Latest / The Real News Podcast / Loving Sports in an Age of Authoritarians w/ Dave Zirin and Jules Boykoff

Transcript

Loving Sports in an Age of Authoritarians w/ Dave Zirin and Jules Boykoff · The Real News Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Real News Network. I'm Maximilian Alvarez.
0:03
Speaker 1: The twenty twenty six World Cup is now officially over
0:07
Speaker 1: after Spain defeated Argentina in the final match on Sunday,
0:11
Speaker 1: and for many of us around the US and around
0:13
Speaker 1: the world, the World Cup was a very welcome distraction
0:18
Speaker 1: from the ambient awfulness and doom and the daily delusion
0:23
Speaker 1: overwhelm of relentless war, corruption, fascism, and disaster. But the
0:31
Speaker 1: games were also an uncomfortable reminder that no matter how
0:35
Speaker 1: much we love sports and the global spectacle of the
0:39
Speaker 1: World Cup, no matter how much we want them to
0:41
Speaker 1: be an escape from politics and the pain of living
0:45
Speaker 1: in a broken society, there's just no way to truly
0:49
Speaker 1: escape those things. And the manufactured illusion that sports are
0:54
Speaker 1: somehow an escape from political reality is just that an illusion.
0:59
Speaker 1: So what do we do with that? Like? How do
1:01
Speaker 1: we square our love for sports and all the beautiful
1:04
Speaker 1: things and experiences that we get from sports with all
1:09
Speaker 1: these gross, exploitative and societally destructive facets of sports today?
1:16
Speaker 1: Like what does it mean to love sports in a
1:19
Speaker 1: disenchanted age of authoritarians, war and climate catastrophe? These are
1:25
Speaker 1: the kinds of questions that I got to dig into
1:27
Speaker 1: with legendary sports writers, book authors, and real news contributors
1:32
Speaker 1: Dave z Iron and Jules Boycoff at a live event
1:35
Speaker 1: that we hosted at Chilo's Bar in Brooklyn, New York,
1:39
Speaker 1: just days before the World Cup Final. And what you're
1:42
Speaker 1: about to listen to is the audio recording of our
1:45
Speaker 1: discussion for that live event. The name of this event
1:53
Speaker 1: is Loving Sports in an Age of Authoritarians, And we'll
1:56
Speaker 1: get to the authoritarians you know by way of this
1:59
Speaker 1: first question, but it's so much bigger than just anyone authoritarian.
2:03
Speaker 1: How do we continue to love sports and the other
2:08
Speaker 1: things that we love when everything that we know is
2:13
Speaker 1: burning around us? Literally, like we had to move this
2:16
Speaker 1: event inside because the fires in Ontario that literally wiped
2:20
Speaker 1: a first nation off the map are making the air
2:25
Speaker 1: toxic to breathe. So how do we continue loving sports
2:29
Speaker 1: in a time like that? Dave's Iron softball? Do you.
2:33
Speaker 2: Well? First of all, I wasn't told there would be
2:36
Speaker 2: science at this event. Second, very quick joke my grandfather
2:41
Speaker 2: once told me that tries to answer that very heavy question.
2:45
Speaker 2: Guy goes to visit a buddy. Buddy opens the door.
2:50
Speaker 2: His buddy is naked wearing a top hat, and he said, dude,
2:54
Speaker 2: why do you naked? And he said, nobody visits me.
2:58
Speaker 2: And then he says wearing a top hat and he said,
3:01
Speaker 2: someone might visit. And that's how I feel about sports
3:05
Speaker 2: and the environment. Let me make that leap for a second.
