that didn’t come back later.

And looking back now, it’s odd and, in a way, icky and difficult to look back at the false impressions that I had of the country and of the issues that coalesced around the O.J. trial, and how that trial cemented these false notions that I would build my identity upon over the coming decades. And it wouldn’t be until later until I realized, oh, yeah, there’s actually a lot more to this trial than I originally thought.

So, in a way, I feel like what we’re all doing right now is not just looking back at a point in time in our country’s history, but that was a touchstone for the ways that a lot of us would mentally and politically develop in the coming decades, I think.

Dave Zirin:  Absolutely. When I think about the O.J. trial, on the one hand, it exposed how un-united or dis-united the United States of America actually was; a precursor to today, where people can have the common national experience of watching this trial and draw entirely different conclusions based on the guilt or innocence of the defendant, but also just based on what it represented.

As you said, to some it represented gendered violence, or the fact that, if you’re wealthy, you can hire a dream team of lawyers and get away with murder, literally. To others, it was, oh, this is 1994, just two years ago where that was the LA uprising, referred to as popularly as the LA riots, after the beating of Rodney King by the LAPD in Simi Valley. Or, Simi Valley was the trial.

But that in and of itself was so pungent to people, that this has a context. The context of Daryl Gates, the chief of the LAPD, a context of the anti-gang initiatives, and the context of a system that was weighted against Black people.

So, on one side it was, oh, look at this rich guy. He can hire a dream team of lawyers. On the other side, it was like, oh look, even O.J. Simpson is just a Black man they’re trying to put on death row or incarcerate forever.

And when you factor in the clear evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, all the things that have been put on the record as far as police officers, evidence, the racism of the arresting officer, it became something so much bigger than just this trial, but really this Rorschach test as to how you saw America.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Well, can I hop in on that real quick, because I’m really curious to hear how you yourself were developing in that cultural cauldron of the mid-’90s and how you were perceiving that. Of course, O.J. was famous before that trial for being an All-Star athlete.

But to round out the thought from the first question, again, growing up Brown in America, being the son of a Mexican immigrant, and growing up conservative, that’s not a rare thing. A lot of us are in that bucket. But everyone’s got their own reasons for believing the things they do and feeling the ways they feel.

And I remember, when I say I built my own identity on the false foundations that came together in the O.J. trial in the mid-’90s, was, for us, this was a clear example of the bankruptcy of liberal discourse on race. Because there was a deep-seated and, I think, genuine belief in our family, like so many others, that you live in a white country, do not let it define you by your race.

And so, for the conservative side, for us, we were always really opposed to this notion of Latinos, we’re going to vote Democrat. Or Latinos are marginalized, or Black people are a marginalized community. We didn’t have the historical background to understand the breadth of systemic racism. We’ve lived it and experienced it.

But again, the politics around it were when you have a case where it seems so patently obvious that the defendant committed the crime, but then racially charged arguments are being made to acquit him, and when you don’t have that understanding of the larger systemic context there, you’re going to end up feeling, after that trial, like a lot of people did, which was like, oh, the murderer got off free because of this argument about race.

And that was something that, again, in my young mind, that’s all I was really seeing. And I can see how that understanding really shaped who I was for the coming years.

But I’m curious where you were at that moment and how it shaped the way that you think.

Dave Zirin:  Well, first of all, direct truth time, I am a Knicks fan. I was born and raised a Knicks fan. I’m watching the New York Knicks finally make it to the NBA Finals against the Houston Rockets, and I’m watching it with a bunch of buddies. And then the game is interrupted for the Ford Bronco chase. And at first we’re absolutely transfixed, like, oh my goodness, that the juice is loose. And everything that was going along with that. Absolutely transfixed.

And then after a while it was, uh, can we get the game back on? As soon as they said the goal is to hopefully have the car run out of gas [Alvarez laughs]. That was the goal of the police at that time, they did not want a high speed chase. It was a low speed chase, the most famous low speed chase in the history of this country. So, that was the first thought, can we get the game back on?

But it was only as the trial proceeded into 1995, and I’m just coming into politics at this time, that I remember that it felt like a pool cue hitting the 8-ball, and it’s bouncing all around.

And so, I’m going back and forth in my brain from thinking about it in terms of how do we understand this with regards to the fact that Nicole Brown Simpson called the police multiple times talking about spousal abuse and they didn’t do anything because of what is known as celebrity justice in Los Angeles? But then again, how do we process the fact that the LAPD is racist to its core, corrupt to its core, Daryl Gates to its core?

For me, the most pivotal political moment of my teenage life was the LA riots, the LA uprising. So, that’s all very fresh in my mind as I’m processing this case in Los Angeles and trying to figure out what it all meant.

And then, I have to say, I was very attuned to the fact that there were some people who wanted O.J. to fry, out of feelings that we need law and order in this country, this is about justice. We just made it through this LA riot situation. O.J. needs to find himself either in prison for the rest of his life or on death row, otherwise there is no justice.

So, it’s interesting because sometimes we talk about it as if it’s almost like two progressive sides of the coin. Well, there are people who care about gendered violence and people who care about the way the rich can buy justice, and then there are people who care about racism.

But actually, there was a huge third lane that was we’re white, we’re angry, we think Black and Brown people have too many rights. And if O.J. becomes free, it’s going to become crime spree America because people will think that they can do whatever they want, including get away with murder. So, all of that stuff was operating at the same time.

And I feel like the times that we live in now, I called O.J. America’s algorithm, because these times we live in now where it’s the loudest, the angriest, the meanest, the most bigoted voices that get the most play and attention, I feel like the O.J. trial was the soil for that. And that’s why we’re still living with it to this day. So, it’s not even a look back at the 1990s, but an assessment of the wreckage of 2024 and understanding how we got here.

Maximillian Alvarez:  I think that’s really beautifully put. And let’s unpack that even a little bit more. Because you alluded to this in your great column for The Nation that you wrote about this, that there is something in the O.J. trial that is both… There’s a lot there that’s very much a story of its time.

Like you said, this was a really intense moment that folks who didn’t live through it or who have forgotten may not remember. We had the LA riots, we had the Bill Clinton and the Sister Souljah moment. We had the O.J. trial and all of the cultural jokes that were made about… The anti-Asian jokes about Lance Ito, the racist jokes about Black people, the gendered jokes about Nicole Simpson. And so, it was a really telling moment in the ’90s that I’m curious to get your thoughts on.

But also, as you said, there was so much in that moment that was a harbinger for the three increasingly nuts decades that lay before us. The fact that, like you said, you had these loud, extremely polarized, extremely partisan groups of people watching this trial and seeing fundamentally different things every step of the way.

Again, we talk about algorithmic echo chambers and people in the internet age being so polarized and not talking to each other. But here we see, in the age before Web 2.0, that polarization was still very, very present.

And I think the one other thing that I would say, picking up on that point that you made, this is what I mean when I say, looking back three decades later, I feel gross trying to unpack the way this moment in history shaped me when I didn’t have the background, the context, the political wherewithal to understand it.

But I think what it fundamentally boils down to is American culture was not equipped to grapple with a situation in which there are no good actors. Everyone’s got some rot in them. Yes, the police were racist. Yes, they were caught on tape saying the N-word multiple times. Yes, Rodney King was beat on camera. So, that is right. And then yes, Johnny Cochran and his whole team were exploiting race to get their client off. And yes, by basically every metric we can surmise, O.J. did it.

And so, you have this intense cauldron of anxieties and political attitudes across the country converging on this case. And I think it really is a deeply American example of there is no universal principle of justice and truth that comes out of this. All it is is which side is going to benefit from the corruption and rot of the existing system and claim that as a victory. But the rot is there at every point.

Dave Zirin:  And the rot seems to be the only thing both sides can agree upon, even if they’re not agreeing upon it explicitly. They’re all trying to outshout one another about what is so fundamentally wrong with the system instead of taking a step back and saying, well, how do we fix the system? How do we make sure that gendered violence becomes a relic of history? How do we de-racismify the LAPD? How do we make sure that Daryl Gates becomes a museum piece and not somebody who has any sway over our police department?

And instead, what we’ve seen out of the O.J. case, the legacy of it, I think, is two things: One, the utter debasement of our culture. We’re talking about court TV, we’re talking about the shouting heads on cable news, we’re talking about the Kardashians. Robert Kardashian being one of O.J.’s attorneys, the father of the Kardashian sisters and brothers, whatever they are or whoever they are. But it’s all and reality TV in general.

All of this comes out of the appetites that the trial exposed because it showed that the United States, America, the people have an appetite for celebrity, have an appetite for distraction, and have an appetite, as W.E.B. Du Bois predicted a century earlier, for race, racism, race talk, the racial divide, the American obsession, all culminating in this one trial, was utterly irresistible catnip for the American public.

And then it metastasized all throughout every area of media. And that’s something we still live with strongly to this day, and something that should trouble people.

And maybe this can be a moment where we do actually assess where we are and say, all right, if the O.J. case was like that patient zero moment that’s brought us to this point, what can we possibly do to have a better media culture? What can we possibly do to fight racism, to fight gender violence, to fight all the things, all the pressure points that the trial exposed?

Maximillian Alvarez:  Right. And again, you made this point, maybe it was in your Nation article, that it’s not necessarily that history went this way because of the O.J. trial. If it wasn’t the O.J. trial, it very well would’ve been something else in that decade. But again, this became the perfect crystallization of a very intense and changing time in the country, in the world.

Let’s not forget also that this was after the end of the Cold War. Before the end of the war on terror, there really was this more commonly felt sense that capitalism had prevailed on the world stage. The pie was going to be big enough for everybody. You had the dot-com boom, real estate bubble. There was also, amidst all of this, an appetite for those things that was also fueled by not having all the existential dread that we have today, 30 years later, with every news story that comes out. So, there’s also that.

And I just wanted to underline again, because you mentioned how there were people within the progressive side, and then there was a very big third category of predominantly white people on the other side. But again, you also had categories like my family that were somewhere in between. And again, not believing at all that we ourselves were racist for thinking that O.J. was guilty as shit.

This was happening as well at the time when affirmative action, especially in California, was a hot button issue. I believe that came to a head in ’96. So, the O.J. trial fed into that racial discourse in the mid-’90s about affirmative action. And it was, in fact, a perfect example of what conservatives were trying to say. Which is, if you’re arguing about affirmative action and policies like that as compensating for historical injustices and racism, here you have a clear-cut case of, but that does not negate personal responsibility.

And so, you had, within that discourse through O.J., the ability for a large segment of the country to argue against the notion of systemic racism, to argue against the kinds of things that Cochran was talking about in his closing statements. And so, families like ours were very much influenced by that, because without an understanding of what systemic racism was, all we knew was like, well, if someone murders someone, they should still go to jail. And if they don’t because of race, there’s still a problem here.

And I stress that in detail because people watching can’t underestimate how much that trial and the verdict sedimented people’s understanding of liberal and left racial politics discourse for the next 30 years. It’s the touchstone to which people will always return to to say arguments about systemic racism are clearly bad because if they lead to a murderer getting off free, a murderer and an abuser getting off free, then something’s wrong.

Dave Zirin:  And then the flip side is if we can prosecute people based upon evidence that’s faulty, racism in the police force, stuff that attorney Barry Sheck exposed, one of O.J.’s dream team attorneys exposed, in a very systematic way.

And that’s another part of this that we have to say, is it launched the careers of a lot of people. And some of them actually did good with their careers, like Barry Sheck and his work getting people off of death row and being revolutionary with DNA evidence. Getting a lot of people whose lives were being destroyed as lifers and getting them off death row. That’s just a side note.

But it’s just to say that, yeah, the discourse about race and racism becomes very cemented in that. Like you said, there’s that one side that says, well, how are people getting away with murder just because you say systemic racism? That shows how bankrupt looking at that is. And then the other side, which is like, how can we have a court system that allows for something like this? And both sides have something to say.

To me, it’s the mark of our times that they couldn’t say it together, and that they had to say it with a barricade in between them. That’s what makes it so difficult, even to this day. It would be a lot easier if it was just racist white people on one side and a sense of racial justice on the other. But it’s a big mix because of everything that the trial exposed about how divided we are. And unfortunately, we’re not divided in just one way, but we’re absolutely sliced and diced. And the trial exposed that.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Again, I think that’s really powerfully put. And again, both shows, again, how it was a story of its time and foreshadowing the time of monsters that we are ourselves currently in.

And I just wanted to wrap that into one question, if I may throw your way, thinking about how class, particularly wealth at the level of a star athlete like O.J., and the sports culture, how that shaped the way that we understood this case, and how it also contributed to the death of two people in this case.

And if I may, I wanted to read, because I want to honor this really powerful piece by Moira Donegan in The Guardian about the gendered violence here. The piece is titled: “O.J. Simpson died the comfortable death in old age that Nicole Brown should have had”. And it really resonated with me, especially after our conversation.

So, Donegan writes, “Cops were called to the Simpsons house no fewer than nine times; it is likely that Nicole endured many more beatings than that without ever calling the police. But the officers were deferential to O.J., accepting his version of events. They were more impressed by his status as a celebrity former athlete than interested in what he was doing to his wife. Nicole’s friends reportedly often encouraged her to get back together with O.J. Her parents liked him, too, and apparently regretted the divorce even though they were aware that Simpson was beating their daughter. (He had set Nicole’s father up with a Hertz dealership.)

“In the weeks before her death, Nicole told many people that she was afraid that O.J. would kill her and get away with it. But these words of Nicole’s were not admitted as evidence at O.J.’s subsequent criminal trial. The judge, Lance Ito, deemed them ‘hearsay’, noting that Nicole could not be cross-examined by O.J.’s lawyers, because she was dead.”

And then just one more point to make, “Nicole Brown had just turned 18, and was working as a waitress in Los Angeles, when she met the man whose violence would define the rest of her short life. […] One of the first times O.J. hit her, he apologized by buying her a Porsche. After another time, he asked her to marry him. She said yes.

“Abuse is like this: its contradictions and reversals, the batterer’s promises that he will change matched only by the victim’s desperate, delusional wish to believe him. But domestic violence is like cancer: without intervention, it will march inevitably towards death. Nicole begged for help: from police, from her friends, from family, and ultimately from a domestic violence shelter. No one was able to help her because no one was willing to stand between her and O.J. No one was willing to act like her life was more important than his celebrity.”

Dave Zirin:  That’s an LA story in so many respects. It’s a story about celebrity, it’s a story about wealth, it’s a story about gendered violence, and it’s a story about something that I have heard from about a million different people, and not just in LA. Although I do feel like LA, in some respects, produced this and exported it, this relationship between police and sports teams.

These are not superficial relationships, and it’s not just that cops are big sports fans. We’re talking about people who get hired to work security at stadiums. We’re talking about people who get hired as personal bodyguards or personal drivers of athletes, and that being one of the great plums of being a police officer in a big sports town. And then, of course, getting an autographed football for your cousin, and all the rest of it. That proximity to celebrity is a narcotic. And let’s be honest, it’s a narcotic for most people in most professions.

But when you’re a police officer and you’re charged to protect and serve and you have a gun on your hip, it all of a sudden becomes much more serious and much more dire. Especially if you’re being asked to do something which, I would argue, police officers are, frankly, not trained to do, and that’s intervene peacefully in domestic disputes and making sure tragedy does not occur.

So, that’s one of the things I kept hearing when I heard that story: police called nine times. Shouldn’t that also be evidence number one for those people who say defund the police and fund people who are actually trained social workers to intervene in these situations who can get people to safety, isn’t this evidence that we need so much more than what we have when it comes to our laws that exist for public safety in this country?

Because they, far too often, make people feel unsafe. And we’ve also heard far too many stories of people who don’t call the police in these situations, not just because they think they won’t be able to get help, but because of concerns that, when you call the police, you run the risk of the dispute ending with somebody in a body bag.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Well, this is going to be a very loaded final question from me. But looking 30 years later, having covered this world your whole career, through so many intense peaks and valleys and developments in terms of the role sports are playing in shaping our understanding of race, our understanding of gender. We had the Colin Kaepernick moment, which you wrote a book about and have talked about a lot. We had the #MeToo phenomenon that was a major reckoning, but clearly there’s still so much more to do when it comes to addressing the patriarchal structure and violence of our society.

So, I guess I just wanted to ask, 30 years later, looking back, do you feel like we have advanced politically in terms of the roles that sports play in our understanding of what equality means and how we understand race, gender, and class? Or do you feel like the sports world, particularly professional sports and sports media, have found new ways to effectively do what was done in the ’90s around the O.J. trial?

Dave Zirin:  All right. So, great question. Sports is still sports. It’s bigger than US Steel. It’s an athletic-industrial complex, and it’ll always reward some of the worst actors in its midst if that’s what it takes to keep the trains running on time and the cash register going and the golden goose laying its eggs. So, I don’t think anything has changed on that front.

What has changed, and we talked about how ugly social media is, but one of the other things it’s provided is a space for people with the kinds of analyses that we were missing in 1994, 1995. Where were the Moira Donagans in 1994, 1995? They weren’t being heard in the way that they can be heard now, or people who have something important to say about race and racism.

The entire film by Ezra Edelman that won an Oscar called O.J.: Made in America. That whole film, to me, is a tribute to how far we’ve come in terms of our ability to understand all the different angles of something like this. Which I think in 1994, 1995, we were utterly unequipped to do.

So, I do see hope because we have a better ability to understand situations like this. And through understanding, well, that’s a prerequisite to change. So, we have that in our arsenal right now in a way we did not 30 years ago.

But as far as has the sports world changed? Uh-uh (negative). As Joseph Lowery, the great reverend and friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, as he said about the criminal justice system in this country, he said it’s like a horse in that so much has changed, but a horse 100, 200 years ago looks a hell of a lot like a horse today. It’s the same with the sports world. It was a horse 30 years ago; It’s a horse now. The only thing that’s changed is our ability to understand how to ride the horse.

Well, that’s all we’re talking about here on Edge of Sports. Thank you so much to Max Alvarez for that conversation, man. I really do appreciate it.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Thank you, brother.

