🏀The IRIS Interview🏀
Recently, I spoke with with Estelle Brun of the Sport and International Relations Programme, IRIS Geostrategic Observatory on Sport, on basketball. At hand was the question of how the sport’s globalization—and especially the NBA’s worldwide growth since 1984—has impacted international relations, the ripple effects in the WNBA, and how #hoopsdiplomacy gains attention, whether its via Dennis Rodman, the NBA-China “events” and beyond.
A Week of Basketball / Paris ❤️ the NBA
I’ve just finished a fantastic week of basketball in France and can report that not only do the French play basketball (bien sur, they have since 1893!) but that Paris ❤️ the NBA.
Here are a few cliff notes from my week in the City of Light
A Conversation with David Stern on the NBA's Globalization
I spoke with former NBA Commissioner David Stern about the NBA’s early global outreach for my in-process book, Basketball Empire, on the hidden story of how and why France has become a major pipeline for international players. His first question was, “why are you doing fringe basketball?”
The Top Stories for 2020
There’s a lot to be excited for as we kickoff the new decade. I’m looking to 2020 as I continue to build out two key basketball stories of my own, but I also see 2020 as a break out year where many of the trends and movements in the global sports sphere finally bear fruit. Primarily, these are stories where cross-sport and cross-cultural influences—often influenced by different types of sports diplomacy—make all the difference.
The Year in Review 2019: Sports Diplomacy to the Forefront
As 2019 races across the finish line more quickly than a Ford at Le Mans, its clear that sports diplomacy—recognition of what it is, the various ways that it is being used, how it is changing the sports world, and some of its caveats—is ever-more present. This is true in my own work as a scholar-practitioner, as well as how athletes, teams, and countries tell their stories or how the sports business world is impacted by sports diplomacy, for better or worse. Here’s the top ten events and stories in which sports diplomacy threaded its way through my 2019—plus one honorable mention :)
#WorldGotGame
If you haven’t followed the FIBA World Cup in China this month, you’ve missed out on some great games. That’s because competition has tightened significantly, somethingI France captain Nicolas Batum articulated to me at the start of Les Bleus’ training camp.
Marine Johannès' Rêve Américain
“If you talk to Marine, you have to get close to her because when she speaks she’s very quiet,” Batum told me of his hometown basketball “sister” Marine Johannès, the WNBA’s 13th French player who is living her American dream this summer.
Can Hoops Diplomacy Take-Over Africa?
That’s a bit of a provocative question, but one that lent itself well to a workshop I co-directed with Dr. J Simon Rofe last week at the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy, SOAS University of London.
The NBA’s French Connection
I’ve been terribly remiss about updates over the past few weeks winding down a project, but wanted to post this fascinating examination by Yann Casseville of Basket Le Mag of the NBA’s deep roots, which I helped contribute a few ideas to.
Sport Diplomacy + Digital Diplomacy: Part I
A brief rundown of “Sports Diplomacy: A Vision for the Future” confab on what happens when the sports diplomacy world collides with the digital diplomacy one.