3:10
Speaker 2: It's because you know we are in trouble. You know, dude,
3:13
Speaker 2: dude is naked. Everything is out in the open. We
3:16
Speaker 2: can't breathe outside for goodness sakes, and yet sports presents
3:19
Speaker 2: this face like everything's okay. Look at these incredibly fit
3:23
Speaker 2: young people running around the field loving the fresh air
3:27
Speaker 2: on the green field, and then off the field you
3:29
Speaker 2: have environmental catastrophe. And we need to be able to
3:34
Speaker 2: reckon with that because honestly, we're not gonna have outdoor sports,
3:37
Speaker 2: we're not gonna have winter sports unless we do something
3:40
Speaker 2: about this environment. And frankly, I think that's a way
3:42
Speaker 2: to reach sports fans is to say to them, if
3:45
Speaker 2: you really care about sports, then you're going to care
3:48
Speaker 2: about climate change. If you really care about sports, then
3:51
Speaker 2: you should care about fossil fuels. You should care about
3:54
Speaker 2: the World Cup and the kind of footprint it puts
3:57
Speaker 2: down on our world just by the wealthiest of the
4:00
Speaker 2: wealthy flying their private planes into these different cities. So
4:04
Speaker 2: I think it's really important that we have one eye
4:06
Speaker 2: in the environment of all time, not just to save humanity,
4:09
Speaker 2: but actually, let's talk to sports fans and say, if
4:11
Speaker 2: you really want to save sports, you're gonna be on
4:14
Speaker 2: this side of the question too. And so that's the
4:16
Speaker 2: top hat, that's the naked guy. I don't think I
4:18
Speaker 2: made the connection, but we try.
4:22
Speaker 3: Love it, love it, love it.
4:24
Speaker 4: So on the topic of climate change and this World Cup,
4:30
Speaker 4: a couple quick facts. This is the most polluting World
4:34
Speaker 4: Cup in the history of Men's World Cups or women's
4:37
Speaker 4: World Cups. And that's because FIFA decided to hold it
4:41
Speaker 4: in three countries and include forty eight teams, which is
4:45
Speaker 4: more than ever, up from thirty two. And also because
4:48
Speaker 4: one of the countries, the United States, just doesn't have
4:51
Speaker 4: a good train system to get people around, so everybody,
4:54
Speaker 4: if you want to get from Kansas City to your
4:56
Speaker 4: next game in San Francisco, you basically have to fly.
5:00
Speaker 4: So the lower end estimates are like nine million tons
5:03
Speaker 4: of carbon dioxide equivalent, and that's a low estimate, and Meanwhile,
5:07
Speaker 4: we got Gianni and Fontino out here on his private
5:10
Speaker 4: jet crisscrossing North America. Yeah, thank you, big boo for
5:14
Speaker 4: Gianni and Fontino. And he even went to Kutar for
5:17
Speaker 4: a funeral the other day and then zipped back. So like,
5:19
Speaker 4: the leadership is very much not coming from the top.
5:23
Speaker 4: But to build off what Dave was saying, I'm really
5:27
Speaker 4: interested in this idea that we can be more politically
5:31
Speaker 4: effective sometimes by being less explicitly political. And we're living
5:37
Speaker 4: in a moment where we sort of have two models
5:39
Speaker 4: of that happening simultaneously in New York City. Since we're here,
5:43
Speaker 4: I'll mention Zoran Mamdani, who where was he watching a
5:47
Speaker 4: football match soccer match yesterday or the other day in
5:51
Speaker 4: a local prison, and like opening up conversations about kind
5:55
Speaker 4: of what that means, what's the life of an incarcerated person,
5:58
Speaker 4: How can we bring sports into their lives as a positive.
6:01
Speaker 4: Then you have on the other side of one of
6:03
Speaker 4: the big topics of my book, which is Donald Trump
6:06
Speaker 4: and how he is the president of the United States
6:08
Speaker 4: that has used sports to his political advantage more than
6:12
Speaker 4: any in the modern era. So we have like two
6:14
Speaker 4: models of using sports toward political aims while not necessarily
6:20
Speaker 4: being explicitly political. And the last thing I'll just say
6:23
Speaker 4: on this question is I'm wearing a Bosnia shirt.
6:27
Speaker 3: I was in Bosnia recently.
6:29
Speaker 4: I spent more than a month in Sarajevo, and it
6:31
Speaker 4: was an exciting time to be there because the team
6:34
Speaker 4: had just qualified for the World Cup for the first
6:36
Speaker 4: time in a long time, and the energy was really.