Dave Zirin:  That was terrific. For everybody out there listening, please stay frosty. We are out of here. Peace.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories. and struggles that you care about most. And we need your help to keep doing this work. So, please, tap your screen now, subscribe, and donate to The Real News Network. Solidarity forever.

More than six months into Israel’s genocide in Gaza, FIFA has yet to speak out in defense of Palestinian life. The wild success of the Palestinian team at this year’s Asian Cup did nothing to move FIFA to action. Not even Israel’s killings of Palestinian soccer legends Hani Al-Masdar and Mohammed Barakat, who livestreamed his final moments to the world, have convinced FIFA to break its shameful silence. Dave Zirin takes aim at FIFA and its president, Gianni Infantino, in this edition of ‘Choice Words.’

Studio Production: David Hebden
Post-Production: Taylor Hebden
Audio Post-Production: David Hebden
Opening Sequence: Cameron Granadino
Music by: Eze Jackson & Carlos Guillen

Transcript

Dave Zirin:  Okay, look, before the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, was fed up. Critics were denouncing the choice to host the event in the petro state, given its abysmal human rights record. So Infantino responded defiantly in a bizarre and rambling statement of solidarity with the host country and the billionaire barons behind it, saying, “Today, I feel Qatari. Today, I feel Arabic. Today, I feel African. Today, I feel gay. Today, I feel disabled. Today, I feel like a migrant worker.”

Infantino is trying to say, however painfully awkwardly, that football must be for everyone. Yet when it comes to his laundry list of symbolic identities, he clearly does not feel Palestinian other than a “condolence letter” on Oct. 13, sent only to the head of the Israeli Football Association, calling on football to be a vehicle for peace. Infantino has chosen to say nothing while Israel massacres Palestinian football players, coaches, and sports officials.

Infantino’s refusal to make even a token call for a permanent ceasefire reveals him to be a brazen hypocrite. Remember that FIFA leaped into action against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, temporarily banning them from all competition. And FIFA, in its statement at the time, said, “Football is fully united here and in full solidarity with all the people affected in Ukraine.”

FIFA’s silence was especially disturbing in January when, amid the horrors of the Israel Defense Force’s attacks, Palestine sent a team to the Asian Cup, where they did surprisingly well by making it to the quarterfinals. The team was a fan favorite, as one might imagine, and the subject of a great deal of media coverage, at least outside the United States.

The irony simply blares. Here is the Palestinian team showing up for FIFA and playing a tournament under extreme duress, and here is FIFA turning its back.

Infantino’s silence and venality is damning. He will stand up to the West for Qatar’s billions, but not for a people in desperate need of courage and a voice. He’s making clear through his actions that FIFA will not cross the United States and Europe when it could affect the bottom line.

The price of FIFA’s self-censorship came into focus after Israel killed Palestinian national team member and football star Mohammed Barakat. In a widely seen video over social media, Barakat filmed his last public words as he could hear Israeli airstrikes getting closer.

Known as the Legend of Khan Younis, the 39-year-old Barakat was the first player in the Gaza Palestinian League to score 100 goals. He also played for the Al-Wehdat Club in Jordan, as well as professionally in Saudi Arabia. None of that mattered as Israel hit Barakat’s family home on the first day of fasting during the Islamic Holy Month of Ramadan.

According to the International Palestinian Football Association, Barakat is just one of hundreds of Palestinian players at all levels who have been killed by Israeli attacks. Israel even killed Hani Al-Masdar, one of Palestine’s greatest players and a manager of the Olympic team, last January.

And yet FIFA still says nothing. Perhaps that shouldn’t be too surprising. No one should ever look to FIFA or Gianni Infantino for moral guidance. Yet we should still demand that FIFA speaks out. FIFA represents the world’s most popular sport, and it has a responsibility to represent everybody.

FIFA has a power that could be a force of unity and justice. Infantino’s global solidarity, however, clearly does not extend to Palestinians. When we speak about the dehumanization of the Palestinian people, FIFA’s silence is part of what makes that a reality. This dehumanization is a prerequisite to the dancing IDF soldiers, the parties with a bounce house blocking food aid, the Israeli rappers recording genocide anthems, and all the other attendant horrors.

We must remember who chose to speak out and who remained silent. But we must also put pressure on the silent to raise their voices. And be assured that in the weeks ahead, Infantino will be remembered for what he does say and for what he doesn’t.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories, and struggles that you care about most. And we need your help to keep doing this work. So please tap your screen now, subscribe, and donate to The Real News Network. Solidarity forever.

Editor’s note: After this episode was recorded, Authentic Brands Group announced that Sports Illustrated would live on after Israel’s Minute Media acquired publishing rights for the magazine. 

Layoffs, lawsuits, license revocations. The tragicomic spectacle unraveling at Sports Illustrated bears all the signs of a familiar tale: how hedge funds can take a functional, beloved brand and transform it into an anemic husk of its former self by mercilessly draining it for profit. Washington Post National Sports Culture and Politics Reporter Michael Lee joins Edge of Sports for a frank talk on the putrid effects of venture capital and hedge funds on sports media, Black Lives Matter in sports, and more.

Studio Production: David Hebden
Post-Production: Taylor Hebden
Audio Post-Production: David Hebden
Opening Sequence: Cameron Granadino
Music by: Eze Jackson & Carlos Guillen

Transcript

Dave Zirin:  Welcome to Edge of Sports TV only on The Real News Network. I’m Dave Zirin.

We are going to talk right now to Washington Post national sports culture and politics reporter Michael Lee about sports journalism, Black Lives Matter in sports, activism, and what it all means. Let’s talk to him right now, Michael Lee.

Michael Lee, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports TV.

Michael Lee:  Hey, thanks for having me.

Dave Zirin:  All right, let’s put on our serious hats, if we can. It looks like the NFL might be buying a stake of ESPN. We know what’s happening with Sports Illustrated, which makes a lot of people around our age well up a little bit. The Athletic, where I know you used to work has taken over The New York Times’s sports page. Beyond the work of folks like yourself, is the era of a thriving independent sports media as we have known it, is it done? Are we past the point of having the kind of sports media that I think we so dearly need?

Michael Lee:  As long as the money is shifting towards hedge fund guys and venture capitalists, yeah, that’s what’s happening. I think when you don’t have creatives in charge and have the vision of creatives, then all you’re going to do is just try to make a money-making operation that is doomed to fail. Primarily because for these creative industries, like journalism is…

I mean, yes, we have a serious task of holding truth to power and trying to make sure that we uphold certain values and principles. We’re protected by the First Amendment and everything like that. But when people who are running it view it as leverage to make money as opposed to a means to serve a greater purpose to the people, you’re going to see the collapse, you’re going to see things fall, you’re going to see things ruined, mainly because you don’t have the vision.

And that’s really what I look at whenever I see these things happen, where we have layoffs, we have buyouts, you have cuts, you lose talent. And you don’t just lose talent, but you lose your soul because a lot of times, the people who get cut are the veterans who’ve been there for years. They understand the systems. They understand the angles. They know all the anything.

If you have a veteran basketball player, a football player, they can teach the young guys how to manipulate things and operate and maneuver more effectively. But if you cut those people out, you’re doing damage for the people who are coming up in their development.

So I think that, yeah, as long as the people with money don’t have that vision and their whole purpose is to try to view this as a means to make money as opposed to a greater purpose in terms of educating people, informing people, and also just providing them an outlet for pleasure, you’re going to see situations like this only get worse.

And I think that’s where we are now, because the money, and where the money is being shifted, the big money, the billionaires, when they start coming in and manipulating this and not seeing the vision from an artistic perspective, that’s where you see the failings.

Dave Zirin:  Wow. I realize I spoke for you in my question, talking about Sports Illustrated. I know when I heard about what is basically its downfall, it moved me, thinking about what it meant to me coming up. But I don’t know if it had that same effect on you as a young person looking at that magazine and thinking, this is what I want to do. I was wondering if you could reflect on that for a moment.

Michael Lee:  Absolutely. I mean, Sports Illustrated was the ideal. It was the model. So many great writers came through there. I know the inspiration for me to even get into sports journalism was Ralph Wiley. That was the guy that I just looked up to. One of the first books I read on my own outside of school, guys like him, Rick Reilly. There’s so many. Steve Rushin. So many great talented guys — I could go on all day. Jack McCallum. People who I read constantly and tried to take in what they did and try to create my own style based off of what I read.

It was a model magazine. I would get copies every week, and I would devour it, and not just because I love sports, but because I love writing, and that’s what inspired me. So I don’t know where kids are going to find that inspiration the way I did.

Obviously things have changed. You don’t have a physical paper or a physical magazine the way you did. You just scroll on your phone or whatever, on your computer, so it’s a different feel. But it’s something about, for me, going out to the mailbox, having something that was addressed to me, and feeling those pages and flipping those pages and reading that, and it was a great feeling.

My kids, I don’t know where they’re going to get that kind of rush. Because it’s the same kind of rush I would get from music when I would have a CD or an album or something physical in my hand that really made it seem like a dream.

Dave Zirin:  Well, just like you and I would read Ralph Wiley’s articles and see his name and think, ooh, that’s who I want to be.

Michael Lee:  Yeah.

Dave Zirin:  There’s no doubt in my mind that people read your work and see the name Michael Lee and say, ooh, that’s who I want to be.

Michael Lee:  Yes. I got a little extra money for you.

Dave Zirin:  But there’s a big but though. There’s a big but — No, no, no. There’s a big but here. Don’t worry. What is your advice then to aspiring sports journalists? Is this still a profession worth pursuing? If a young, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed person with talent came up to you and said, I want to be like Michael Lee, what do you say to them?

Michael Lee:  Well, what do you want to be when you say you want to be like me or anybody else in this profession? Do you want to be somebody who does what he loves, or do you want to be somebody who wants to be famous? Do you want to be a celebrity in this, or do you want to be somebody who’s really trying to seek the truth or try to find inspiration and really try to pursue your passion?

If you’re going to pursue your passion and you pursue what you love, everything else is going to fall into place. You’re going to face disappointment. You’re going to face cuts. You’re going to see a lot of your friends and colleagues get dismissed, and it’s going to be disheartening. But what is motivating you, and what is it that you really want out of this business?

If you just think you’re going to go in there and just be on ESPN and become a Stephen A. Smith and just have a top-ranked show and make millions of dollars, that’s going to be hard. There’s only one guy that’s doing it right now like that.

But if there’s something in it that you want out of this, if there’s something that you dream about doing. Like me, I knew my ceiling as a basketball player was high school. I wasn’t going to go beyond that. But I also knew I wanted to be around basketball one day. Then I wound up covering the NBA for 20 years, and covering three Olympics, and the multiple 13, 14 NBA finals, and however many All-Star games.

And so I got a chance to be around basketball because it’s what I wanted to be around and what I love. And so if you feel like this is what you want to pursue, then don’t let anybody… Don’t let the nos keep you from pursuing your dream because you’re going to get a lot of nos. I tell this when I talk to college kids sometimes, the difficult thing in life is when you realize that nobody cares, really, about your feelings, and not everybody’s going to like you.

And so when you get those things through your skull, what do you have left that you’re going to be willing to pursue and fight for? And if it’s yourself and if it’s your passion, then you’re going to find that worthwhile. It’s going to be a struggle, but everything’s a struggle. You’re not going to be able to walk right in and have your dream job right away.

I remember covering high schools out of college and being frustrated and wondering if I was ever going to get a breakthrough. But I look back and I appreciate those times. I appreciate that struggle because it made me more appreciative of when I actually was able to have those moments where I’m like, man, I can’t believe I’m doing what I always dreamed of doing.

Dave Zirin:  Recently, a writer that we both know, Jeff Pearlman, was asked that question. You might’ve seen this on social media, and he gave a response that, I do have to say, felt like a response that was about five years old, where he said, be a Swiss army knife, become an expert on everything, and you’ll have no problem.

And a lot of people pushed back and said what you said, frankly, which is these VCs are tearing these jobs apart. What does it matter if I can podcast, if I can write, if I can do TV? What does it matter if, at the end of the day, like you said, Michael, the people with the most institutional knowledge are usually the first people on the chopping block?

I know this industry is in such flux, so it’s impossible to ask you to have a crystal ball or anything. But do you see, in the future, a way around this, so people like you and I can tell young sports writers that this is a life worth living as long as you’re not obsessed with that end goal but love the process?

Michael Lee:  Yeah, I think a lot was lost in what Jeff was trying to say. I think he meant it in the most sincere, thoughtful way possible: make yourself indispensable. The one thing about, like I said earlier, is that no one’s really indispensable, and everybody’s replaceable, and we just have a chance to occupy positions for as long as somebody’s willing to employ us. And you have to view that through the level of everybody.

Think about what we had just this past month. We had Bill Belichick, who people say is the greatest coach of all time, retire, and he was replaced a day later. They found his replacement a day later. It didn’t take long to find somebody to fill those shoes. Nick Saban, the greatest college coach of all time, said, I’m leaving college football. They found his replacement within a day or two.

So no matter how great you are, no matter what you do, you can always be replaced. They’ll always find somebody that’s willing to do your job. So what you have to do is really value the opportunities that you get and take advantage of it because they’ll always find somebody who’s willing to do what you do. They may find one person who’s willing to do three or four jobs that people have been doing. And that’s just the way it is.

And so you got to understand your position. If somebody is writing a check and you’re salaried and you’re an employee, then you have to understand that you can easily be let go no matter what you’ve done or what your accomplishments are, no matter what your achievements are. They allow you to maintain that seat for a little bit longer. But just know that you can’t ever get complacent. You can’t ever sit back and think, well, I’ve made it.

One of the greatest things, books, Jackie Robinson, he always said, “I never had it made.”

Dave Zirin:  That’s right.

Michael Lee:  And you could look at him and you could say, oh, what you did. You are a rookie of the year. You won the World Series champion. You did all these great things. You broke the color barrier in baseball. But you can’t ever get to a place where you feel like, well, yeah, man, I’m finally here, and it’s just great. You got to know that you can always be replaced. You’re always expandable, so you gotta take it and appreciate it.

When I first started covering the NBA, it wasn’t a job that I was handed. I was filling in for somebody. And I’m not a big Eminem fan, so I’m not going to act like I am, but I played “Lose Yourself” like every day because I was really in that moment and I knew I couldn’t let it go. This is my shot. I had to go in there, and I had to have this desire to like, okay, they opened the door for me, but they messed up, because I’m coming in, and I’m ready to… I’m busting through the door. You’re not going to kick me back out now.

And that’s the mentality that you have to have. You’re going to face disappointment. I faced disappointments throughout my entire career. And so there are just things you gotta understand and you got to value. And you can’t really sit back and say, oh, man, it’s so tough, man. I don’t know if I can really fight through it.

It is hard. It’s disappointing. And I’m speaking as somebody who’s really faced some hard times. But you gotta also know that, when you get those opportunities and you have the chance to do something great, that you got to take advantage of it and know that it’s fleeting, just know that it’s fleeting, it’s not promised. Nothing is promised to you in this business as long as you’re relying on someone else to pay your salary.

Dave Zirin:  Right. One more journalist question, if I could. You did an amazing job on, let’s call it the beat, of the Black Lives Matter movement in the world of sports. And sometimes I take a step back and I think, wow, Colin Kaepernick taking that knee for the first time was seven-and-a-half years ago.

Michael Lee:  Amazing.

Dave Zirin:  Amazing. Seven and a half years. That’s like the difference between 1960 and 1968. It can be a political lifetime. So that issue of athletes using sports as a platform to speak about racial inequity and police violence, has that era, is there a cap now on that era and it needs to be rebuilt? Or you have a mind of, well, it’s ongoing. It’s just more of a placid period right now?

Because I know a lot of people who think, yeah, kids 18 right now were 10 when Kaep was doing his thing, something’s going to have to be rebuilt because that era has been effectively, I don’t want to say memory holed, but effectively put in the backseat. And I wanted to know your perspective.

And then with the bigger question, when do you know when a story is over?

Michael Lee:  Man, that’s a great question, because I’ve actually thought about that myself. I’ve wondered where is the activism in professional sports, and was that a moment that we just had, and we just got to just appreciate that we had it? Because I honestly don’t have the answer. And it is something that is floating through my mind.

One thing that, when I think about what Kaepernick did, it was such a risk, and he lost his career. And you can even see up until last fall, he still wanted a shot back in the NFL that you knew was never going to happen.

And I think that all you’ve seen since has been a lot of safe protests. There are moments where the NBA has allowed players to take a knee or they’ve allowed guys to put things on the back of their jersey during COVID. And I think that guys are finding safe spaces to say things that aren’t offensive that don’t really put them in a position where they can lose anything because there’s so much to gain.

There’s so much money to be made now. The salaries have reached exponential levels that we probably didn’t think could happen. Ohtani got a $700 million deal. If you can reach that kind of money playing a sport, you might want to zip it up a little bit because they will get rid of you if you make everybody feel a little bit too uncomfortable.

So I think that the money has silenced guys. And also knowing that what you can lose, guys are trying to figure out ways that they can maneuver without losing anything. And I think that’s where we are now.

And there’s no issues that are really pushing them to speak out. Maybe there are, but I noticed that no one’s saying anything about any of these wars going on in the world. No one’s speaking out on anything on that behalf because there’s so much more to lose than there is to gain. And I think right now guys are just trying to get this money.

Dave Zirin:  Yeah. It’s funny, I was talking earlier with former NBA player Tariq Abdul-Wahad, and he said something very similar as he’s attempting to find athletes to speak out for a ceasefire with regards to Israel and Gaza. So what you’re saying rings very true.

Michael Lee:  Yeah, I think you’ve seen guys… You saw what happened to Kaepernick, he lost it all. And I don’t want to go to this extreme, but think about it like this. I know sometimes people say, why are there no more MLKs? Why are there no more Malcolm Xs? Why are there no more leaders of that caliber? Well, they were killed. And everyone saw what happened to them. So if that’s the case, if that’s the reward at the end, not everybody’s brave enough to say, I want to take that path.

