Its been a year unlike any other in recent memory. That’s why this is a differently spun end-of-year post. Rather than an annual review, I’ve focused on five clutch inflection points that sculpted the past twelve months—a nod to my training as a historian.
Part of a historian’s work is to identify inflection points, pivotal moments that unleash onwards change, disruption, revolution, war, lasting peace, prosperity, and more.
Thus, my five that unleashed the year that was within a global sports context are:
1️⃣ The NBA Paris Game
This week of global NBA basketball in the City of Light was a wakeup call for many. Many nay-sayers do not look beyond the stereotypical “high culture” of food, fashion, literature, cinema, and art. While its true France lacks a sports culture akin to that found in the United States, Britain, Australia, or Germany, the week broke some outdated ideas about French appetites for global sports consumption, and planted the seeds for future opportunities within the sports business nexus. Hosting a major U.S. professional sport (albeit one that many increasingly view as a global league), wrapped in a French twist, catered to a French, European, and increasingly African market. For this latter marché, a focal point on the new NBA-FIBA Basketball Africa League was a big impetus, but so, too, was the way that many French youths whose parents or grandparents immigrated from Africa, identified with several of the NBA’s European players whose own parents or grandparents hailed from the continent, like Milwaukee Bucks Greek-born Giannis Antetokounmpo or Charlotte Hornets forward and French team captain Nicolas Batum, whose father, Richard, was a professional basketballer from Cameroon.
The NBA was supposed to return to Paris in January 2021; the public health situation will delay this, but look for the league to return possibly in 2022 instead.
2️⃣ Rudy Gobert Tests COVID-19 Positive
On March 11, Utah Jazz and French international Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19, prompting the NBA to bring its season to a screeching halt. And the global sports world rapidly followed its leadership. Restarting, bubbles, pushing forward despite COVID-19 cases all followed from this point, as did the financial implications for stopping much of the world’s sports leagues, trickling down to shake up youth and amateur sport, too. How to rebuild and to build back better have become focal points ever since.
3️⃣ Death of George Floyd
Tension already in the air following the March police shooting of Breonna Taylor erupted when George Floyd died at the hands of Minneapolis police in late May. Video footage of Floyd’s last moments sparked countless protests, marches, and more, and frequently athletes and coaches were center stage leading and/or supporting their communities. The new era of athlete activism began several years ago, most notably fomented by WNBA players and furthered more visibly by Colin Kaepernick, Megan Rapinoe and others who began to stand up and lend their voices to protest social injustice. But the movement took off in Summer 2020, no doubt aided by the pandemic’s grinding much, including sports, to a halt and crescendoing in unprecedented athlete political and civic engagement leading into the November U.S. elections.
Vitally important, it wasn’t just athletes, coaches, leagues, teams, and sponsors in the U.S. who were sparked to action following Floyd’s death. This was instantly a global movement that still reverberates around pitches and arenas across the continents.
4️⃣ NWSL Becomes First Professional U.S. League to Return to the Field
The push by the NWSL to return to play in a bubble in Utah in June, ahead of similar acts by MLS, WNBA, or NBA, set off a renewed wave of interest in the women’s game—both at home and overseas. The fans were already there, but given the unique circumstances of 2020, no doubt aided by the 2019 World Cup bump, they were better heard as more broadcasters and media outlets covered NWSL, WSL, D1 Arkema and other women’s professional leagues. As a result, even as resources became ever more precarious due to the COVID-19 fiscal crunch (and more), consumption and mediatization of women’s soccer reached new heights — with the NWSL notching nearly 500% increase in U.S. viewership.
5️⃣ Milwaukee Bucks Go On Strike
When the Bucks refused to leave the locker room and play in late August in response to Wisconsin police shooting yet another Black man, they unleashed a sports labor strike that ricocheted across the United States—and the world. It proved the power of athletes, sports labor if you will, in new ways. And its important to note that since then, other teams and athletes have been empowered and emboldened to walk off in protest, most recently when players for Besaksehir and Paris-Saint-Germain left the pitch to protest alleged racist remarks by some of the officiating staff.
My Five reflect the three pillars that form the foundation for the story of 2020 in global sports:
Athlete (and coach) activism and engagement
Sports labor
Sports diplomacy—the cultural, technical, and knowledge exchanges that occur daily in an Internet-networked globalized sports world and happened every nanosecond in our suddenly Zoom and social media-centric stay-at-home 2020 lives.
I anticipate that they’ll also shape our post-COVID19 global sports world, though hard to tell—yet—just how much these pillars will remain at the center as the terrain shifts and settles after this seismic year.