6:39
Speaker 3: Good in the city.
6:41
Speaker 4: And when I was there, I went to the Genocide
6:44
Speaker 4: Museum and what struck me about the place was that
6:48
Speaker 4: there were so many exhibits at the museum that talked
6:52
Speaker 4: about the importance of soccer. There was one that literally
6:56
Speaker 4: was titled Soccer Saved My Life. There was another that
7:00
Speaker 4: talked about people in shreb and Yitzza that were huddling
7:03
Speaker 4: around a black and white television during the nineteen ninety
7:06
Speaker 4: four World Cup watching Roberto Baggio and getting this glimmer
7:10
Speaker 4: of joy in an increasingly difficult time for them. So
7:15
Speaker 4: if they can do it in Bosnia and stick with
7:18
Speaker 4: sports and figure out how to use sports to their
7:20
Speaker 4: political advantage, and they're definitely doing that in Bosnia, we
7:24
Speaker 4: can surely come together to attack the issue of climate
7:28
Speaker 4: change through sport with everyday people and talk about how
7:31
Speaker 4: it affects their everyday lives.
7:35
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, two quick thoughts or a thought in a
7:40
Speaker 1: question thought because I couldn't agree with you more. Joe
7:44
Speaker 1: was about, like we can be more politically effective by
7:47
Speaker 1: being less like, you know, obsessed with politics, And like,
7:51
Speaker 1: I really identify with what you said there, because this
7:53
Speaker 1: is a question I get all the time, you know,
7:56
Speaker 1: as like someone who goes around interviewing just you know,
7:58
Speaker 1: regular working people across the political spectrum around this country
8:03
Speaker 1: every week and people come up to me, they're like,
8:05
Speaker 1: how do you do it? How do you talk to people?
8:07
Speaker 1: I'm going to answer that question for all of you
8:09
Speaker 1: right now. Just be a person. Just don't be weird,
8:13
Speaker 1: just be like, just be chilled, just be interested in
8:15
Speaker 1: other people. I don't know how to explain that, Like
8:18
Speaker 1: it's just like you don't got to beat people over
8:20
Speaker 1: the head with politics, just like talk to them as
8:22
Speaker 1: human beings. Connect on what you connect on and go
8:26
Speaker 1: from there. And like, for a lot of us, that
8:28
Speaker 1: is sports. You know. I have some of the deepest
8:30
Speaker 1: political conversations with my buddies that I grew up with
8:33
Speaker 1: back home who live very different lives than I do,
8:36
Speaker 1: or like the guys I worked in the warehouses and
8:38
Speaker 1: factories and restaurants with. Then like I've had an academia, right,
8:43
Speaker 1: you know, because you start with sports and then you
8:45
Speaker 1: get into some real heavy shit real quick. So like
8:49
Speaker 1: I couldn't endorse that more. And to get like spicy
8:54
Speaker 1: for a second, because again this is a live bar debate,
8:57
Speaker 1: I want to push you both on the question of
8:59
Speaker 1: like sports and climate, because everything you said really resonated
9:03
Speaker 1: with me. But sports is also one of the most
9:07
Speaker 1: important cultural dream manufacturing or like a false dream manufacturing
9:15
Speaker 1: mechanisms that we have in society, and sports is where
9:19
Speaker 1: people are being trained to see that you can just
9:22
Speaker 1: build a dome and play in like freezing weather or
9:26
Speaker 1: blazing heat. So what do you say to someone who says, hey,
9:29
Speaker 1: we could have a World Cup in Qatar. It doesn't
9:31
Speaker 1: matter how many brown people die to make it happen.
9:35
Speaker 1: But why don't we just do that?
9:37
Speaker 2: That's a great question I would say to the person.