Just to bring it to the sports level, Kaepernick spoke out, and what he did was noble and admirable and everyone respected it. And obviously, he got respect for days for what he did, but he lost what most of the guys aren’t willing to sacrifice, which is their careers.

And when you see him even saying, I want to play now, and I’m still capable of playing if you give me a chance, and everyone’s turning their head to him, it’s like, well, dang. What do I really want out of this life? Do I want to be an activist or do I want to be an athlete?

And I think that if you’ve invested your whole life in being an athlete, and you’ve kind of gone down that path, and this is what you’ve made your whole life about, you’re not willing to give that up. And if you want to really try to do things when you’re done playing, maybe you will. But there’s so much at stake beyond just the money, but also your career, that I don’t think guys are willing to lose all that the way Kaepernick did.

Dave Zirin:  And of course, got to mention that you’re wearing a Muhammad Ali sweatshirt right now.

Michael Lee:  Yes, yes, yes.

Dave Zirin:  And it’s one of those things where it’s been said by others that he was only truly embraced by this country once he lost the power of speech.

Michael Lee:  Absolutely.

Dave Zirin:  And this idea that they make you make that choice between being an athlete and an activist, when I think a lot of folks would have no problem, if they felt like the risk wasn’t there, of wearing both hats with comfort and confidence.

Look, we’ve been talking about journalism in big picture, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up, before you go, a work of journalism that you did recently in December that was so good. And I have spread this around all over the place.

You went to Mississippi, and you asked a very provocative question: If youth football is going down all over the country, largely because parents are becoming more educated about injuries and concussions, why is it still so prominent and even growing in Mississippi and Alabama?

But you didn’t just think about it theoretically. You went down there and you spoke to folks to get answers. What did you come up with, and how did it change your own views and ideas about youth football?

Michael Lee:  It was great. It was an altering experience on a lot of fronts, because I think you can just look at it and just say, oh, everyone, they’re in a poverty-stricken area. They’re poor. What else do they have to push them to achieve?

And in Mississippi, that’s probably one of the places where it actually fits. There isn’t a lot to do in Mississippi. There aren’t a lot of things that are going to provide a positive outlet for kids down there. Such a unique place in the country where there aren’t a lot of big towns, there aren’t a lot of big cities, distractions and things to try to pull you away. There’s a country culture there. There’s a toughness there that’s instilled in these kids from a very young age.

And so playing football is just a traditional thing. Your uncles played it, your father played it, everybody played it. So when it comes to be your turn, you gotta do it.

And so for me, the one thing that I came away with, though, that really struck me was that while we talk about poverty from a material perspective, what about poverty from a moral perspective? Which one would you value more? Would you want to be in a situation where you have all the money in the world but you’re not loved and supported?

When I went down to Mississippi, I saw communities where people were living in trailers and living in really backwoods conditions, but what they had was the support of their loved ones. What they had was a constant connection to a community and to the people who love them. And so I came away with a sense that, yeah, while they may be lacking in some areas, they’re winning in other areas.

I had a great conversation with one of the coaches for Starkville High, which is a school that I featured in the story. And he was like, there’s a pride in these homes. Even though you may look and say, yeah, these are poor places and they don’t have a lot, but inside that home, there’s a lot of pride. And so the kids that come out of there are going to embody what’s being taught inside that home.

And he said, you can find a house on the highest hill, and you can find the biggest mansion on the highest hill, but I guarantee you, you won’t find more love in that house than you’ll find in these houses here.

And so when you take a step back and try to figure out what’s really important, what’s valuable to you, what do you value, what means the most to you, is it having a paycheck that allows you to buy whatever you want, or is it having the love and support of people who are going to be there for you through whatever?

And some people are fortunate enough to have it all, but not everybody does. But if you value one above the other and you’re getting that fulfillment and that support and that love from the people who you care about, then are you really lacking? And what are you really lacking for?

And so I came away from there with just a different perspective on a lot of different things, but one thing that I came away with too is that football is something that we definitely knock because of the damage it can do to your head and your body, the long-term ramifications that it can have. But there also are people who are able to use football and not just to try to get to the NFL and become rich, but to get out of situations where they can get a college scholarship and get a job and provide for their families in a way that they may not have been in the past.

So there’s so many ways you can look at it. And so that’s what I came away with. It’s not as simple as saying don’t do it because you might get head trauma, because you might not get head trauma, and you might be able to provide for your family.

Dave Zirin:  Well, you know what? That’s a very interesting perspective for folks to take in as we head into the Super Bowl hype season, for sure.

Michael Lee:  Absolutely, yeah.

Dave Zirin:  To put it mildly.

Hey, Michael Lee, I really appreciate your time. Everybody should just Google “Michael Lee Washington Post” — Make sure you don’t put the word “senator” by mistake because that’s a very…

Michael Lee:  Please don’t do that [laughs]!

Dave Zirin:  …That’s a very different dude. So do “Michael Lee sports Washington Post“, and you’re going to get a treasure trove of articles, the likes of which will restore your faith in sports journalism.

Michael, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports TV.

Michael Lee:  Hey, thank you, Dave. It’s far too kind, man. I appreciate it, man. I need to take you on the road, man. You’re like Flavor Flav over here, man. You got me all hyped.

Dave Zirin:  Hey, you know what? If I could be Flavor Flav, that’s a life worth living. That’s all I’ve got to say. Get up, get up, get, get, get down. I’ll do it. I’ll do it. I’ll embarrass myself. But that’s okay. Thanks so much for joining us.

Michael Lee:  Thank you for having me. It was great.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories, and struggles that you care about most. And we need your help to keep doing this work. So please tap your screen now, subscribe, and donate to The Real News Network. Solidarity forever.

When Iowa’s Caitlin Clark broke Kelsey Plum’s NCAA women’s points record, she was inaccurately named the highest scoring player in the history of women’s collegiate basketball. But another player, Kansas legend Lynette Woodard, had actually scored more points in her career as part of the pre-NCAA Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). Clark eventually broke Woodard’s record as well, but the confusion about Clark’s place in the history books shows that today’s players, fans, and commentators have much to learn from the hidden early history of women’s collegiate basketball. Professor Diane Williams of McDaniel College joins Edge of Sports to discuss this little-known early chapter of the sport.

Studio Production: David Hebden
Post-Production: Taylor Hebden
Audio Post-Production: David Hebden
Opening Sequence: Cameron Granadino
Music by: Eze Jackson & Carlos Guillen

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Speaker 1:

(singing)

Dave Zirin:

Welcome to Edge of Sports, the TV show only on The Real News Network. Right now in our Ask a Sports Scholar segment, we are talking to Professor Diane Williams from McDaniel College about Caitlin Clark and the incredible hidden history of women’s hoops. And yes, we do have her in studio. Let’s talk to the professor now.

Professor Williams, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports TV.

Diane Williams:

Thank you for having me.

Dave Zirin:

Well, there’s so much I want to speak with you about, but first and foremost, let’s have Caitlin Clark be the starting point, the biggest attraction I think generationally in NCAA sports. Just some thoughts on who Caitlin Clark is and what she means to the game of hoops.

Diane Williams:

Well, I think… So I’ve been a fan of the Iowa women’s team since I was a grad student there. I got to know a little bit about the coaching staff, been watching those teams for the last 10 plus years, and Caitlin Clark is an individual who is incredible, obviously ridiculously talented. I’m thrilled she went to Iowa. She was an Iowa kid, and she really is an interesting figure in that she’s really taking seriously the idea of being a role model and the idea of being a star I think in an interesting way. She’s balancing those pretty well, and thinking about both her own success, her team’s success, and the broader picture of women’s basketball, of women’s sports, and of just celebrating the potential that is there. And she’s showing us some of that potential in her play and in the way she’s navigating all the different pressures and excitement of this moment.

Dave Zirin:

Yeah. I think she’s really interesting too. I’ve felt like there’ve been times where the media has tried to play her against other players, particularly Angel Reese, Kelsey Plum, who we’re going to talk about a little bit more, and she doesn’t take that bait. I feel like she’s really sort of mature and intentional about being a white superstar, and that’s certainly unique for somebody that age.

Diane Williams:

It’s also such a reminder to me of all those top players on those teams have played together. They know each other. They go way back. And I think sometimes that’s one of those things that when media wants to jump in and divide, we forget that there’s relationships already existing there. And depending on how the players want to relate to each other, Caitlin Clark seems to be dedicated to the kind of lifting up and supporting across the board, and let’s go, let’s all get better together. I mean, and relishing the competitiveness and the like, she’ll trash talk. She’s dedicated to her team. She’s going to defend what she thinks is right, and she always has, and she wants everybody else to too. Yeah.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. Now, when she hit that 30-footer to set the NCAA women’s scoring record, breaking Kelsey Plum’s mark, the announcers were really big on saying that Caitlin Clark has now scored the most points in college women’s history. Now, that’s not quite correct, is it?

Diane Williams:

No, it is not. So before the NCAA offered women’s intercollegiate sport, period, the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics, the AIAW, they had, for 10 years, been hosting women’s intercollegiate sport. It was led by women. The entire athletic governance organization was founded by women who were physical educators, and who were really dedicated to creating a different kind of sport culture and one that was for women, and it was educationally rooted. The organization was focused on student athletes’ rights, their well-being, sport being a part of their educational experience, something that the NCAA sort of has a different take on, a little bit more of a commercial view on that side. And so the scoring record, actually, Kelsey Plum’s record was from the NCAA years, which started in ’82, but there’s 10 years of history before that that there was another important record that Caitlin Clark broke a few games later.

Dave Zirin:

Yeah, speak about that. Who was the AIAW all-time scoring leader?

Diane Williams:

Yeah, so there’s two. So the big college scoring leader was Lynette Woodard from Kansas, and she set that record right at the end of the AIAW’s time, even leading intercollegiate athletics for women. And actually, if you watched the game when Clark broke that record, Lynette Woodard was there. She was at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City. They interviewed her before the game. They gave her a standing ovation, and both her and Clark have talked about the significance of both of them being there, and the idea that partly Woodard said, Clark is helping to bring attention to this history that has been really ignored, some would argue buried, that there’s so many women in intercollegiate basketball we don’t even know about. We don’t know their stories, we don’t know their glories, and yet, this history is just, it was 10 years before the NCAA offered sport, and it was big.

Dave Zirin:

So you used the word buried. Why do you think this history is so buried? Because that certainly speaks to an intentionality to use that word again about the AIAW, and honestly, I love sports history. Without your work, I never would’ve known about the AIAW. Why is this history obscured?

Diane Williams:

Well so I don’t know if I can necessarily say why, I don’t know the intentions, but I can tell you a little bit of the story. When the AIAW started, the NCAA didn’t have interest in facilitating women’s sports. And the folks, the women who went on to lead the organization said that, “Great, we’re going to go do it ourselves then.” And they created a nationwide governing organization that was, at its peak, it was 970 plus members, colleges and universities across the country hosting 19 different sports, which is more than the NCAA has ever offered for women or men in three different divisions. So in 10 years, they grew from nothing to huge, and were really proving that there was, I mean, a lot of appetite for women’s intercollegiate athletics, which was feeding down to high school and youth. There was this whole revolution happening, and they were leading it.

When Title IX was finally… So Title IX was passed in ’72. It took a number of years for it to be interpreted, and it wasn’t intended to be applied to sports. It was an educationally focused bill about academic programs, funding. But immediately, particularly on the women’s side, they realized, “Oh, this could help us get some money, and we sorely need money. We have the resources.” Were laughably small for what they were trying to build. And so during the ’70s, Title IX is being interpreted. The Congress is figuring out how do we even apply this to sport? What does it look like to have gender equity in sport? Sports are really different than who gets led into a dentist program or dental training program.

So ultimately, in ’79 some standards come out of how we’re going to actually account for gender equity in sport. They’re both clear and kind of convoluted in different ways, but it became clear that it was actually going to be enforced. Well, that was the idea. And really, I think the NCAA got nervous that while the NCAA as a governing organization and the AIAW, they weren’t subject to Title IX, but all of their member institutions were. And so if they were not in line with the law, it could be a problem. And so the NCAA had been sort of working with the AIAW a little bit on parallel tracks in the early part of the ’70s. They had verged away from that by the later part of the ’70s. And by the time that this all happened, not only was the NCAA and men’s sport organizing against Title IX being applied to athletics, against football being included, they were trying to get it exempted.

There’s all kinds of things happening, but the NCAA was working actively against Title IX, including athletics, but it decided to switch course and start offering women’s championships without discussion with the AIAW, without even recognition that there was already a massive infrastructure in place that was hosting women’s championships. And the AIAW… There was some movements to try and work together. Maybe we can come and find the best of both worlds, a highly competitive, financially sustainable model pulling from the NCAA side, but that valued the student athlete experience more, and the wellbeing of the student athletes. That quickly got dismissed by the NCAA, and instead, they chose to offer competing championships the same weekends as the AIAW championships. In some cases, they financially incentivize schools to join their championships. They had the money and resources to say, “We can pay for your travel, pay for your food, pay for your lodging if you come to our championships.”

The AIAW was just starting to generate some cash, just had some media contracts, couldn’t compete. And within a year, the AIAW had ended, had ceased operations. And so the NCAA won in some ways, and there was a pretty big loss of an emphasis on student wellbeing for women’s sport and women having women role models in leadership positions in sport, period.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. Ruthless by the NCAA. Talk about intentionality.

Diane Williams:

Yeah.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. Before we stay on that, the time in which the AIAW came to be feels very much in the middle of the women’s liberation movement. Were there direct connections between the broader struggle and the emergence of this organization?

Diane Williams:

So ideologically, yes, in that it was a movement to bring women into spaces that they had been told they weren’t allowed to be in, and in a very public way. The organization itself was trying to navigate bringing together women who wanted to expand women’s sport opportunities across the country from different geographic regions, different political persuasions. Some of those women would’ve been all for identifying as feminists, and plenty of them would’ve been absolutely not. Not to mention if they did, they could get fired if they were rocking the boat too much. They were all sort of navigating these expectations while trying to push forward something that was actually pretty radical, bringing women’s sport into the mainstream in this way.

And so there was a lot of negotiating happening, which I think is often the case. Behind the scenes a little bit more, the AIAW was working with some of the education and legal organizations in DC, and they were hooked in. They had convinced them that women’s sport was actually a really important part of this whole conversation around women’s liberation in society. And then the Women’s Sport Foundation started around this time. And so there’s a lot of connecting happening, often a little bit more behind the scenes from the AIAW, what they were putting out front, but the connections were happening, and it was helping when they needed to lobby Congress say that they could call in some of those networks to talk about the importance of women’s sport and young girls in sport as a part of educational equity, as a part of women having a more viable and a more vibrant role in society.

Dave Zirin:

So what at long last do you think is the legacy…

Diane Williams:

Oh, so many.

Dave Zirin:

… of this organization. What is their living legacy today?

Diane Williams:

I see… As you and I’ve talked about, I see some of their legacy in the movements around student athletes being active, demanding better conditions that they’re playing in, in just speaking up, in realizing that they should have a say in the organization that is leading intercollegiate athletics, and that is something that is so different than the NCAA’s norm. Some of the shifts that have happened in the interest of student athlete rights has really been a part… Often, there’s connection to people who are involved with AIAW, actually both in the leadership of the NCAA or schools. If they stuck it out, they often were there making change, people like Dr. Christine Grant and Charlotte West and plenty of others. And so I mean, I really see the positive legacy is… And this is kind of cool, because student athletes don’t necessarily know that they’re actually a part of a legacy of speaking up.

Dave Zirin:

I was thinking about Dartmouth forming the men’s team, forming the union, and about how, even if it’s not conscious, there is a thread that exists because of what you said, of demanding a voice and demanding some sense of ownership and autonomy over your life as a college athlete.

Diane Williams:

Yeah. One of the former presidents of the AIAW that I interviewed, Peg Burke at the University of Iowa, said, well, paraphrasing, she told me, “When the college athletes are 18, they’re legally adults. They should have a say in what’s happening out there in sports, out there in their sport experience.” And so that the union move is so exciting. And I’d like to imagine that a governing organization would consider how the student athletes are experiencing what they’re experiencing on teams and in the championship structure and in the schedules and all these things. And yet, the NCAA has proven that they don’t care. They haven’t. There hasn’t been nearly enough attention paid to that, and meaningful engagement of student athlete voice in governing that is so different than the model that is so top down that they have set up, and was something that was integrated in the AIAW model. Student athletes had representation on the executive board, on down to the school level, really different set up.

So I hope that that is… I see some of the legacy in there. I see the legacy for sure in some of the women coaches who are still coaching who go back to AIAW days, players who are in coaching, sport media positions. There’s an interesting spill out from people who are connected to sport through the AIAW and took those values into the jobs that they had even when it was under the NCAA.

Dave Zirin:

This history is actually getting a little bit of life with Lynette Woodard coming to the fore. It seems like this whole history is just ripe for a book. Is that something you’d be interested in pursuing?

Diane Williams:

I’m working on that. I’m working on that.

Dave Zirin:

You are working on a book?

Diane Williams:

I am.

Dave Zirin:

How about this? Terrific. Will you return to the program…

Diane Williams:

Yes.

Dave Zirin:

… when the book is in print…

Diane Williams:

Always.

Dave Zirin:

… so we can go through what you learned?

Diane Williams:

Absolutely.

Dave Zirin:

That’s fantastic. And one last question, please. When you teach about this organization at McDaniel College, what is the reaction? I mean, I assume a few if none know about it, but I mean, is this something that makes the student’s eyes go wide?

Diane Williams:

I think so. And I will say one of the neatest things about this organization that makes me want to talk about it to everybody, one, is that it was visionary. It was a group of people who said, what exists in the norm isn’t good enough, and we think we can do better. And then they did. And that to me is exciting because it reminds us that it’s flexible how we manage sport, how we think about sport, what sport even looks like, who gets to be involved.

