Before she headed back to the States, our colleague Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff dropped in some additional thoughts on sports and diplomacy from here recnt time in France.
Her book Basketball Empire: France and the Making of a Global NBA and WNBA comes out September 7. Readers can use code BASKET23US or BASKET23UK (UK, European Union) for 20% off.
One of the joys of returning to in-person professional events is the experience of catching up with international colleagues, meeting new ones, and engaging in the sort of organic sidebar conversations that are more difficult to replicate in a digital-only world. Such was my recent experience at the World Congress on Sports Diplomacy, a two-day symposium held in beautiful Donostia-San Sebastian. The deep roster of speakers brought together a mix of scholars, practitioners, and scholar-practitioners from Europe and the Americas to reflect on the field’s decade-long evolution, current situation, and where we all go from here.
For the Basque Country, which has long cleaved to its unique cultural, culinary, and linguistic heritage, the use of sports diplomacy is a poignant example. Known with the moniker “Bike Country,” Basque Country has a particular sporting cultural heritage that ranges from cycling, sailing, and tennis to football (soccer), basketball and beyond. In fact, it was host to the first stage of this year’s Tour de France, just one example of how sports diplomacy can allow a wide range of stakeholders to assert themselves on the sporting world map.
Another of the event’s co-sponsors, Wales, is also illustrative. Known more widely over the past year to global audiences thanks to its FIFA World Cup 2022 participation and the Hollywood storytelling successes of Wrexham AFC, Wales is using the art of football diplomacy to similarly punch a larger presence on the world’s sporting stage.
One of the key themes explored was how sports diplomacy can be a tool far beyond the specter of governments. That’s because there is a clear distinction between sports politics and sports diplomacy. While sometimes the two intersect on a Venn diagram, such as when geopolitics collide on the pitch, the mix of sports politics is in fact different from that of sports diplomacy.
As a result, today sports diplomacy is about much more than just a programmatic effort, moving people from point A to point B. Such initiatives have their place, and when done well, can be effective. But fellow speakers’ theory and evidence-based presentations reinforced what I’ve previously argued: that sports diplomacy is a strategy, framework, tool, and storytelling device. And some of its most effective stakeholders are athletes, athletes at any level, for they are the main locomotives of our global sports world.
That’s why it is critical to provide athletes a full, more regular seat at the table. It is something I’ve begun to do through the FranceAndUS project and my forthcoming book Basketball Empire: France and the Making of a Global NBA and WNBA (Bloomsbury), both of which tell the sports diplomacy story through athletes’ experiences. But there is a clear need for far more athletes and coaches who are explicitly clear that what they are doing or engaging in is indeed a form of sports diplomacy. Training is paramount, which is why I and others teach about sports diplomacy (click here for more about “How to be a better sports diplomat”).
Another takeaway from the Basque Country event was that sports diplomacy is about much more than just the Olympics or football (soccer). The examples shared from the worlds of cycling, skateboarding, mentorship exchanges, and the sports-arts-music nexus were illuminating and emphasize how the culture around a particular sport can provide it with greater diplomatic ammunition that we may realize. This naturally also impacts identities, storytelling, and how we tell those stories to diverse international audiences. Here’s an excerpt of my presentation on why basketball diplomacy is primed to lead in the twenty-first century.
Thus, there is far more synergy across geographic and sport discipline borders than meets the eye. In the future, there will likely be greater cross-sport cooperation within the sports diplomacy metric, and that is where things will really come alight in innovative, creative ways.
It’s about to get far more interesting as we continue to unpack the myriad non-football and Olympic ways that non-state sporting actors – i.e. everyday citizens, teams, leagues, federations, sponsors, NGOs, and others – engage in sports diplomacy. This is one of the greatest areas of opportunity for sports PR and marcomm professionals, athletes and coaches, as well as C-suite executives. Telling these sports diplomacy stories “beyond the embassy window” will help provide greater understanding of how the global sports world is already about far more than just the game.