9:40
Speaker 2: First of all, you think we're having a sports conversation,
9:42
Speaker 2: We're actually having a politics conversation because you're talking about
9:46
Speaker 2: a set of political priorities that are not in the
9:49
Speaker 2: best interests of the people in Qatar or in the
9:52
Speaker 2: are on the world. If you think that that's the
9:53
Speaker 2: way sports is going to be sustainable, I would say
9:56
Speaker 2: to them that what you are promoting is an incredibly
9:59
Speaker 2: elitist view of sports where the only people who really
10:02
Speaker 2: get to play are the super professionals who are in
10:04
Speaker 2: this climate controlled atmosphere because they can produce profit, while
10:08
Speaker 2: the rest of us just become watchers. And honestly, that's
10:11
Speaker 2: we have too much of that in this country right now.
10:14
Speaker 1: Like I hate that.
10:15
Speaker 2: This is the statistic I hate the most. Sixty percent
10:18
Speaker 2: of kids who play youth sports quit by the age
10:20
Speaker 2: of twelve, and when they're asked why they quit at
10:24
Speaker 2: the age of twelve, it's always because they are told
10:28
Speaker 2: that they're not good enough to keep playing when they're thirteen, fourteen, fifteen,
10:32
Speaker 2: and so then they become either the watchers or they
10:35
Speaker 2: become alienated from things like exercise, community, frankly, some of
10:39
Speaker 2: the things that make life worth living. That's what happens.
10:42
Speaker 2: So sports should never be the province province of experts.
10:45
Speaker 2: It should never be the province of the super skilled.
10:48
Speaker 2: Sports should be for everyone, as a baseline for what
10:52
Speaker 2: we're arguing for in this country, sports for all. And
10:56
Speaker 2: so people who make the climate controlled argument are actually
10:59
Speaker 2: arguing sports for few. So I would be calling them out.
11:02
Speaker 2: You're actually making a political argument that is actually not
11:05
Speaker 2: only dooming humanity, but it's dooming a bunch our kids
11:08
Speaker 2: to a life of actually being alienated from what makes
11:11
Speaker 2: life worth living. Yeah.
11:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, So I think that the sports world needs
11:17
Speaker 4: to grapple with this idea of the mega You know,
11:20
Speaker 4: we're now living in the AGA and that too, actually,
11:25
Speaker 4: but the mega mega. What I mean is we're living
11:28
Speaker 4: in this moment of the v v IP, this new thing,
11:31
Speaker 4: the very very important person. We're also living in the
11:34
Speaker 4: era of the mega mega sporting event.
11:38
Speaker 3: And the truth of the.
11:38
Speaker 4: Matter is this is not at all It's like an
11:41
Speaker 4: oxymoron to call it a mega event. Sustainable is just
11:44
Speaker 4: never going to be that, and so we need to
11:46
Speaker 4: have conversations about.
11:47
Speaker 3: Like how do you reduce the size.
11:49
Speaker 4: Gianni and Fontino talked about making the next World Cup
11:52
Speaker 4: sixty four teams instead of forty eight teams, which will
11:55
Speaker 4: just make worse what we're talking about right now, and
11:58
Speaker 4: they'll come back at us when we say, oh, well,
12:00
Speaker 4: how about is going back to thirty two or at
12:02
Speaker 4: least just keeping it at forty eight. They'll say, oh,
12:04
Speaker 4: but you know, we're trying to include more teams, and
12:07
Speaker 4: of course that's true, but right behind it is bubbling
12:10
Speaker 4: their cauldron of money, and that's all to their benefit
12:12
Speaker 4: to have more teams, more games. More thirty million dollars
12:15
Speaker 4: per game went into FIFA coffers at each one of
12:17
Speaker 4: these games, just from tickets alone. So the truth of
12:21
Speaker 4: the matter is that they're kind of actually giving an
12:24
Speaker 4: argument that both weak and somewhat like trying to seem
12:27
Speaker 4: like they're not racist, but actually are racist.
12:30
Speaker 3: And here's what I mean.
12:31
Speaker 4: They'll point to teams like cate Verd, who was wonderful
12:35
Speaker 4: if you didn't watch the World Cup, like they were
12:37
Speaker 4: one of the most exciting stories, and they're like, oh,
12:39
Speaker 4: do you want to not include cape Verd at the
12:42
Speaker 4: World Cup?