And two, every single school had people, usually women that were leading the women’s athletic department, that were coaching their teams, that are local heroes that that school may or may not even know about. And so when I teach about this at McDaniel, I get to talk about Carol Fritz, who was the women’s athletics director there. We have a beautiful display of women’s sport history, like uniforms and field hockey sticks and things that I can point them to. And we can bring this history to a very local level and learn more about someone who’s like, her name is on this beautiful display, but we don’t see her around as much anymore. But we can also learn more about the kinds of struggles that she and every other institution had, somebody there that was doing that work and encountering a whole lot of resistance and deserves their flowers, deserves their thanks and deserves some cheering on from a generation that is now learning about it again.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. Well, this has been amazing and this has been an education. Is there anything else you’d like to add, Professor Williams?

Diane Williams:

I mean, keep supporting women’s sports.

Dave Zirin:

Yeah, right on.

Diane Williams:

It’s where it’s at.

Dave Zirin:

That is where it’s at. I hear everyone watches women sports.

Diane Williams:

Everyone watches women’s sports.

Dave Zirin:

There it is. There it is.

Diane Williams:

Me and coach Dailey.

Dave Zirin:

Yeah. Professor Diane Williams, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sorts TV.

Diane Williams:

Thank you, Dave.

Speaker 4:

Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories and struggles that you care about most, and we need your help to keep doing this work. So please tap your screen now, subscribe and donate to the Real News Network. Solidarity forever.

The study of the role played by sports in social change often focuses on the professional sphere, or on high-profile events like the Olympics. But in 1950s Indiana, the all-Black Crispus Attucks High School basketball team struck a pioneering blow for the end of racial segregation after winning two state championship victories shortly after the state integrated its sports. Veteran Sports Illustrated journalist Jack McCallum joins Edge of Sports to discuss the Crispus Attucks team’s historic wins, which is the subject of his book, The Real Hoosiers.

Studio Production: David Hebden
Post-Production: Taylor Hebden
Audio Post-Production: David Hebden
Opening Sequence: Cameron Granadino
Music by: Eze Jackson & Carlos Guillen

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Dave Zirin:

Welcome to Edge of Sports, the TV show only on the Real News Network. Today we are talking to perhaps the most accomplished basketball writer ever, longtime Sports Illustrated scribe and bestselling author, Jack McCallum. We will discuss his new book, the Real Hoosiers: Crispus Attucks High School, Oscar Robertson, and The Hidden History of Hoops and more, believe me. Let’s go to him now. Jack McCallum, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports TV.

Jack McCallum:

My honor, Dave, great to be here.

Dave Zirin:

So let’s just start with the book, the Real Hoosiers. Talk to us about what this book is and how you came upon this project.

Jack McCallum:

Well, it’s a story of, it’s both a, I hope, a political, cultural, economic story, but I’m not smart enough to carry that thread all the way through. So it’s also a basketball story. It begins, Dave, with sort of the origin of this high school named Crispus Attucks High School in western Indianapolis that was built as a segregated school in the 1920s. Because the same replacement theory we hear now, every place you have the word migrants, you could substitute the word African Americans, that a lot of Blacks were coming from the South and other places in the great migration to work in the factories of Indianapolis. And the city fathers, particularly the school board of Indianapolis, was worried that they were being replaced, that there was this overflow of Black students coming in and mixing with the white kids. And Indianapolis was justifiably proud of its educational system.

They did have good public schools. They were subtly segregated. A lot of Black kids just didn’t go to school. They began working when they were in eighth grade and ninth grade. So they built this high school and everybody thought it would fail because it had insufficient resources, secondhand equipment, all the things that you give a school that’s not your priority. But strangely, in an FU of epic proportions, the educated African Americans who had master’s degree in some cases, PhDs, or at least bachelor’s degrees, began saying, this is a good place to teach. We can’t get jobs at white universities. They still have to pay us the public school. At least the school district had to adhere to public school money.

And so, this incredible faculty flooded to Crispus Attucks High School when it opened in 1927. By three decades later, it had become a kind of basketball story because the same revolution that happened to African American education started to happen in basketball with the ascension of this coach named Ray Crow. And the ascension of these players, two of them were named Robertson. The last one named Oscar. And when he hit the scene in 1953 as a sophomore, all bets were off and it became this great basketball story.

Dave Zirin:

Yeah. I look forward to talking to you about Oscar and the basketball story. But before we get there, the first thing that captured me about the book, you had me before page one, because you start with this magisterial quote from W.E.B. Du Bois and his 1903 classic, the Souls of Black Folk. And really quickly, I want to read the quote for the audience and hoping you can explain why on a so-called hoops book, you would start with such words.

Here’s the quote, A new vision began, gradually, to replace the dream of political power, a powerful movement, the rise of another ideal to guide the unguided, another pillar of fire by night after a clouded day. It was the ideal of book learning, the curiosity born of compulsory ignorance, to know and test the power of the kabbalistic letters of the white man. The longing to know. Here at last seemed to have been discovered the mountain path to Canaan. Longer than the highway of emancipation and law, steep and rugged, but straight. Leading to heights, high enough to overlook life. Wow. Wow. You explained in your first answer, I think people get the context of why you would say something like that, but can you speak a little more about it?

Jack McCallum:

Well, two things, Dave. When I told my son, who you probably crossed paths with as a sociology professor, I told him about this idea of the book, and he went, “Oh, well, you have a W.E.B. Du Bois in it, right?” I said, “well, I certainly know about the Souls of Black Folk. I can’t say that I read it all the way through.” I immediately got it and started reading it. And throughout the book and throughout the history of Christmas Attics high school, there became kind of this tension as to whether they were going to be more Du Bois, which was sort of a revolutionary intellectual approach to education, or they were going to be more Booker T. Washington, these sort of classic working class hero that we have to make this a vocational school, that we have to do the best we can, and we got to turn out carpenters laborers.

And Du Bois was saying, “No, no, no, we have to turn out thinkers and politicians.” So it became, I’m not smart enough to turn this into a completely philosophical book, but that undertone of what kind of high school we were going to be, that was not an invented thing. That was a very strong thing in the early years of Crispus Attucks. And quite frankly, if you were a working class Black family, you had a lot to say for going the Booker T. Washington way. We had to get a job. We got to learn how to work within the white man system. So I think this tension between Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, which I’m not saying is resolved, but I think the fact there was this very tension and dialectic about it really helped grow that high school and produce all these remarkable people out of Crispus Attucks High School.

Dave Zirin:

Amazing. So how long did you know, even the basics of the Crispus Attucks history before embarking upon this book, even the most basics, the all Black team that won two championships in the shadow of the clan? How much of this did you know?

Jack McCallum:

Not much. And I understand if anybody bothers to write my obituary, the second sentence is, oh, this is the guy that wrote Dream Team: Michael Magic Larry, the era of basketball, which you and I have talked about a hundred times, and I get that, and that’s fine, but it’s sort of like I never wanted to be, oh, I was just that guy that covered basketball in the eighties and happened to have this great fortune of coming along during that golden age.

So I was looking for another story, Dave. And the story I came upon, it was during the pandemic and I was rehabbing my knee and like everybody else, I was in this existential crisis of reexamining things. And I started researching of all things, the history of lynching. You can’t have a more uglier subject. And I came upon this story in Marian, Indiana of a team that had won the state basketball championship in 1926. 4 years later hung two Black men in the same town square where they celebrated.

I became kind of fascinated with that story, wanted to do a book on it, and examined it a little bit, and it didn’t feel like me. And a number of people told me, I don’t think you need somebody else white-splaining the horrible history of lynching in America. It was too raw of a story. It was George Floyd. A lot of things were going on, and it was the wrong book.

And during the course of looking at… I went to Marion, Indiana a few times, did the research, have this much research that I still have about that. But I found the Attucks story with which I was vaguely familiar. Oh, that’s the team that was sort of connected to the movie Hoosiers, and was that the team? Was Oscar the guy in the movie? And so, when I started researching and I said, wow, this is just an amazing story, the way it unravels and the extent to which the white narrative, a fictional narrative, has overtaken this Black narrative. And hey, I’m responsible for it too. I never wrote anything about Crispus Attucks, yet I have certainly written two or three [inaudible 00:09:52] to Hoosiers. So I thought it was a good book to pursue in that sense.

Dave Zirin:

Yeah. Let’s take a second and talk about Hoosiers. Gene Hackman as coach Norman Dale. The first time you saw Hoosiers, what was your reaction to that film?

Jack McCallum:

Well, look, I’d be a hypocrite if I… And this is very fresh for me because I just had an exchange of emails with Angelo Pizzo who wrote the movie, and I’ve known Angelo for years, and he was not happy with everything I wrote in the chapter, sort of delineating the truth and the differences between the movie Hoosiers and the reality of Crispus Attucks. But I would be a hypocrite if I now said, well, it was terrible. It overtook the, Hey man, gene Hackman. He’s like the greatest actor to me. Seriously, literally the greatest actor that I’ve ever seen.

And the story, the way it begins coming into the town. I grew up in the 1950s, not in Indiana, but in a small New Jersey town, fell in love with basketball. Certainly, I was fortunate enough that I went to a very much of a mixed race high school, but I certainly grew up playing basketball with a lot of white guys and hearing a lot of white coaches teach me basketball the fundamental way and breaking into gymnasiums that looked like the Hickory High gymnasium.

So I loved the movie, and I get it. I really, really get its place. But I did start to notice that in the post George Floyd era, smarter people than me, were taking a different reckoning of it, that it comes across a different way to people. And it is certainly fair to those ways that things have changed. And I told Angelo Pizzo in this email, I said, “Look, man, things are going to change. People are going to analyze it differently. But if 50 years from now you still have a movie that people are going to be looking at, and if they draw something from there that you didn’t intend, Hey man, that’s just the way it goes.” But I’d be too hypocritical if I said, “Oh, everything is wrong with Hoosiers.” I’m not that guy.

Dave Zirin:

Well, yeah, I mean, it’s been almost 40 years since it dropped. So like Muhammad Ali said, “If you haven’t changed in 40 years, then you’re still in the same place.” So can you lay out for people who maybe aren’t familiar with Hoosiers. From a 2024 lens, what’s problematic about the film?

Jack McCallum:

Well, first of all, Hoosiers was drawn not from an original source. When Angelo and the director, David Anspaugh, who are Hoosiers themselves still Indiana IU basketball season ticket holders, they didn’t have a book or a movie that they took it from as like Jeff Perlman wrote Showtime, and they made the HBO special from, there wasn’t a book out there. There was this story of the gritty white, small team from Milan High School that had won the state championship in 1952. That was definitely the raw material. That was the raw material for the book. The story of that team.

I think a couple things that need to be noted, however, was the template and the paradigm for winning the Indiana State Basketball Championship was that kind of team. By that point, Indiana State Basketball Tournament had been played since 1911, I think. So most of these champions that were these gritty, white teams that had played together from the time they were in second and third grade, played very, very fundamental basketball.

Indianapolis, as a school, school district had never won a state championship until Attucks won it. So the idea that these guys were the outsiders, the little kids that somehow overcame great odds. And don’t get me wrong, Milan High School was a small high school. Don’t get that wrong. However, there were other teams like them that won the state championship, and the real outsiders coming into this thing were the Black schools. That, first of all, it was a very new phenomenon. They were kept by a catch 22 rule. Black schools were kept from competing in the state tournament for the first 30 years of the tournament. They didn’t start coming into it until 1942 or 1943. It’s in the book. Some of the dates are escaping me. So all those years they were kept out of the tournament. So those kind of background and story were not in Hoosiers, but I said in the book, Angelo and David Anspaugh, they wrote the story.

They wrote their truth. That was their truth. After I wrote Dream Team, a couple of people said to me, “Why the hell didn’t you write the story of the Lithuanian team, the team that had suffered more under the heel of the Russian captor and had their own bloody Sunday and had to raise money?” I said, “Good point. I hope somebody writes that book. That’s not the book that I wrote.” But at this time and place, I think it’s time that we unraveled the fact and fiction from Hoosiers since it is an indisputable fact that the white narrative of Hoosiers has overtaken the Black reality of Crispus Attucks. So this book in part is an attempt to straighten that out.

Dave Zirin:

Amazing. It’s like Howard Zinn wrote through these fingers.

Jack McCallum:

This is the people’s history.

Dave Zirin:

It is like a people’s history of Indiana basketball. Now, one of the great figures in the book, and to the audience out there, you got to get this book. It’s as good a basketball book as I’ve ever read. And it’s not just a basketball book. Oscar Robertson is so much a part of this story. Who is Oscar then, and who is the Oscar who you have been around for so many years?

Jack McCallum:

The Oscar then, and pretty much the Oscar that I haven’t been around Oscar now as much as I would’ve liked, and I think one of the ways to sort of define Oscar is that he and Jerry West were so much the magic and bird of their time. White player, Black player, great dominated college basketball, came into the league together. Oscar was the number one pick. Jerry was the number two pick.

Since 1960 when they came into the league, that’s 64 years ago. Jerry West has rarely been absent from the NBA, not just because he’s literally the symbol of the game. Player, coach, general manager, consultant. Jerry’s been there. Oscar, pretty much divorced from the league, never a coach, never a general manager. Had this team that he went to, the Cincinnati Royals, which became, who are they? Kansas City, Sacramento, never knew exactly who to honor him with, won his championship with Kareem and Milwaukee.

So they represent these two kind of parallel courses. So the Oscar that came into Crispus Attucks as a sophomore was smart, disciplined, determined. I hate to use the word angry because that conjures up this, I’m not going to listen to anybody else, and I’m pissed off from the beginning. But Oscar was not a sweet man. Somebody told me, and one of the players, a historian from Indianapolis named Stanley Warren, a great scholar, said, “Oscar got a lot to be pissed off about, and he’s pissed off.” He wasn’t forgetting these things that happened to him. And so, when it came time, I knew from dealing with Oscar a little bit for Sports Illustrated, that he just wasn’t happy with the media, whether it would be the Caucasian media or media in general. He just thought that his story has never been told accurately. He worries that the Crispus Attucks narrative has been lifted from him and his teammates and taken over by certainly the Hoosiers narrative.

He’s pissed about that. And I tried eight to ten times to talk to him for the book, and he finally wrote back and said, “Good luck with your project. I will not be cooperating.” Which from the beginning was perhaps based on my previous interactions with Oscar, was really not the surprising outcome. Now I can rationalize and I am and saying, I think it’s just as good a book without them, I didn’t want to do a biography of Oscar. That’s not what I was looking to do.

But something inside my job at Sports Illustrated was always to get to the guys. That’s what I did when I did Dream Team. The biggest challenge was not writing the book. The biggest challenge was making sure I got all 12 of those guys to sit down and talk to me and pour out their feelings. Fortunately, I was able to do that. So there’s a little part of me that is disenchanted that Oscar was not personally a part of this, even though, obviously, he’s all through the book

Dave Zirin:

Now, Oscar Robertson was also a labor trailblazer and a rebel in that regard. Do you see any common threads between the person he was at Crispus Attucks and the rebel that he was in the NBA?

Jack McCallum:

No, no question. Oscar came from this area, this part of town. He played at this playground called the Dust Bowl, which by the time he got there, it was not really dusty. It was in the west side of town. It had been established by these two Black policemen, the police athletic league, and it hatched this incredible basketball culture. It’s as important as… It’s Rucker Park 20 years before that hatched to Dr. Jay and Connie Hawkins and all those kinds of people. So the person that grew up there, tough leader, always looking, Larry Fleischer, the great union leader, told Oscar at one point, “You have exactly the attribute.You need to be a labor leader. You have a complete distrust of the other side. You are programmed to believe that whatever they say is bullshit.”

And that’s, Oscar weighs everything. And Dave, there’s a great quote in the book that Ray Crow, his coach died. He was one of the many people died before, was long dead before I could talk to them. But this quote that I always was running through my head as I wrote the book was, Ray goes, “Oscar. He just ran the game. He just ran the game. And I’ve said that if you could get 20 players out there, the greatest players of all time, Magic, Michael, Larry, LeBron, Steph, get them all out there at one time, I guarantee you that when they were going to pick teams, Oscar would pick it up and go, all right, man, who’s on my team because I’m running this shit.” That’s sort of how he was as a player, and that’s how he was as a leader. He took it very seriously. And the name that on the lawsuit that gave the NBA free agency, it would’ve happened, eventually. There’s no question about that. But it happened quicker because of a suit called Oscar Robertson versus the National Basketball Association. His name is on that lawsuit.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. I could talk to you this whole time about Oscar Robertson, but I want to get back to the book. You’ve mentioned Ray Crow several times, and he’s such a great character in the book. Who was Ray Crow, and what was his sense of mission with regards to Crispus Attucks?

Jack McCallum:

Well, Ray was a guy who grew up in Indianapolis. He is the brother of George Crow, who back before I started this project, I would’ve known George Crow, great baseball player. I remember him. Big muscular pinch hitter for the Cincinnati Reds. Ray was part of a big family. They grew up in the, as I said in the book, the appropriately named Whiteland, Indiana as this only Black family in town. So Ray grew up with white people. That’s how he went to school. He was a smart kid, got to college, did go to a Black school. But his upbringing was sort of this guy who knew how to get along in both worlds, that he had been brought through a white school system, got a job coming out of college and it wasn’t paying anything. And somebody said, “Why don’t you go be a teacher?”

And he was a smart guy. He got a job teaching at Crispus Attucks. And one of the threads of the book, Dave, is that Crispus Attucks High School as an all Black high school playing against mostly white teams, had to figure out how to comport itself. Did they act like they were on the… There was always this worry that they would be too Black, that they would be too playground. So this culture was kind of hatched at Crispus Attucks High School that was very polite. They played basketball very politely, hands off on defense, didn’t do a lot of running, guarded your man, but stayed off of him a little bit. And that was the philosophy imparted by the previous coach.

So when Ray Crow got there, Ray had to figure out how to thread this needle. He had to figure out how to still comport to what the principal and the administrators at Crispus Attucks and by extension, all of Indianapolis school system, how they wanted the Black team to comport themselves versus what the hell he had to do to win the basketball game. His perfect player was Oscar Robertson. Because here’s a guy, complete fundamental player, completely disciplined, yet five times better than anybody else.

