After a fantastic few months in France, some top notes about the role(s) sports diplomacy can play communicating within our global world
Greetings from Paris, where in May I temporarily unpacked my suitcases to engage with colleagues, diplomats, students, and the public on sports diplomacy, Paris 2024, and the thematics found in Basketball Empire: France and the Making of a Global NBA and WNBA. From talks, lectures, and conferences, to an overly full writing agenda, it’s been hectic but in all sorts of good ways.
Here are a few of the insights gained along the way about how we communicate globally today, using the sports world as a prism into larger conversations and understandings.
1️⃣ Conversations around sports diplomacy in Europe are lightyears ahead of what’s transpiring in the United States
It is clear that other regions of the world grasp that in the Internet-connected, social media-fueled global work sports environment, it is not just government representatives who engage in sports diplomacy. As Simon Rofe noted, the concept of who engages in sports diplomacy is more diffuse. That’s why it’s the “international society of sport” that drives more than 80% of sports diplomacy engagements today.
While diplomats and foreign ministries are today working in closer partnership with sports partners, some of the most intriguing sports diplomacy is driven by or occurs within sports organizations such as international and national federations, leagues, teams, sponsors, media, and among athletes, coaches, and officials.
2️⃣ We need to refresh stereotypes and misconceptions around sports diplomacy (especially for U.S. stakeholders and audiences)
During my sports diplomacy talk at the Lausanne Olympic Capital City IF Seminar last May, I brought up an example from the “Basketball Diplomacy in Africa Oral History Project” collaboration with FIBA Foundation. What struck me most about the resultant word cloud from the transcripts are how the words “know” “opportunities,” “people,” and “think” were more frequently used ones, and how the interviews themselves highlighted the knowledge capacity of basketball’s sports diplomacy exchange.
This is powerful. It helps to visualize how sports diplomacy is knowledge sharing that often, though not always, has a human capacity-building component. And it can occur from digital or in-person exchanges.
Too often within the United States, sports diplomacy is still viewed as something that only the federal government drives and that it is purely programmatic and is just “sport for good” or CSR. Such outdated views need to change as the sporting mega event cycle shifts to the United States for the next several years. There’s a need for U.S. stakeholders, particularly host cities, and audiences to better understand what sports diplomacy is today, what it can look like, how it can be used, and how to tap into this powerful tool and framework.
3️⃣ There’s a need for more conscious, explicit storytelling through the sports diplomacy lens
While we talk about the power of athlete platforms, there’s still a significant lack of #storytelling how they’ve engaged in types of sports diplomacy, although some are starting to change this.
At a keynote talk at the Université de Lorraine’s “Sport et Culture” study day in June. I shared my research processes, notably key lessons learned from working on #BasketballEmpire, as well as how we think critically about sources…including what we do when the available sources on a topic. For this project, as well as for other examples of sports diplomacy engaged in by non-state sports actors, I conducted a series of oral history and media interviews so as to get at the athlete, coach, and administrator experiences and perceptions.
There needs to be more conscious, explicit storytelling through the sports diplomacy lens. Not only does it help audiences better understand what sports diplomacy is and can look like, but also what the direct impact can be upon an individual. In other words, more storytelling can help demystify the concept and illustrate in concrete ways the ways that sports diplomacy’s role as a convener and facilitator of discussion — not just on cultural issues, but also on technical or savoir faire ones, too — can benefit citizens.
My deep thanks to the “Sport et Culture” club and Dr. Francois Doppler-Speranza for organizing this fruitful, enriching day in Nancy.
4️⃣ Sports diplomacy’s network of networks can build strong, inclusive communities
In late June, I attended the hoops face off at Paris’ Gym Jean Jaures between the best basketballers from Paris (Team Namesake) and the U.S East Coast (7uice). Organized by Agence Panagon, it illustrated one of key fundamentals of sports diplomacy: the network of networks that Simon Rofe discusses. It also centered around sports diplomacy’s people project, an investment in individuals as well as communities. Lastly, it was an example of FranceAndUS sports diplomacy, as players and spectators from both countries created a wildly energetic atmosphere centered around love of the game.
5️⃣ It’s all about relationships, and we foster those through communication, representation, and negotiation
I had the pleasure of presenting at June’s Sport&EU conference in Angers on “Paris 2024-LA 2028: Sports Diplomacy in Franco-American Relations.” It was an amalgamation of my work on the FranceAndUS project, Basketball Empire, as well as new research and insights from my work in the sports diplomacy practitioner space.
Bottom Line: sports diplomacy has provided numerous opportunities for French and American officials within diplomacy, government, media, and the sports sectors to become ever-closer. These relationships were strengthened outside of the limelight, but enhanced by more high-profile sports diplomacy engagements within basketball #NBA #NCAA #WNBA. This bilateral example can serve as a blueprint for other relationships, be they diplomatic, sporting, or otherwise.
Even better: the conference was a chance to see colleagues, finally meet in real life those whose work I’ve long admired, and exchange with the range of perspectives and view points “in the room.” Among the things I’m mulling over since then:
🎯 Integrity issues will begin to have greater influence within the sports diplomacy and policy rubrics
🎯 Athlete rights need to figure more prominently into the issues pertaining to sport, diplomacy, policy, and law, particularly as the power of athlete voices and platforms continues to grow
🎯 As Silvija Mitevska said, “It can be tough to be a pioneer, but you also get to shape and control the narrative.” I could not agree more!