12:42
Speaker 3: Now?
12:42
Speaker 4: After these wonderful stories of all their triumphs, cape Verd
12:46
Speaker 4: finished first in their group. They were coming to the
12:49
Speaker 4: tournament whether there was thirty two teams, maybe even twenty
12:52
Speaker 4: four teams, Okay, so don't tell me like cape Verd
12:54
Speaker 4: was in qualify and they're a legit team.
12:56
Speaker 3: A lot of soccer people weren't at all surprised.
12:58
Speaker 4: So thinking about how do we both make it more
13:02
Speaker 4: of a public good sports but also shrinking it and
13:06
Speaker 4: moving some of the money from the shrinkage to what
13:09
Speaker 4: you're talking about addressing the fact that so many kids
13:12
Speaker 4: drop out too early because that's a tragedy.
13:15
Speaker 1: Well, let's stick on that for a second. I love
13:17
Speaker 1: the sports for all and sports is a public good.
13:21
Speaker 1: So sticking with the you know, like bar debate theme
13:26
Speaker 1: in the socialist utopia, like, what is the world of
13:28
Speaker 1: professional sports going to look like? Our sports team's going
13:32
Speaker 1: to be you know, publicly owned utilities? Right, you know,
13:37
Speaker 1: like what is what does the better like version of
13:40
Speaker 1: this shit look like? That like can still retain the
13:44
Speaker 1: things that we love, but isn't draped in all this awful,
13:48
Speaker 1: shitty stuff that makes us hate the things we love.
13:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean sports in a socialist utopia. I mean, first,
13:57
Speaker 2: I'd be so happy in the socialist utopia. I'd be like, oh, yeah,
14:00
Speaker 2: there's sports on cool, which would be sort of like
14:03
Speaker 2: the opposite of my current life, which is, oh there's
14:05
Speaker 2: sports on good. The world is burning ah, sports, So
14:09
Speaker 2: I think it would take that and sort of stand
14:12
Speaker 2: it on its head, which would be nice, I must say.
14:16
Speaker 2: But I think more than anything, I mean, there are
14:19
Speaker 2: things that are wrong with the sports world now that
14:21
Speaker 2: I could say, like in even like a democratic, socialist,
14:25
Speaker 2: capitalist country, we're gonna do away with, you know, the
14:28
Speaker 2: public funding of stadiums and saying like, look, you're a billionaire,
14:31
Speaker 2: James Dolan, you want refurbishing a Madison Square garden, find
14:35
Speaker 2: the money between the cushions of your couch and take
14:37
Speaker 2: care of it. Don't ask the taxpayers to do it
14:40
Speaker 2: for you. So you know, real demands like that. Second
14:45
Speaker 2: of all, if even one dollar of public money goes
14:47
Speaker 2: into a sports team or a stadium, guess what, that
14:50
Speaker 2: team becomes one dollar public. So it's like the more
14:54
Speaker 2: public money that goes in, the more we own the teams.
14:57
Speaker 2: And if they want all the money for their stadiums,
15:00
Speaker 2: yess what, your team has just become the most effective
15:03
Speaker 2: public utility in the city of New York. Congratulations, you're
15:07
Speaker 2: making the city billions. Our schools are now funded. All
15:10
Speaker 2: is good, and I'm so sorry James Dolan You'll only
15:12
Speaker 2: get one yacht. But somehow I think you'll survive. James
15:16
Speaker 2: Dolan's Sun, by the way, thirty two years old, is
15:18
Speaker 2: now in charge of the New York Rangers. I think
15:20
Speaker 2: that makes them the first grand Nepo baby in doing that.
15:24
Speaker 2: So horrible people just the worst. And one other thing
15:29
Speaker 2: I would say is like, I think this idea of
15:32
Speaker 2: sports for all, we can be very specific for people
15:35
Speaker 2: right now of what that means. It's not just about ability.