And one of the things your viewers can do is very easily YouTube clips, Crispus Attucks High School, Indiana State High School Championships back from the fifties. And just like getting old REM videos on YouTube, you can get these basketball games up. And Oscar comes along. Boom. It’s like this evolution. He’s just playing games differently. He gets from here to here quicker. He makes this pass quicker and cuts immediately to the basket. I know these sounds all basic things, but basketball, as Larry Bird used to say, is a pretty damn simple game. You just got to do these things better than anybody else.

Oscar did them better than anybody else from the time he was a sophomore, by the time he was a senior and Attucks was concluding its run to the second straight championship. He was so far and away, you could have come from outer space and looked down at this game for a minute and go, well, this guy’s playing it. This guy’s playing it differently than everybody else.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. The book is The Real Hoosiers: Crispus Attucks High School, Oscar Robertson, and The Hidden History of Hoops. This book is such a towering achievement. I’d be so remiss if I didn’t ask you one last question, Jack. It’s a two-parter. What advice do you have for young book authors? And did you ever doubt you could pull this book off? Because it’s an incredible blend of social history and sports, and that’s not an easy thing to do.

Jack McCallum:

Well, certainly the second one, I had extreme doubts because when I start out doing a book, I’d be interested in what you say about this, because you’re more of… Not more of a political, historical, that is your lens. And I was talking about my son earlier. He always asks, “Well, what’s your argument? What’s your thesis in the book? What are you trying to prove?” And I always tell them the same thing. I try to tell a story. That’s what I found that I could do best. What is a way to tell this story? And for me, it came very early. The first time I went to Indianapolis, I walked through the halls of Crispus Attucks High School, and there were these pictures on the wall of each graduating class. And I didn’t start with Oscar Robertson. I started in the twenties, and it was like, holy crap, I am just drawn in by this history.

And I said, I can tell this story. I can tell this story through this feeling I have about the history of this high school. So I was very lucky to get that beginning. So far as advice for young writers is I do think in this world where Sports Illustrated has cratered and daily newspapers have cratered, there is still this incredible thirst for people to learn about things. I’m sure you find this out yourself.

Dave Zirin:

Absolutely.

Jack McCallum:

You’re kind of astounded. Now, how big is that audience? That’s a good question. It’s not going to be the James Patterson or the John Grisham audience, but you have to think to yourself if you are able to tell this story. And I think one of the things that has become a little lacking in communication or journalism or the way we do things is curiosity. I always found that the two books I’m proudest of are probably this one and a book I did about my own prostate cancer because I’m not a doctor, and I had to find everything about that. I had to find everything myself. This question leads to that question. So I would say if you start out with an essential curiosity, rather with the idea that I know everything there is to know about this subject, you will write stories successfully, and people will be interested in them.

Dave Zirin:

Well, my favorite Jack McCallum book was Seven Seconds or Less, but now I have to amend that and say The Real Hoosiers: Crispus Attucks High School, Oscar Robertson, and The Hidden History of Hoops is. It’s not just my favorite of your books. I think it’s my favorite basketball book now, which is to me pretty high praise because I think basketball has produced some of the most beautiful writing in the entire sports world. Jack McCallum, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports TV. It’s a total honor.

Jack McCallum:

Well, the honor was mine, Dave. Thank you very much.

Sports has long been a battlefield for the wider politics of race and gender in US society. Since 2020, the US has been rocked by upheavals at home and abroad, from the George Floyd uprisings to the war in Ukraine. And the media narratives surrounding two very different Black women athletes, Angel Reese and Brittney Griner, offer insights into the shifting and hotly contested politics of contemporary race and gender. University of Louisville Assistant Professor Dr. Ajhanai Keaton joins Edge of Sports to discuss the cultural flashpoints around Reese and Griner, and what they tell us about the state of the US today.

Studio Production: David Hebden
Post-Production: Taylor Hebden
Audio Post-Production: David Hebden
Opening Sequence: Cameron Granadino
Music by: Eze Jackson & Carlos Guillen

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Speaker 1:

(Singing)

Dave Zirin:

Welcome to Edge of Sports TV only on The Real News Network. I’m Dave Zirin. It is time to ask a sports scholar, and this week we are talking to Dr. Ajhanai Keaton from Louisville about her work. It’s astounding. I can’t wait for you to learn what she’s all about. Let’s go right now. Dr. Keaton, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports.

Ajhanai Keaton:

Thank you for having me.

Dave Zirin:

Well, you do critical work, and frankly, really exciting work on the intersection of sports and politics. But before we get into the work you do, what is it like to do that scholarship at a big time sports school like Louisville?

Ajhanai Keaton:

The ideas never run out. I mean, just attending the games, being a part of an institution like Louisville, knowing the history, knowing our own personal scandals that have happened, I tend not to run from that. I think, I lean into it with students. I take the stance that we understand the reality of how things have played out if we just think about Rick Vitino, we can also think about just the treatment of Coach Payne right now. I can’t shut off the realities and disparate treatment of identity in this space, particularly in a city like Louisville. It’s connection to Muhammad Ali. The ideas are endless. I just need more time and more doc students.

Dave Zirin:

I actually was going to have a question about what it’s like to do this work where Muhammad Ali was both born and raised, and where you have the Ali Center right down the way. How does that shape your work, if at all?

Ajhanai Keaton:

It shaped how I’ve really gone about creating classes. So, I’m in a sport administration or sport management program, a field that definitely has critical folks spread throughout, but at its core foundation, it is not critical. It wasn’t meant to be critical. It came out of sport participation, and coaching, and has much more into management. But, I created courses that get students who want to be ADs, or coaches, or work in sales and operations to still take critical classes. And one of those classes is the history of the black athlete.

And for a lot of students that come to U of L, they’re excited about the sporting programs, but they don’t really have a connection to the city. And so, in one of the modules where we really dive into what was it like for those live here, the black community in particular, to be a part of Ali’s return home. A family friend of ours, the porter funeral home, they actually drove a hearse, excuse me, around the city to commemorate his death. And, the city was on standstill. And so, I like to share that history with students so they’re not just coming here with, “I’m getting my four years and out.” You’re actually at a really historical sports city.

Dave Zirin:

I was there, and saw the hearse, and saw school buses of children chanting Ali Bomaye.

Ajhanai Keaton:

Right.

Dave Zirin:

Which is an incredible cross connection if people are familiar with the Rumble in the jungle in Zaire. Everybody should see the documentary When We Were Kings, then we can have the discussion.

Ajhanai Keaton:

Absolutely.

Dave Zirin:

Okay. Your work centers on race and gender in sports, that’s a part of your work that you do, not the entirety of course. And, I noticed that you received your PhD at UConn, which is the epicenter of the last generation of women’s hoops. How did getting your PhD, if at all, shape your work and your consciousness about these issues?

Ajhanai Keaton:

It was the first time where I was at a college institution where women’s sports seemed to run the campus. Although, men’s basketball has been wildly successful at UConn. I know they are now. But at that time where I was there 2017 to 2021, men’s basketball was going through a rough time. To be somewhere where, “Hey, are you going to the game?” And, the assumption isn’t the men’s game, or not even the football game, they’re talking about the women’s basketball game. Field hockey was also wildly successful at that time as well, won multiple national championships.

And so, it really did spark an interest in me to really start thinking about organizational behavior through a critical lens. Being a former basketball player myself playing at a mid-major division one, it’s a totally different ball game being at a campus like UConn where they’re the Huskies, right? And, it’s like seeing a cultural artifact in person that you grew up with and you’re just so impressed and amazed, not only with how they play, but their presence on campus. And so, they definitely sparked a new energy in me when just I’m thinking about how to study sport.

Dave Zirin:

Wow. I told you we were going to skip around a little bit, so forgive me for trying to be a little agile here, but you’ve done so much. Sports at the collegiate level, we know, and I’m sure you see this at Louisville and I’m sure you saw it at UConn, is now defined by athletes in a race for NIL money, Name Image and Likeness money. Since we’ve seen this eruption of NIL money, how have black women done in this space, and are existing inequalities being reproduced?

Ajhanai Keaton:

Existing inequalities, absolutely. I think, but also, what’s fascinating is how they’re also challenging those inequalities. And so, I’ll just share a paper, it’s not out right now, but working on it with my doc student, Keisha branch, and a colleague, Evan Frederick, is we’re taking Angel Reese as a case study and we’re studying how she talks back to that. And so, when you think about black women’s presentation in terms of marketing, their relationship with brands, how authentic were they able to be decades ago, right? Trying to maybe portray or position self into white femininity to be more marketable. Angel Reese is none of that. She is authentically, in her own words, hood, authentically that girl. And that hasn’t stopped these very white centric entities, Mercedes-Benz, Amazon from wanting her to be a part of that brand and face.

And so, we’ve conceptualized firstly how her TikTok presence and how she brings black culture to the forefront. And what we mean by that is the aesthetic of black hip hop feminism, the aesthetic of weaves, and edges, and hair. She’s essentially using black culture, what she’s a part of, it is hers, in an authentic way to market self. And we just really haven’t seen that before, particularly from the brands that are interested in working with her. And I believe she’s top 10 with NIL deals, and looking at 1.7 right now, 1.7 million, which, I mean, that’s huge.

Dave Zirin:

How much of this is Ms. Reese challenging the expectations, challenging these companies to take her seriously? And how much of it is these companies seeing Angel Reese and saying, “Whoa, you are following your edge, if you will. That’s what we want to represent our company. Because, you have people’s ear in a way that typically say Mercedes-Benz does not”?

Ajhanai Keaton:

Mm-hmm. It’s 100% interest convergence. If we get back to critical race theory and white interests, or white institutions are only interested in black things, black needs when it satisfies those white interests. And so, I think it’s a yes, but it’s still fascinating. I think when we’re talking about how to manage self in an online presence, don’t be too outspoken because you might not have the ear and so-and-so to see her not care and still be financially compensated for that. I think the follow-up to it is can other black female athletes engage and present themselves in a similar fashion as Reese in online spaces? I think that’s the question to really understand, is she the anomaly? Or, is this now the norm in the NIL era, because this authenticity and connection to black culture, black hip hop… She’s playing City Girls in the background, talking about 30 inch bus down weaves. It’s just a different culture.

And so, as we particularly at the collegiate level continue to make sense of NIL, is this starting a new norm, where because it’s profitable, these brands want this access to the black community and how will these black athletes respond?

Dave Zirin:

Yeah. You’ve also written about Brittney Griner, someone we’ve discussed on this show more than a little bit. What does the Brittney Griner saga, the story, her experience in a Russian prison, the response of the United States, what does it tell us? What lens does her case provide us in understanding these dynamics of race, gender, and sports?

Ajhanai Keaton:

That’s a great question. For me, just engaging in that project, what it tells us is the polarization that we feel in this country, the polarization that we see, that we read, she unfortunately became the muse to really understand politics in America at that moment. Jules Boykoff, who I know you know well, and their colleague, they just did a fascinating paper looking at when did the right actually get interested in Brittney Griner? They looked at media articles, and what’s fascinating is it wasn’t until her return home. And so, what my work really captures is that how this return home became a weaponization of being black, lesbian, and a woman, and really played into the alt-right and right-wing understandings of replacement theory.

And so, here she is just trying to live her life, get home safely, and we navigate that as a country for all intents and purposes successfully. We brought her home, but yet, that American pride that we should have all been wrapping around that we brought one of our fellow Americans home became a cultural war about wokeness. And illegitimately applying this incorrect notion of what Kimberlé Crenshaw coined intersectionality to then reposition white people as the ones as disadvantaged, and particularly white heterosexual men. And so, I’m glad that that hasn’t necessarily overshadowed her return home. I know there were other great pieces and great moments captured. But for me, and from my lens, I couldn’t ignore how this perspective was just continuing to further dehumanize her experience, when that was the energy that she returned back to.

Dave Zirin:

Yeah, it was certainly an ugly view into what some people see as American, who gets to be American.

Ajhanai Keaton:

Who gets to be American.

Dave Zirin:

Yeah.

Ajhanai Keaton:

We have all been rallying around that. To engage in those negotiations with Russia. And I understand it came at a cost, but to weaponize her humanity to say that she’s not good enough because of who she is and what she looks like was just a very dehumanizing experience.

Dave Zirin:

No, I see that, for sure. You’ve also studied what’s called an ADIO, Athletic Diversity and Inclusion Officers. I mean, for people very new to this, what is an Athletic Diversity and Inclusion Officer? And do you see ADIO as a positive force in this space or one that deserves the criticism that you provide?

Ajhanai Keaton:

Yes. Another yes and no response here.

Dave Zirin:

Got you.

Ajhanai Keaton:

So, ADIO is the term I came up with. It stands for Athletic Diversity and Inclusion Officer. It’s a very basic term, but essentially, it captures the positions that we see at the NFL. We see at many division one institutions, NBA, individual teams, and MLB have them, and they’re essentially positions that are formally tasked to study and focus on advancing DEI, be in their respective sport organization. The position is complex. The complexity to me is the context of this work. When did these positions arise? Many of them a response to the murder of George Floyd, and then who did they task to do this work? And so, if you can imagine many of these organizations not having black representation at a senior level or at a level that was making decisions, and now you’ve gone and hired black people to say, “Make us diverse and inclusive. We want you to lead that effort.” But, black people in this organizations are marginalized.

And so, what my work with ADIO is really gets at is how do you hire people who are marginalized by these organizations to then change that marginalization? And I think, my work is really trying to get the leaders who hire those individuals, the leaders who work with those individuals, which should be everybody in the organization, marketing, sales, everyone should be intersected with that individual who’s advancing DEI be, but they’re, excuse me, isolated on an island that just makes it so hard to advance this work. And, the paper you’re referring to, I really dig into it with black women, because before my scholarship, it’s been well-documented in academic sport research that black women experience sexism and racism in the workplace. How do we tell them, “Hey, we understand people like you experience sexism and racism, but help us fix our organization”?

And so, I just want particularly with that piece for black women leaders to not have to be strong, to not have to be strong black women for the sake of white organizational interests. And so, I celebrate the position, I acknowledge it, but I also question it and provide a critical lens to it, because they need more support and structure that these organizations currently aren’t providing.

Dave Zirin:

How difficult is it to provide a critical lens on this issue at the same time where in the post George Floyd backlash, these organizations are under withering attack by right-wing state governments? Is it difficult to defend them as entities, while also criticizing them for how they can do this better?

Ajhanai Keaton:

Yeah, that’s a great question, Dave, because that criticism could be used to further either click delete on the positions or for these organizations to say, “We no longer see you as valuable.” My critique comes less upon the individual doing the work and more upon the organizations not letting go of how they’re maintaining structures and barriers to hinder their work. And so, I hope the critique, although coming from that alt-right movement is still upon, “How can organizations do this? We don’t need this.” That’s not what I’m saying. The need is there, but if you’re saying this is a need, your barriers can’t further marginalize the person doing the work, because what ends up happening is they say, “Enough’s enough.” I mean, we’ve seen it across higher education, a lot of people are taking a step back from DEI work because it’s exhausting. It’s not an easy job by any means.

Dave Zirin:

So, I want everybody out there to know that Dr. Ajhanai Keaton did not know any of these questions beforehand. I’ve been unfairly jumping all over the place. She’s been an absolute wizard in jumping with me, which I really do appreciate. And so, with that, I’m going to put you on the spot one more time. Could you recommend to our audience, one book, one book to better understand what you do? What would that book be for people to understand what has inspired Dr. Keaton to do this work?

Ajhanai Keaton:

Do you mind if I grab it real quick?

Dave Zirin:

Oh my goodness. People aren’t going to believe that you didn’t know that question was coming if you’ve got a prop there. But I give people my word on that one.

Ajhanai Keaton:

I am in my office. This text just simple, Intersectionality. For me, it’s become obviously a word like critical race theory where people think they know it. Critical race theory is teaching Ruby Bridges. No, it’s not. No, it’s not. So let’s go back to the foundation and really look at what is intersectionality, why does it matter? And to understand that these theories don’t just apply to black people or to people who are marginalized, they’re sense-making tools so we can better understand our social world and create a more equitable social world. And if that’s what both sides espouse, then both sides… And I’m really thinking very liberal, conservative, right-wing, we need to understand and be able to speak the same language. And so, when you manipulate terms and concepts, we’re no longer speaking the same language, and we’re not even able to have a true meaningful dialogue. So, Intersectionality, let’s get on the same page.

Dave Zirin:

Amen. It is a source of frustration when words are used for the purposes of destroying what those words are meant to promote, without reckoning with what those words actually mean.

Ajhanai Keaton:

Absolutely.

Dave Zirin:

My goodness. Dr. Ajhanai Keaton, how can people stay up with your work? Let me ask you that before we go.

Ajhanai Keaton:

Yes, you can, of course, always hit me up on Twitter. I’m very engaging. There’s always something popping off in sport. I’m not sure if you saw that, Dave. The Don’t Be A Sheryl shirt. Did you see that recently?

Dave Zirin:

No, please tell us.

Ajhanai Keaton:

There’s always something on Twitter. But essentially, some Iowa fans of Caitlin Clark’s, great player, Sheryl Swoops made some comments about her. Misspoke a little bit, but it’s Sheryl Swoops. She’s very knowledgeable. And, the backlash response was, “Don’t be a Sheryl.” Which is essentially, “Don’t be a Karen.” It’s white woman’s play on don’t be a Karen. So, there’s always something. There’s always something. But you can find me on Twitter and also my university affiliated page and Google Scholar page. If you’re looking for my research, you can just type in my name, Ajhanai Keaton, and it’ll be there.

Dave Zirin:

I may have to take out my old pair of air swoops from the closet.

Ajhanai Keaton:

Please do. Yep.

Dave Zirin:

Show some solidarity. Dr. Keaton, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports.

Ajhanai Keaton:

Thanks, Dave.

Dave Zirin:

Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories, and struggles that you care about most. And we need your help to keep doing this work. So please, tap your screen now, subscribe and donate to The Real News Network. Solidarity forever.

