What are sports without a good rivalry? Given the relatively recent rise of professional women’s football—and the even later arrival of its mediatization—what are the roles that journalists, as well as scholars, play in making and preserving great rivalries in the women’s game?

One of the things I’m greatly encouraged by is how the way we tell the stories about women’s sports is evolving. And while much of this rests on how societies are rethinking the role, import, and investment in women’s sports, it’s also highly dependent upon access: to present-day sources but also, vitally, to past accounts, statistics, and more.

How we communicate the story pertaining to issues and events in global sport shapes popular memory and sporting myths. Thus sports industry professionals, executives, investors, and the media should think more intentionally about how the ways that they tell their stories will shape, constructively or negatively, the larger narrative.

The big news upon arrival in Paris last weekend was the FIBA 3X3 basketball European Cup championship, held throughout last weekend at the iconic Trocadéro, and what a vibrant vibe!

The Tokyo Games went off this summer, in spite of host Japan’s pandemic-induced state of emergency. I was all-in on the basketball tournaments – both the classic 5X5 and inaugural 3X3 men’s and women’s versions — as well as these other key storylines.

It’s been one year since George Floyd was killed, one local action that sparked ripple effects domestically and internationally. And now, in 2021, it is time to ask ourselves how to contribute to tangible progress.

Tomorrow the French national team confronts the United States in Le Havre in what could turn into a more interesting-than-usual friendly match. The two teams’ histories with each other form a very different sort of Franco-Americain relationship than most people think of.

I’ve focused on five clutch inflection points that sculpted the past twelve months—a nod to my training as a historian, which is to identify inflection points, pivotal moments that unleash onwards change, disruption, revolution, war, lasting peace, prosperity, and more. Here are my five for 2020…