Athletes get a lot of shine in conversations about labor in sports, but players aren’t the only workers that make the professional sports industry run. In Baltimore, workers at the Orioles team store organized with UNITE HERE for a decent contract from their subcontractor employer, Fanatics. The Real News reports from Camden Yards, where worker-organizers speak frankly about the conditions they face, and why their vision goes beyond improving their own jobs to fighting for decent work across Baltimore.

Videography: Adam Coley
Post-Production: Taylor Hebden
Audio Post-Production: David Hebden
Opening Sequence: Cameron Granadino
Music by: Eze Jackson & Carlos Guillen

Transcript

Carolyn Easley Brooks:  They say they appreciate our work but in reality, I don’t think they do, because they’re not showing us that they do. We work hard in the store to put merchandise out and to accommodate these things, so we feel like we’re not getting what’s due to us.

Dave Zirin:  Hey, this is Dave Zirin with Edge of Sports TV, here on The Real News Network. I’m here in front of the Orioles Team Store, where workers from UNITE HERE Local 7 are going to be picketing in a moment in protest of the hardball tactics being put forward by management in their effort to secure full-time work and decent health benefits.

As you’re looking at this you might ask yourself, why aren’t the Orioles negotiating in good faith with these workers? Well, that’s where it gets a little bit complicated. The store, as of 2023, is owned by a group called Fanatics. The Orioles subcontracted both the Team Store as well as the food services inside. The food services company, which is called Levy, has organized with UNITE HERE for a decent union contract. Yet, Fanatics is playing hardball, and that’s what the picket here today is all about: It’s about saying don’t mess with us, we might walk out on opening day, which is happening in a few short days. So this is all very tense right here at the Fanatics Team Store.

You might ask yourself, where is the Angelos family in all of this, the owner of the Baltimore Orioles? Because even though the Orioles say we’re not in charge of the retail shop, let’s be honest about this; If the Orioles or the Angelos family made a phone call, the labor dispute would probably end in quick order. This is also complicated because the Angelos family sold the team to a hedge fund of guys: A guy named David Rubenstein and The Carlyle Group are going to be the new majority owners of the team. But the Angelos family has a lot of influence over this, and if you know anything about their history, they have been some of the few major league franchise owners who’ve been at different points on the side of labor.

Peter Angelos, in 1994, sided with the players during the players’ strike, to the chagrin of his ownership brethren. Baltimore, the metro area, is a union town and we’re going to see that today. We’re going to see people from Baltimore picketing out here because they want to tell the Fanatics store and the Baltimore Orioles that they want decent wages and a decent healthcare contract. Let’s talk to them right now. [To Carolyn] If you could say something directly to the Fanatics folks right now, what would it be?

Carolyn Easley Brooks:  I would say we want equal rights. We’re tired of you all saying no and not giving us what we need. We are sick and tired of it. You all say it’s your business model; I’m so tired of hearing that’s your business model, I really am, and so are the other associates. We work hard in this store for you all and we deserve to get our health benefits, we deserve to get our full-time hours, and we deserve our wages.

Dave Zirin:

Where are negotiations right now at this moment?

Tracy Lingo:  There’s been some meaningful movement on the hours issue but the real issue is, as Carolyn said, they like to talk about their business model being part-time work and apparently lower wages. If you come in with a bad business model and you compromise on half of it, I’m not sure that means what our members need to make up for their business model by accepting lower wages. So we’re really struck on wages right now and on not accepting less than what we get in other places in the city.

Dave Zirin:  So stuck on wages? Opening day is coming up. The baseball world, their eyes are on the Orioles right now. Not just Maryland’s eyes, because the team did so well last year. Are there any thoughts about workplace action or information picket on opening day? Is that something that –

Tracy Lingo:  We haven’t decided exactly what actions we’ll take but we’re hoping to settle this wage issue. We haven’t settled this wage issue and, as Carolyn said, this group of workers has been incredibly strong and they’re ready to stand up for themselves and their city. So I would expect that there will be actions on opening day.

Dave Zirin:  Amazing. Can you explain that a little bit more, that they’re not just standing up for themselves but standing up for the city?

Tracy Lingo:  A big part of the struggle has been not just about what happens with the individual workers here but what’s the legacy of jobs that we’re leaving. In part of the negotiations, the company was asking us to agree to a concept called “red circling.” Like certain workers who are here would get something but newer workers would not get that. That’s something that our bargaining committee feels very strongly that that’s not what our union is about. We’re about trying to raise the standard of jobs. You know, Baltimore used to be an industrial city. The city banks very hard on trying to encourage the hospitality industry, and what we say all the time is there’s no reason the hospitality jobs can’t be like the factory jobs that were here in the ’30s and the ’40s and the ’50s.

The Levys of the world, the Fanatics of the world, the Hiltons, the Hyatts, the Sodexos, they’re just as big, just as powerful, and just as rich but we’ve got to fight. Those industrial jobs didn’t get to be good jobs just because the companies wanted to make them good jobs; They got to be good jobs because people organized and fought. We have to organize and fight to make these jobs good jobs. And that’s not just about what the wages are but making sure that they’re hiring from the community, making sure that they’re not attempting or making the jobs part-time jobs or temporary jobs, and that these are jobs that people can count on.

Dave Zirin:  What can the City Council do to make sure that part-time America doesn’t become the way that labor operates here in the city of Baltimore?

Paris Gray:  First it starts with legislation, so we have to think of legislation. We have to work with our state partners as well. We have to make sure it’s top-down and that they’re not only protected statewide but citywide as well. Then we also have to come out with this standup and show our voice, to push people this way, and to push on the new ownership – And leadership and whoever else that allows this to happen – To let them know and send a clear message that this is not acceptable in Baltimore City.

Dave Zirin:  What would you say to the owners of the Orioles? They like to say that they have nothing to do with this but if you could say something directly to the people who own the team, what would you say?

Carolyn Easley Brooks:  I would say this: This is y’all’s home. This is y’all’s home and you cannot let a company come in here and take over because you’re hurting us. They hurt you all. You all don’t want any bad publicity, so when you have a company come in here that’s not doing right by these employees, that’s making you all look bad. So I say to you all, get on Fanatics. Fanatics, you better listen. You better watch out.

Dave Zirin:  So that’s where we are right now. They are asking for the Angelos family to call Fanatics and tell them to get their act together and give them a decent union contract. They’re trying to raise the question of part-time America and talking about why part-time America simply does not work, and they’re calling for health benefits that allow them to live and support a family in the city of Baltimore.

The history of white supremacy in US sports culture is as old as the games, and the nation, themselves. Recent years have seen a push to change the names of the most egregious offenders, most notably the former name of the Washington Commanders. Yet some teams’ problematic names and histories have comparatively flown under the radar. Such is the case with the Kansas City football team. Radio host Rhonda LeValdo, a co-founder of the organization Not In Our Honor, joins Edge of Sports for a frank discussion on the racist history of the Kansas City football team, and why its name should be changed.

Studio Production: David Hebden
Post-Production: Taylor Hebden
Audio Post-Production: David Hebden
Opening Sequence: Cameron Granadino
Music by: Eze Jackson & Carlos Guillen

Transcript

Dave Zirin:  Welcome to Edge of Sports TV, only on The Real News Network, I’m Dave Zirin. This week, we are honored to speak to someone who wears many hats: Radio host, professor, past president of the Native American Journalist Association, and a founder of the group Not In Our Honor which protests the racist, cultural appropriation of the Kansas City football team. She was also a colleague of Lisa Lopez-Galvan, the radio host killed at the Kansas City Super Bowl parade. Her name is Rhonda LeValdo. Let’s speak to her now. Rhonda LeValdo, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports.

Rhonda LeValdo:  Yeah, no problem.

Dave Zirin:  Let’s start with a sober question that I need to ask you – Sober and somber – Your colleague, as I mentioned in the introduction, was Lisa Lopez-Galvan, the radio host killed at the Kansas City Super Bowl parade. Is there anything you would like to say about that or about the shooting that shocked the country?

Rhonda LeValdo:  It’s sad that it would happen at a thing that people were trying to have a good time at. It’s awful that happened. And my continued prayers for her family; Her kids lost a mom. And unfortunately, at something that was supposed to be a happy event.

Dave Zirin:  What has been the reaction, as you see it, of mayors, governors, and local politicians? Are we seeing anything hopeful from the political class following the shootings or are they shrugging their shoulders?

Rhonda LeValdo:  Missouri is very pro-gun so I don’t think anything will come of it. They’re very lax in their gun laws, so, unfortunately, nothing. Yeah, it’s terrible.

Dave Zirin:  We are talking about the Kansas City football team and what it means to the city. You spoke about the people filling up the streets for the parade and this takes us to your organization that you helped found, Not In Our Honor. Can you speak about how Not In Our Honor came about and what its mission is?

Rhonda LeValdo:  We formed in 2005 when Washington was playing Kansas City. We know there were previous protests done at Kansas City and we felt we needed to continue it on. At the time, I was with college students, not realizing when I came here to go to school that I would have to face this type of craziness with the Kansas City football team and the amount of being annoyed by fan behavior. So we felt we needed to take it on and start making sure our voices were heard and continued to be heard.

We continued on every year after that. We stepped it up after the unfortunate murder of George Floyd and then the BLM protests. We felt we could get some more support especially with the NFL trying to implement their racial injustice initiatives. Unfortunately, it’s fallen on deaf ears. Doing the #endracism in the end zone is tone-deaf to us. It’s difficult that we continue to do this.19 years later and still doing this. So we’ll see what happens.

Dave Zirin:  How do you respond to the argument, and I’m sure you’ve heard this a ton of times, for people who say, well, I understand why the name of the Washington team was so disgusting. It’s a slur. Why are you against the name of the Kansas City team? Why is that something that needs to be protested?

Rhonda LeValdo:  Well, it’s the cultural appropriation with the team and how they were founded by H. Roe Bartle who helped start a fake Native tribe called the Mic-O-Say. They continue to do Native American dances as a rite of passage and get these fake Indian names. I don’t think people understand that those dances mean something, they’re not something you just do. I know that they did one from my area where I’m from, from the southwest, and those are prayer dances. You’re not supposed to do those randomly, they mean something to us. They think they’re something crazy to do but it has a different meaning. So to us, it’s really disrespectful and rude. It’s not honoring us at all. With that, they got their names, Chief, from H. Roe Bartle who called himself chief of the Mic-O-Say. And if you come down to it, we always explain that a chief was a burden.

You took on your people, you took care of them, and I see Kansas City is not doing that. If you go to that area around the stadium, it is one of the poorest areas in Kansas City. Now they’re trying to get new stadiums. Well, what are you doing for those people that live there? They need help. It’s a crazy situation. It wasn’t a title, it was a burden, and they’re using it as a title, and misusing what it stands for. But also, the cultural appropriation that’s seen all over the world, banging the drum, doing the chop, all that stuff, wearing headdresses, it’s sad that they’re continuing these stereotypes. People believe in those stereotypes. It’s awful to have those put out again like we give a stamp of approval for that and we don’t.

Dave Zirin:  Has it changed since 2005 in terms of the response you get from people, particularly white people in Kansas City? What I’m trying to get at is, in Trumpist America, is it less people not having a thought about what it could mean to indigenous communities and more people almost taking pride in the racism itself?

Rhonda LeValdo:  Yeah, we do have some supporters that send us emails that they’re glad we’re doing it. But yeah, there’s a doubling down of people now because of the term woke and I don’t think they understand what that means. Cultural appropriation is not woke. That’s something totally different. So trying to explain that to people, as Native people, we weren’t allowed to be Native. We were taken away from our parents. We were taken and sent to boarding schools. A lot of our people died and it wasn’t allowed for us to be Native. We weren’t allowed to wear our clothes, to have our hair long, or even practice our ceremonies, but now it’s okay for white people to do that. That doesn’t make sense.

Dave Zirin:  No. I live in the DC area and there was a success in bringing together Black Lives Matter organizations and people who are protesting the Washington name and the ultimate success of getting them to change the name with pressure on corporate sponsors. And it certainly helped that the owner of the team, Daniel Snyder, was one of the most repulsive people in sports. Was your organization able to have success finding a common cause with Black Lives Matter or with the movement against police violence after 2020?

Rhonda LeValdo:  A little bit. There’s such a love of the team and Patrick Mahomes, so we’ve tried to reach out to him, but with nothing, of course. So it’s difficult for people to buy into that. They’re not understanding the historical issues that go on with these types of things that Kansas City does and they don’t understand how it affects us and affects our kids. So it’s a little bit more difficult.

Dave Zirin:  I’m interested in what you said before about the neighborhoods around the stadium. Would you describe Kansas City as being very economically polarized, polarized in terms of race and racism? How does power operate in the city?

Rhonda LeValdo:  You always have in any city, an area that’s the rich side and the more economically disadvantaged side. That area around the stadiums is not built up. There are no efforts to try and make it any better, but I wish they would because it’s dangerous. When we go protest over there, we know we can’t be there at the night games because the road there is pretty busy and it’s a little dangerous.

At one point, when we were protesting out there, somebody tried to cross the road and they were hit and they were killed trying to go to the game. So we know not to be out there when it’s dark because there’s no sidewalk or even a crosswalk for people to get across safely. I believe it’s almost five lanes of traffic.

Dave Zirin:  Then there’s NFL fans, alcohol violence. Yeah, it can get a little bit hairy at an NFL game. And I imagine if you’re trying to project politics into the team that everybody’s rallied around, you’re taking a real risk.

Rhonda LeValdo:  Right.

Dave Zirin:  Well, I appreciate your bravery on these fronts. It’s so important. You talked about starting the organization in 2005. What about the next generation of activists, in or around Indigenous communities, is this an issue that is connecting with them? Is this an issue that’s in the front of their minds in terms of political action?

Rhonda LeValdo:  Oh, definitely. We’ve had students in the past, and here where I live in Lawrence, who have brought on the issue of a town outside of Kansas City, a suburb called Shawnee Mission. So they had the Shawnee Mission Indians. The students here would have to play them in different sports and they would have somebody dressed up as the Indian princess and an Indian brave, and they would have them do the chop and crazy stuff to them. So there was a push from the students here in high school with the Native American Student Services Program to get rid of that imagery.

It went into a vote and they did finally get rid of it, which I was surprised because I know they had come after me and some of the people who lived in Shawnee Mission, for even speaking about it. But we’ve had a couple of schools in the outside area of Kansas City change their imagery because of that. So now there’s a bigger push to get that done, especially in high schools because there are so many high schools that have that Native imagery. Here in the state of Kansas, there’s a town called Liberal, of all places, Liberal, Kansas, and they’re known as the Redskins.

Dave Zirin:  Wow. Is there a push to get that changed in Liberal or didn’t you see –

Rhonda LeValdo:  No. They’re in southwest Kansas, which is a very conservative area.

Dave Zirin:  – The success though at the high school level, we have seen that around the country in terms of cultural appropriation. Does that give you hope? Why do you think they’ve been able to have success there?

Rhonda LeValdo:  Push from the students, understanding why this is wrong, and their voices being heard about it. I know that Native American students have to deal with it, it’s something that they shouldn’t have to deal with. They shouldn’t have to deal with those types of things. And it’s unfortunate, here, some of our students get rattled by people doing the chop at them. So it’s a weird situation. It’s not just at the games, it’s everywhere.

Dave Zirin:  See, I remember an incident about that in Wisconsin after Trump was elected. It feels like the heat on a lot of these hyper-racialized confrontations, particularly emanating from white students, feels more intense to me. But what also feels more intense to me is that you have this new generation that’s not going to put up with the racist crap that previous generations were willing to put up with.

Rhonda LeValdo:  Right, definitely.

Dave Zirin:  That gives me hope. You’ve been generous with your time. I was thinking last night, I wonder what Rhonda would say if she was granted a sit-down with the Hunt family. If you had 45 minutes to sit across a table from them, what you’d say, what your strategy would be?

Rhonda LeValdo:  We were part of a movie called Imagining the Indian, so I would suggest they watch that if they don’t want to put up with meeting Natives to understand. But to watch that film because it gives a historical perspective of why these things are wrong and lays out multiple reasons why and multiple images of why this is wrong. So if anything, I’d say watch that. But we’ve seen photographs of them in headdresses and headdresses are earned, they’re not given out freely. So I know that Mr. Hunt and his sons were part of Mic-O-Say as well. If anything, coming from that background of explaining that those dances aren’t just things to do, those are prayers, those are sacred things and convey meaning, not just for you to dance around and feel good about yourself. That’s not what that was for.

Dave Zirin:  Just a side note, one of the producers of Imagining the Indian is Kevin Blackistone, the sports writer and television commentator. Maybe he’s a friend, maybe reach out to Kevin, I’ll ask him to send it to the Hunts or get it in Patrick Mahomes hands. Do you think Mahomes is so powerful that if he, as an individual, said this name needs to change, it could change?

Rhonda LeValdo:  I think he could. We played the film here in the Kansas City area and when the film went online, so it’s available on Apple and Amazon and anyone can watch it, we were going off of that strategy saying, hey, if you don’t understand this and you want it explained, watch this film, you could rent it.

Dave Zirin:  Fantastic. But before you go, is there anything else that you’d like to add about the issue, about the work that you do, and about how people can support it?

Rhonda LeValdo:  Yeah, they can go to our Not In Our Honor website, and it’s notinourhonor.com. And they can look at the different things that we have there. Kansas City Indian Center is also part of our group, so they’ve been there. They’re going to be celebrating their 50th anniversary this weekend, so we’re having a celebration. They’ve been there for 50 years, but Kansas City Football does not support them.

You have the main group that is supporting Native people in Kansas City, why aren’t they working with them? Because they know they’re against what they do. They provide different things for the community in Kansas City, and it’s open to the public. So, if anybody wants to support what we do, we always ask to donate to them because it impacts the Native community in Kansas City.

Dave Zirin:  The movie is, can you say the name of it again, the Blackistone film, Imagining the Indian, is that correct?

Rhonda LeValdo:  Yeah. Imagining the Indian.

Dave Zirin:  Imagining the Indian, that’s the film that people need to see, and the organizations mentioned, people should support. Go to the website without question. Rhonda LeValdo, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports.

Rhonda LeValdo:  Thank you.

Dartmouth basketball players have made history by becoming the first college sports team in the US to unionize, shifting the playing field for other college athletes struggling for collective bargaining rights around the country. Dave Zirin examines this major breakthrough at the intersection of sports and the labor struggle in this edition of “Choice Words.”

Studio Production: David Hebden
Post-Production: Taylor Hebden
Audio Post-Production: David Hebden
Opening Sequence: Cameron Granadino
Music by: Eze Jackson & Carlos Guillen

Transcript

Dave Zirin:  And now some choice words. Okay, this is big news. The basketball team at Dartmouth has organized itself into a labor union after voting 13 to 2 to join SEIU Local 560. This is the men’s team. Now in the process, they are educating the seething NCAA that the future of university-athlete relations lies in collective bargaining. The current economy of college sports is, to put it mildly, discombobulated. An unregulated system where players can profit from their name, image, and likeness has upended the revenue-producing sports of football and basketball.

The transfer portal that grants the freedom of so-called student-athletes to switch teams has also created a cultural sea change. In short, shifting power is taking place away from autocratic coaches and athletic directors to the players themselves. And yet there still is that final frontier: unionization and collective bargaining, both of which could build a new and better framework for college sports. You see, here’s the issue; While name, image, and likeness money benefits the famous few and the transfer portal has been a vital reform, both skirt the question of whether these student-athletes are campus workers.

As campus workers, they would, in theory, be free to organize into a union and demand collective bargaining, not just over compensation but other issues that affect so-called student-athletes like medical care, travel demands, and the academic freedom to choose classes without athletic department interference. And this is a smattering of the issues that would surely be brought to the table. Of course, the NCAA and many head coaches have no desire to sit across that table from the players.

They decry unionization as an affront to everything good and holy about amateur sports. But the fortress of anti-unionism that is the NCAA has been breached by the Dartmouth players, and the sooner the NCAA recognizes that this breach cannot be closed, the better for all parties. The NCAA has a choice: They can finally see the benefits of collective bargaining, or they can continue in their fierce belief that sham amateurism will have to be pried from their cold, dead hands. It certainly feels like they’re going the latter root but this is a battle for which the players are ready.

Dartmouth teammates, Cade Haskins and Romeo Myrthil, told The Associated Press, “We stuck together all season and won this election. It is self-evident that we, as students, can also be both campus workers and union members. Dartmouth seems to be stuck in the past. It’s time for the age of amateurism to end.” We need to cheer this victory but we also need caution. It’s not merely the NCAA standing athwart history and saying no to these athletes. Dartmouth University is making its objections very clear as well.

According to SEIU, the administration told players that unionizing could get them booted from the NCAA or even from the Ivy League, heaven forfend. Let’s be clear, this is fear-mongering and we should remember that NCAA scare tactics about a lawless unionized future will indeed be a hurdle, but we would also do well to remember that the NCAA and their political lobbyists have been braying about progressive reforms killing college sports for at least 50 years. First, it was Title IX: The 1972 law providing women with equal access to, among other venues, athletic teams.

That was what was going to kill college sports. Then, it was players being able to opt out of scholarships after signing letters of intent. More recently, it was NIL and the transfer portal bringing godlessness to the land. Yet, with each reform, the profits grow and the popularity increases. So much so that Iowa hoopster Caitlin Clark, the NCAA’s biggest star since Tim Tebow, was tempted with a mammoth amount of NIL money to stay at Iowa University for a fifth year. Expect more of that and expect the college game to be strengthened as a result, with players staying longer and fan interest growing.

While succumbing to collective bargaining would be in the NCAA’s long-term interests, rather than flushing money on lobbyist luncheons and losing lawyers, they’ll fight unionization until the bitter end. This is clearly not about money for them. It’s about power. It’s about anti-labor attitudes at the top of the sport and in Congress. While the NCAA splinters, the players at Dartmouth are finding a new community. Caoimhín O’Donnell, the national spokesperson for SEIU, described the following scene.

He said “At the last game, security workers, custodians, people who worked for the library, were all cheering really loud because we consider the team part of Local 560 now. In the labor movement, we say siblings – Sisters and brothers – Those were our brothers playing ball. It was really nice to see these union members excited. There was a real sense of what the team had done, what the Local had done, and what the members have done.”

For Edge of Sports, I’m Dave Zirin.

The Olympics have never been apolitical, and this year, athletes have already begun to make political statements ahead of the games in Paris this summer. During the Olympic marathon trials, three US athletes unfurled the Palestinian flag at the finish line. As Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza continues unimpeded by the US and Europe, the possibility of the Paris Olympics turning into a political battleground for the international Palestinian solidarity movement grows more likely. Jesse Joseph, one of the athletes at the center of the recent display of solidarity at the Olympic trials, joins Edge of Sports to explain his and his fellow athletes’ actions, and discuss how Palestine could figure in the upcoming games.

Studio Production: David Hebden
Post-Production: Taylor Hebden
Audio Post-Production: David Hebden
Opening Sequence: Cameron Granadino
Music by: Eze Jackson & Carlos Guillen

Transcript

Dave Zirin:  Welcome to Edge of Sports TV only on The Real News Network, I’m Dave Zirin. We are talking today to marathoner and Olympic hopeful, Jesse Joseph, about why he waved a Palestinian flag along with three other runners as he crossed the finish line in the Olympic trials. Let’s get him on right now. Let’s find out what went down. Jesse Joseph. Jesse Joseph, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports.

Jesse Joseph:  Thanks for having me. A pleasure to be here.

Dave Zirin:  As I said in your introduction, you crossed the finish line carrying a Palestinian flag, three other competitors did the same. It was to make a statement of solidarity with the Palestinian people. I can, and I’m sure my viewers could, certainly understand doing that in front of City Hall or an embassy, but you chose that particular space to make a statement. Why is that?

Jesse Joseph:  We had been talking about it for weeks, there’s a long history of it. Me and my wife first got the idea because a while ago, a runner in the Athens Marathon who was the women’s leader, was carrying a Palestinian flag in her fist across the finish line and we thought that was so cool. For me, to be able to make a statement in solidarity with Palestinians right now, at what is probably the highest level that I can, at an elite-level marathon, was important. To use the platform that I had and also to do it in a way that’s important and relevant to me.

I’m a marathoner and I spend a lot of my life and energy training for this but I also spend a lot of my life and energy thinking about injustice. It’s been impossible to ignore the absolute devastation that has been happening in Gaza these past four months. The death toll is horrific. The human consequences, not just immediately for their lives but for their futures, are horrific and I can’t look away. I know that many of us can’t look away. For me, Aiden, Julian, and Nadir felt that we had to do something, call attention as we could, and use our platform.

Dave Zirin:  You remind me of something that John Carlos, the 1968 Olympian, once said to me where he said if I wasn’t an Olympian, I would’ve raised my fist in front of the Apollo Theater instead of the ’68 Olympics. It was where I happened to be. So many top-flight athletes like yourself, by the necessity of competition and training, do live life with political blinders on. How did you come to this issue?

Jesse Joseph:  It’s hard to not be a little bit political if you’re paying attention to the world around you. People take that to different ends; Some people watch, they absorb, and they worry and some people take action. It takes some time to get to the state where you can take some action but for me, it would feel disingenuous or something to try to pretend that what I’m doing – Running, competing – Is separate from what else is happening in the world. To ignore that violence and injustices are happening in the world so I can train and compete, I don’t think I would allow myself to do that morally, but also it’s hard to do. Running is a huge part of my life and if I were to run, pretend, and shut everything out, it would drive me crazy.

You need something to focus on. You need to be a holistic person in order to train well. Independent of the politics of it, I see it is a pretty common phenomenon for people to get head into training and shut everything else out. As soon as you get injured or something, it has a huge effect on your mental health. Being able to interact with the world around you and distinguish your training from what’s happening in the world, but also recognize that training, racing, and a lot of other stuff happens in the real world and you have to pay attention to it. It’s part of being a person.

Dave Zirin:  Yeah. Part of being a three-dimensional human being. Yet the International Olympic Committee and the US Olympic Committee have shown historically that they’re not big fans of three-dimensional human beings. What is the risk for an Olympic hopeful in taking an action such as you and your compañeros did on this day?

Jesse Joseph:  Yeah. That was something we spent a fair amount of time looking into. Marathon distance running or road running is governed by USATF, USA Track and Field, and the USOPC does have oversight on this race. Beyond that, the IOC has oversight over everything that happens in the Olympics. So we read the competition rules for USATF ahead of the trials and then maybe a week before the date of the marathon trials, USATF sent out a list of competition rules that included a document that had an explicit allowance for political demonstrations.

They did that because it’s something that’s happening in the sporting world now; People make political statements. A lot of that comes from these past four years with the Black Lives Matter movement, athletes taking a stand against racism, and racist policing in the US. You mentioned John Carlos and Tommy Smith a second ago, and there’s a long history of athletes trying to take a stand and using their platform to do so. It was interesting that USATF sent this out and it allows explicitly for athletes to make political demonstrations during competition. It mentions specific things like wearing a mask that says Black Lives Matter or things like that. There are things that you can’t do. So there are general regulations about uniforms and things like that but that’s independent of political statements and more like you can’t have too much commercial branding.

So the challenge, the danger is that this issue of Palestinian human rights and the invasion of Gaza is a political hot button that people suffer consequences for supporting all the time. A lot of people have lost their jobs because they’ve taken a vocal stand and said that what is happening in Gaza is a human historical tragedy and to say that opens you up to a lot of political stuff. It opens you up to a lot of targeting and that’s frustrating because this is a horrible thing that’s happening. Anybody with eyes can see that the destruction of Gaza is so far beyond a crime, that to try to silence the voices that acknowledge that, is horrifying. What we did is explicitly allowed as far as we could tell by USATF and we picked these stick flags because the top contenders, a lot of times we’ll grab an American stick flag as they run to the finish towards the end. So we were like, we know the stick flag thing is technically okay. We know that we can make a statement, this is how we’re going to do it.

It was a great thing that also there were activists on the ground who were in the crowd holding Palestinian flags, making a big show. All that coming together was really great. There are definitely challenges moving forward, I didn’t qualify for the Olympics but the IOC is a lot more strict about the ability for athletes to make political statements. Back to USATF, Max Siegel, who’s the CEO of USA Track and Fields did make a statement a little while ago that said that they encourage or at least support athlete’s abilities to make political statements. The IOC is a totally different can of worms. So you probably know that IOC Rule 50 is the rule that was instated after Tommy Smith and John Carlos did the Black Power salute on the podium in 1968. IOC Rule 50 passed in the 1970s or something.

It basically says that you can’t do politics if you’re competing. Athletes have to just be athletes. They have to shut up and compete and nowhere can you bring in any political statements. The Tokyo Olympics, I don’t know if it was a change in the rules or a clarification, but they put out some stuff that said no politics on the podium, in competition, or the Olympic Village. But you can, during interactions with the press, make political statements and stuff like that. So that’s the terrain that is safe but you can always take risks. Trying to play by the rules that the IOC has put forward, concedes the idea that athletes can be athletes and all they are is an extremely capable body and there’s no mind in there that can recognize injustice happening.

Dave Zirin:  Yeah. It’s difficult to imagine we won’t see similar expressions to yours at the Paris Olympics.

Jesse Joseph:  Absolutely. I hope so. I wasn’t a top contender for the Olympic marathon trials, regardless, I hope that what we did encourages other athletes, especially track and field athletes, to take a stand and stand up and say that we support Gaza, we support Palestinians, and to not be afraid of repression such that they’ll silence themselves. That was the goal, to encourage other people to be able to do the same thing. And we’re seeing it all around the world: Athletes in different sports taking stands.

Dave Zirin:  Is fear the greatest obstacle to seeing more athletes speak out at this point? Is it insecurity? Is it the blinder’s issue of having to focus on the Olympics? What do you think is the block to seeing masses of athletes speaking out for Palestine right now?

Jesse Joseph:  It’s a combination of fear and the blinders thing. A lot of people do want to avoid politics and you can’t force people to pretend to care about the world around them; They have to come to that conclusion themselves. But a lot of people do. A lot of athletes do. I can think of a number of track and field athletes who I know care about this issue. Some of them are outspoken about it on social media but to make a stand when there is a possibility that you might be punished for it or disqualified or something is really hard, and I totally understand that. But to allow that to silence you and us and our voices would be a huge loss. So finding creative ways to make statements and to call for justice in Palestine is crucial. I have faith. Not every track and field athlete in the world is going to put up blinders and is too afraid to say something.

You asked what inspired us to do this. There’s another example, actually. I live in Portland, Oregon, and the World Track and Field Championships were held in Eugene in 2022. After the men’s 800, Djamel Sedjati who runs for Algeria, took a surprise silver medal and the first thing he did was he grabbed a big Palestinian flag and he took a victory lap. And that was really cool, that was so exciting to see. To see people at the highest level, taking that risk, and making a big, bold statement, is really powerful. I hope that those examples, and the thing that me, Aiden, Julian, and Nadir did, encourage people to say, okay, yeah, maybe I will get some flack on social media. Maybe people will be mad at me, whatever. But this is what I care about. This is what I believe in and I’m going to say it.

Dave Zirin:  Okay. So for athletes who do believe in justice for Palestine, who believe in a ceasefire, should they be advancing a demand that Israel be barred from the 2024 Paris Olympics? Is that a position you agree with? Is that something athletes should be pushing for right now? Or is that the thing where you might think it punishes the athletes for the actions of the state? Where do you stand on athletes for Israel to not be present at these Olympics?

Jesse Joseph:  I would say that not every athlete who believes in justice for Palestine believes that Israel should be banned. I personally do, and I really hope that people who care about the future and security of Palestinians think critically about what that demand is and understand that there’s a history to it. Right now, Russia is facing sanctions from the IOC, that their IOC looks like they’re trying to walk back on. But Russia is currently facing sanctions that Russian athletes can compete but not under the Russian flag. It’s something like that, roughly. And that’s one example but the example to point to is the 30 or so years that South Africa was banned from the Olympics as a consequence of the apartheid regime. That’s an important piece of history to understand because so much of the global movement for Palestinian justice draws from the tactics and the politics of the global movement against apartheid in South Africa.

A big part of that was sports recall for boycotts. One of the ways that countries that do obvious human rights abuses longer their reputation in the international sphere is by participating in international events and sports and things like that. So this idea that this country in South Africa, which had a brutally racist apartheid government, could participate in international forums including the Olympics and athletics, while their teams were literally apartheid teams – It was the Africanists who were going to compete and not the Black South Africans – The idea that they could compete alongside the rest of the world and that would be normal, normalizes the idea that apartheid is fine. So there’s a direct relationship there where many human rights organizations have found that the system of occupation and the military governance of the West Bank and Gaza do constitute apartheid.

So the tactics and the demands of the anti-apartheid movement against South Africa do make sense in the Palestinian context. A useful example of that would be like, yeah, South African sports were run along the lines of apartheid. Well, Israeli sports are also run along the lines of apartheid. There are a number of sporting targets in the BDS movement – I can talk about BDS later – But one of them is a call for FIFA to ban the IFA, the Israel Football Association, because the IFA includes a bunch of teams from the settlements. The illegal settlements are soccer teams that are Jewish-only soccer teams that represent settlements in illegally occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank. And for FIFA to accept the IFA as a member body, to acknowledge that these teams in the entire world recognize our illegal settlements, to consider those as reasonable participants in a league, is apparent. Therefore, the call to ban Israel is a call to ban the apartheid and the apartheid sporting organizations.

Dave Zirin:  You’ve been so generous with your time. I have one more question, but before we get to it, you made a really important point that I want to put a magnifying glass on. When we talk about sportswashing in athletic circles, usually what we mean is an authoritarian country hosting a sporting event as a way to cover up domestic crimes or crushing domestic descent. There are a lot of ways sportswashing operates but this is sportswashing too if Israel gets to compete because it normalizes what’s happening right now in Gaza as if it’s being welcomed into the community of nations when it should be a pariah given the crimes on display. One other point is that the IOC has in its bylaws that if you are occupying the athletic facilities of another country that has caused you to be banned from the Olympics, and when you look at the way that stadiums in Gaza have been turned into internment camps, by the IOCs own letter of the law, Israel should not be allowed in the Olympics.

Jesse Joseph:  Absolutely. And that’s one example. There are a lot of examples. In general, its governance over the West Bank and Gaza, over Palestinians, and over Palestine, prevent people from training and competing. There was an example where, in 2016 or something, the captain of the Palestinian Olympic Soccer Team couldn’t travel to Brazil because he couldn’t leave Gaza. The head coach of the Palestinian Olympic Soccer Team, killed, sometime in the last four months. All of these things should constitute gross violations of the Olympic spirit, and the Olympic creed, and to allow that into the Olympics, would be a travesty.

Dave Zirin:  Jesse Joseph, this has been so incredibly helpful. I wanted to give you the last word. Is there anything else you want to add about your experience, or about your political journey that you want our listeners to know?

Jesse Joseph:  The immediate experience has been gratifying. A lot of people have reached out and said this was really meaningful, thank you for doing this. And that tells me that for all the athletes out there who want to take a stand but are afraid to lash back or whatever, you will find support. You’ll find support from me and you’ll find support from a lot of people around you because a lot of people want to say something, but they’re afraid. And if you can say something, if you can be their voice and encourage them to say something as well, is rewarding in its own right and it is absolutely the right and moral thing to do.

Dave Zirin:  Amazing. Jesse Joseph, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports.

Jesse Joseph:  Thank you so much, Dave.

Janel Grant, a former WWE employee, has come forward with allegations of rape and sex trafficking against Vince McMahon, a co-founder of WWE. McMahon has since resigned from his position as TKO Chairperson. The allegations have rocked the world of professional wrestling, but a look at McMahon’s long career indicates these latest revelations fit a pattern of openly misogynistic conduct stretching back decades. Abraham Josephine Riesman, author of Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America, joins Edge of Sports for a discussion on the allegations against McMahon and its implications for the sport.

Studio Production: Cameron Granadino
Post-Production: Taylor Hebden
Audio Post-Production: David Hebden
Opening Sequence: Cameron Granadino
Music by: Eze Jackson & Carlos Guillen

Transcript

Dave Zirin:  Welcome to Edge of Sports, brought to you by The Real News Network. I’m Dave Zirin.

We are going to talk to a journalist and New York Times bestselling author right now. Her name is Abraham Josephine Reisman, and we’re going to talk about her book Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America.

Abraham Josephine Riesman, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports.

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  Thanks for having me.

Dave Zirin:  Okay, look, the charges against Vince McMahon are so nauseating. I mean rape, sex trafficking, acts of non-consensual degradation. As someone who has studied this man, did any of this surprise even you?

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  Let me put it this way. When I first read the lawsuit brought by former WWE employee Janelle Grant against Vince McMahon, I was shocked but not surprised. I was shocked at the details because these allegations do seem to describe things that go farther than what we’ve known or at least had allegations about Vince doing in the past.

But it was really a matter of degree rather than distinction between the past allegations and these new ones. It was a matter of those past alleged acts turned up to 11, in many ways, because Vince has a long history of degrading people, and much of that is not an allegation at all.

You can just watch his television program, especially old episodes from around the turn of the last millennium, and you’ll see examples of female wrestlers being forced to get on all fours, strip to their bra and panties, and bark like dogs. That’s the kind of thing that Vince McMahon was not just putting on television but having his workers do.

So seeing these allegations was shocking insofar as the details cannot help but shock a person, but not surprising, necessarily, when you look at the pattern of other allegations in the past.

Dave Zirin:  See, you’ve got these two personas, and I want you to try to explain to us or tease out where they’re the same, where they’re different, or does it even matter at this point? You’ve got Vince McMahon, the billionaire impresario of World Wrestling Entertainment who’s been in charge for four decades running this organization, to greater or lesser extents during those four decades.

And then you have his on-screen character, someone one wrestling journalist called maybe the greatest, most important character in the history of professional wrestling. And that character is, of course, The Boss, the ultimate a-hole, the guy who harasses women, who in one plot point sex trafficked his own daughter.

Now at this point, do you see any differences between the person and the character? Does it even matter from what you know of this person’s history? Is this one of those cases of him forgetting who the real person was or is this the real person?

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  The contention I make in my book, Ringmaster, is that the second persona you’re describing, the character copyrighted as Mr. McMahon, is, yes, in some ways based on Vince. But in many ways, I see him, that character, that is, as a gross exaggeration of Vince’s father.

Now, Vince’s father, not necessarily known for the sexual stuff, but he was known within wrestling as a guy you didn’t want to cross. And more importantly, his father was a Northeastern rich kid, as opposed to Vince who lived this very bifurcated existence. He didn’t know his birth father until he was 12, and he was raised in poverty in the South.

So part of the image of the Mr. McMahon character is that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth or that he’s always been this patrician Northeasterner. But I think it’s important to note those divergence points where Vince has a very different background than you might expect for a Mr. McMahon.

But when it comes to the allegations and the televised reality of depravity, there’s a lot of overlap there. If we take even a fraction of Janelle Grant’s allegations to be true, it means that Vince McMahon was much closer to the character he was playing when he was degrading women on television than many people thought or gave credit to.

Dave Zirin:  I view Vince McMahon, the person behind the camera, as a paleolithic, right-wing bigot, someone who’s never hesitated to use racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia for entertainment purposes to sell his product.

But there have been these areas of progress, like the rise of women wrestlers away from the Divas concept. Does he get credit for any of that or is that other people behind the scenes trying to push this person into the 20th century?

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  It’s always hard to say. Vince, when he was in control, always had the last word on virtually all creative decisions. But when it comes to the progress, I think a lot of that is other people.

And what you have to remember is that, yes, it is good that there is more equality, or at least something getting closer to equality among genders in wrestling, at least between cis men and cis women. But women’s wrestling was on the path to becoming as huge in the United States as it was in Japan, where pro wrestling is very big and taken seriously, in the mid 1980s.

You had Wendy Richter, this massively popular female wrestler for Vince’s company, the World Wrestling Federation, who Vince executed what is known as — I hate to use a vulgar term, but it’s the term of art — A screw job on Wendy Richter.

Wendy Richter was getting a bit too big for her breeches, and Vince McMahon, according to Wendy, flipped the script on her and made her lose a match she was supposed to win. And she walked out of the company.

And that kind of thing, that expression of power over women and things of that nature, I think, are more defining of Vince, and really very likely, although you can’t do alternate histories, held back women’s wrestling decades before this recent resurgence.

Dave Zirin:  Totally agree with you about that. And for people who don’t remember Wendy Richter, the Rock and Wrestling Connection.

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  Connection. Yes, she worked with Cyndi Lauper as her manager, captain Lou Albano was her opponent and then her partner. It was a wild time for wrestling and it was very consequential. Wendy Richter was instrumental in that, and she was basically just tossed aside.

And a woman named the Fabulous Moolah, it was her in-ring name, Lillian Ellison, was more or less in charge of women’s wrestling in the country and then in the WWF for a long time. And she had allegations of being a sex trafficker as well. That’s a whole separate story. But wrestling has a lot of exploitation and pain on its underbelly, and it’s not always acknowledged because the product seems so fun.

Dave Zirin:  How are they able to get away with this when, say, any other entertainment entity, if they attempted to — Of course, we do know about #MeToo in Hollywood, there are horrible things that happen in the background of pro sports, but it seems to run so coarsely through the DNA of pro wrestling through Vince McMahon. Do you think they’re able to get away with things that other cultural institutions aren’t able to get away with behind the scenes?

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  Absolutely. You see a lot of cultural institutions these days, essentially, whether they know it or not, pulling from the playbook of Vince McMahon and wrestling.

Now, the thing is, there’s this concept within wrestling, kayfabe, K-A-Y-F-A-B-E, it used to just refer to the fiction that wrestling was a legitimate sport and that the characters you were seeing were how these people actually were. Well, that went away when Vince sought deregulation, and, in official testimony, said that wrestling was fake.

So in 1989, there’s this big public acknowledgement that wrestling is fake, but he managed to persist by really bending reality at a level that has allowed him to get away with a lot of things.

He, I don’t want to say invented, but certainly codified this concept that I gave the name neo-kayfabe, where you intentionally, very deliberately muddy the waters of fact and fiction. You make it so that, you’re not saying, hey, everything you’re seeing here tonight is real, you’re saying, hey, everything you see tonight is fake — But wouldn’t it be interesting if some of it was actually real? Why don’t you do the math? And then all of a sudden people can just make up whatever they want about reality.

And, more importantly, if the company gets into trouble, everything’s so confusing as to what’s real, what’s fake, what kinds of lascivious acts Vince McMahon may have done on television versus ones he did behind the scenes, allegedly. All of these things get so confusing that people tend to just stop investigating. Or they become such obsessive investigators that they sound nuts and nobody pays attention to them. You may notice some parallels to politics right here. And —

Dave Zirin:  Everyone watching this interview is thinking about Donald Trump as you are saying what you are saying.

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  And Donald Trump has been watching Vince McMahon’s product for decades, and was watching Vince McMahon’s father and grandfather’s product as far back as the 1950s. Trump is a huge wrestling fan and has participated in a lot of Vince’s wrestling, and I think learned a lot from him.

And one of the big lessons is if you say things that are so outrageous or outrageously false or outrageously true and you mix them in with each other to the point where no one knows what’s true or false, then you can get away with a lot. You can get away with a lot.

And wrestling, even before neo-kayfabe, had that kayfabe code of basically Omerta. It was like a mafia. You had a lot of guys in wrestling who just did not tell the world about what happened inside wrestling, and that can be very powerful for an ecosystem.

Dave Zirin:  Is this why everything you just said, why you called your book Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America? And perhaps you could delve into that a little bit more of what that means, the unmaking of America?

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  Sure. I think there’s a degree to which we had a social fabric that was held together by certain… Let’s just call them falsehoods, or you could even call them lies. And in wrestling, you had the big lie, which was, everything you’re seeing tonight in this show is fake. In American politics, you had the lie, this is a perfectly representative democracy. Now, it never was actually a perfectly representative democracy, but for a long time you had a lot of people at least buying into the ideal that it should be one.

And what you’ve seen recently — And I think Vince McMahon did this very cannily in wrestling, but you see this more broadly now — You see the social fabric getting torn because you have a broad understanding that these things are fake.

Now, was it good to be held together by a lie? I’m not sure it was, but you can demonstrate that the lie was something that unified people, and this mix of fact and fiction that is deliberately muddy and confusing, it just drives people against each other.

And I really think a big factor in the mess that this country is in right now is this neo-kayfabe approach to politics, business, culture, whatever. You can just throw a bunch of nonsense along with a bunch of totally true things at people, and they’ll spend so much time trying to figure out what’s real and what isn’t that they’re paying attention to you, and then you win even if you didn’t actually do anything for society. So I hope that wasn’t too long an answer, but that’s —

Dave Zirin:  No, no. It’s a good answer.

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  …The general thing I’m looking at.

Dave Zirin:  Yeah, yeah. And that’s such a good answer, I’ve got a follow up to it.

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  Please.

Dave Zirin:  And instead of moving to the repercussions for Vince McMahon, which we have to talk about, but —

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  We will talk about that, yes.

Dave Zirin:  But what you’re saying is so important, though, that this question of belief. Do you think that because so much of what had unified this country was this idea of a truth that people also suspected was a lie, or a lie which contained elements of truth, do you think that’s one of the points of attraction of pro wrestling to, not just the American public, but internationally? This idea that, okay, at least this is, on the level, fake?

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  Yes. I think there is a degree to which, if you think that you can see through the veil of wrestling — Which is harder than you’d think it would be — If you can see fully through the veil, or at least think you can, it can be very gratifying to watch something that is as often nihilistic as wrestling because you feel like, well, at least it’s honest in its dishonesty.

But the trouble with that is maybe there was a time when that was true, but in the era of neo-kayfabe, you have a lot of things that are presented by the wrestling press or by WWE’s documentary team or whatever as being behind-the-scenes truths that supersede the in-ring truths, and those behind-the-scenes truths are very often just as fictional, just as concocted by the people Vince McMahon has hired.

And you can really get into problems when you let that appeal of going, ooh, I’m learning the truth lead you to being deceived, which is easier than people like to think it might be.

Dave Zirin:  So what repercussions are we going to see in terms of the life and professional future of the, of course, already elderly Vince McMahon — Although he certainly doesn’t seem to want to take a step back from the spotlight at all. But is this, at long last, the end of The Boss, either as a character or as a person behind the scenes?

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  I think as a character on WWE, the odds are very much against us ever seeing Mr. McMahon again. In fact, the big question, I think, is where will we see Mr. McMahon from the past?

Because here’s the thing, what people may not know is WWE, although it was a family-owned then publicly traded company that was controlled by the McMahons for decades, last year, Vince maneuvered it to a sale to Endeavor Holdings, Ari Emanuel’s company, and WWE was merged with UFC to form a company called TKO.

And the trouble is Vince, in pursuing being a respectable businessman like that, ended up giving himself a boss. And I think the situation TKO and WWE find themselves in right now is they can’t really afford to embrace Vince McMahon on any level because these allegations are not just about Vince, they’re about complicity from the entirety of the company, or at least many people up top at the company, allegedly.

And I really think when you look at the response that WWE had to the allegations and then resignation, it was very limp and confusing. You had Triple H, Paul Levesque, Vince McMahon’s son-in-law and the chief creative officer for WWE, a C-suite executive, coming out after last weekend’s Royal Rumble wrestling event and reading a prepared statement that had nothing to do with Vince and was just about the rumble. Then got a question or two about Vince, and his response, most infamously, a reporter, Brandon Thurston, asked him, have you read the lawsuit? And Triple H just said, I have not.

And I don’t think, at this point, that the corporate bean counters who own this wrestling product are going to have the same kind of loyalty to Vince McMahon or the wrestling business that the old hand-picked Vince McMahon crew from when it was an independent company would’ve had.

So I think, to answer your question, I don’t know what Vince McMahon’s future looks like exactly, but it’s going to be wrapped up in these allegations for a while.

Barring Trump winning again and just squashing the federal investigation into Vince, there is this federal probe going on that the authority, there was just a report this morning from The Wall Street Journal that this probe is incorporating these sex trafficking allegations, and that case will eventually come to something, presumably. Again, anything can happen, but if it comes to fruition, that’ll be a whole new low for Vince. That’ll be a really difficult situation. I think his legacy is really challenged, but there’s a lot still to be seen as to how this plays out.

Dave Zirin:  Now I saw that Triple H, aka Paul Levesque, press conference, it totally looked like a hostage video. He looked miserable, and frankly he looked old, which I’ve never said about Triple H before.

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  It’s been a rough year for Paul Levesque, whatever you think about his response, I cannot imagine the turbulence of going through this year at WWE.

Dave Zirin:  Yeah. But does his performance at that, I guess you just answered it, but I wanted to ask you if his performance reflected anything about what’s going on? Maybe you could speak about that last year for him.

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  Yes, I think, if anything, if nothing else, I should say, it reflected the confusion in wrestling right now as to what the party line is. Because the party line for 40 years, if you work for Vince or if you hope to work for Vince someday or you fear you might have to, the party line has always been don’t rat out Vince. Don’t say anything bad about Vince. Don’t say anything Vince wouldn’t want you to say.

And now we’re in this completely unprecedented situation where Vince is still alive but not somebody that is protected in the way that he was, and he’s no longer anybody’s boss there.

So what I think Paul Levesque’s statement reflected was this total unwillingness to be the first person to stick your neck out, which is just how wrestling works. It’s a very vicious ecosystem, and nobody wants to be the one who takes the risk of ticking off Vince McMahon.

That said, now you’re like, well, maybe I should be speaking out. If you’re an executive, you’re thinking, I should speak out because that would be me being loyal to TKO and to Ari Emanuel. But Ari Emanuel and TKO have not made a party line publicly clear. If something has gone on internally, no one’s heard about it. So I think there’s just a lot of confusion, and Triple H’s response really reflected the fact that nobody knows what to say.

Dave Zirin:  Look, I am not a pessimist by nature, but I actually can see a world where Trump wins re-election, squashes the federal probe, and Vince actually comes out to the ring triumphant as the guy who won. And a section of the fan base celebrates the fact that Vince is able to get away with it and beat back the government and these —

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  Beat Biden’s justice department. Yeah, there is a non-zero chance that if Trump wins, this investigation gets crushed. But if Trump wins, there’s a whole other set of problems that are going to create a multi-ball situation in the pinball machines. So I can’t really predict.

Dave Zirin:  Yeah, it’s just more, I’m speaking of the nature of the wrestling fan, which of course is heterogeneous. I can see —

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  Oh, absolutely. But there are a lot of people in wrestling fandom who are very MAGA, who don’t trust Biden’s justice department, and there’s plenty of people out there you can find in the internet wrestling community right now howling that this is a witch hunt, et cetera, et cetera.

So yeah, you have a section of wrestling fandom that’s pretty much die-hard pro-Vince and does not really tolerate much evidence in the other direction. My Amazon and Goodreads reviews will be a perfect testament to this.

Dave Zirin:  Can’t wait for that.

You’ve been so generous with your time, but I’m not quite ready to let you go. Can I ask you just another question?

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  Please, hit me.

Dave Zirin:  If that’s okay.

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  I’m ready.

Dave Zirin:  All right. So the Slim Jim situation, where Slim Jim, the longtime sponsor of WWE, pulls its sponsorship after the allegations drop, and then within, what, 24 hours brings it right back in. There was the Netflix deal that was announced just days before these allegations dropped, multi-million dollar deal for Netflix to host a ton of WWE —

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  Multi-billion, $5 billion. Yeah.

Dave Zirin:  That’s right, billion. Billion, that’s right. Here’s the question. Is any of that threatened right now or are the trains just going to keep running on time, Monday Night Raw and the rest of it?

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  If Vince were still involved with the company right now, I would say that some of those partnerships might be in danger. But he resigned, and the company has, although they don’t really have much of a narrative about what’s going on, they have cut ties with him, at least publicly.

So I think as far as corporate damage control goes, I think the brand has not endured that much damage yet.

Now I say yet because it’s unclear who’s going to get implicated as these lawsuits and the federal probe continue. Already in the lawsuit you had unnamed people who are identified by their titles: WWE Corporate Officer No.2, WWE Superstar No.1. And if these people get fully outed, and if more people are found, it’s unclear exactly what the response will be.

But I would say that my prediction is WWE will probably be fine. The brand has been through horrible scandal in the past, and it’s generally come out just fine. It is not as popular as it was at the turn of the millennium, but it’s a very solid, solid media empire. So I don’t think WWE is that much threatened, but Vince McMahon is no longer with WWE, and he definitely faces some real threats.

Dave Zirin:  Wow. Last question. People like myself who love the art of wrestling can’t stand Vince McMahon, and to a large degree can’t stand WWE. Is there still a place for us in this sport?

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  Well, obviously there’s AEW, which is the rival, the much smaller rival run by Tony Khan. But I would tell people to go out to your, look, wherever you are in the United States, I guarantee you there is an independent wrestling promotion somewhere near you comprised of day players who all have real jobs, or at least are seeking real jobs in this economy, and are not egomaniacal megastars. There are people who are really in it for the love of it because there ain’t no money in it.

And if you are interested in wrestling, and I love the art form so deeply, I always tell people, go see your local independent wrestling promotion. Don’t necessarily spend the money on going to a big corporate thing. You can have the real experience in a VFW hall with a bunch of sweaty accountants wrestling each other. It’s really kind of a magical experience.

Dave Zirin:  Amen to that. Abraham Josephine Reisman, you’re a terrific interviewee. The subject is so important. The book is Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and The Unmaking of America. Thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports.

Abraham Josephine Riesman:  Thank you for having me.

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