15:38
Speaker 2: It's an anti racist argument, it's an anti sexist argument,
15:41
Speaker 2: it's an anti an it's an anti anti poor people argument,
15:45
Speaker 2: who are denied sports, denied physical education in so many
15:49
Speaker 2: public schools. We would have full funding for physical education
15:52
Speaker 2: throughout the country. And I think this is very vital.
15:56
Speaker 2: We would never in any sort of just society tell
15:59
Speaker 2: our trains gender family that they have no place on
16:02
Speaker 2: this on the playing field, and that which is the
16:05
Speaker 2: official position by the way of this government and the
16:08
Speaker 2: International Olympic Committee. So there's so much we can do,
16:11
Speaker 2: and this could be the sort of thing where we
16:12
Speaker 2: have on a whiteboard behind me with a pen with
16:16
Speaker 2: a dry erase, be like what actually do you hate
16:18
Speaker 2: about sports? Like what makes it hard for you to
16:20
Speaker 2: love sports? And like what about the corporate control. Do
16:23
Speaker 2: you hate what about the bigotry? Do you hate Native
16:25
Speaker 2: American mascot tree? Let us know? And those are actually
16:29
Speaker 2: the things we can begin to check off and say,
16:31
Speaker 2: let's have a better sports world, sports for all sports
16:34
Speaker 2: in the name of justice, and sports in the name
16:36
Speaker 2: of fun.
16:38
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and now is a perfectly opportune time to try
16:43
Speaker 4: to some of these things. Where you have owners of
16:46
Speaker 4: football club soccer clubs in places like Vancouver, Canada, that
16:51
Speaker 4: it's rare that you see an owner advertising their own
16:55
Speaker 4: lack of skills, saying I can't possibly run this club
16:58
Speaker 4: unless I get a huge infusion of public money. At
17:01
Speaker 4: a time when you've got people like Avi Lewis in
17:04
Speaker 4: Canada political leader talking about renationalizing some industries, this is
17:09
Speaker 4: a perfect moment for doing that with a football club,
17:12
Speaker 4: like why not experiment? We tried to do this in Portland, Oregon,
17:16
Speaker 4: where I usually live. When the owners of the team
17:20
Speaker 4: a guy named Henry Paulson, former Treasury secretary under George W. Bush,
17:27
Speaker 4: and his son Dave loves this. His name is Merritt Paulson.
17:31
Speaker 2: It's just it's like that's made up, come on, son
17:34
Speaker 2: of a billionaire's name.
17:36
Speaker 3: Merritt, Come on now, Yeah, it's.
17:38
Speaker 1: Just like meritocracy's made up.
17:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's a great point.
17:42
Speaker 4: So many years ago, when Portland got a major league
17:45
Speaker 4: soccer team, they were asking for eighty five million dollars
17:48
Speaker 4: in public money to refurbish the stadium. Eighty five million
17:51
Speaker 4: dollars that was going to come out of the budget
17:53
Speaker 4: where we fill our pothole, Some of it was going
17:55
Speaker 4: to schools, homeless services, you name it.
17:58
Speaker 3: And a lot of people fought back.
17:59
Speaker 4: Actually, adaves Iron came to town and fought back next
18:02
Speaker 4: to us, and we didn't totally win the struggle. They
18:06
Speaker 4: didn't get eighty five million dollars. Instead, they got twelve
18:08
Speaker 4: point nine million dollars from a special tax from the
18:11
Speaker 4: Portland Trailblazer.
18:12
Speaker 3: So it was like sport to sport.
18:14
Speaker 4: But we did have a good conversation about what a
18:17
Speaker 4: publicly owned team could look like. And I just cannot
18:20
Speaker 4: wait to get fully behind the city that decides to
18:23
Speaker 4: go for it. I think Vancouver's a possibility, but anywhere
18:26
Speaker 4: that happens, I want to be there trying to do
18:28
Speaker 4: what we can to help.
18:29
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, hell yeah, I love this, And like you know,
18:36
Speaker 1: we're we're doing good on time so far, but I
18:39
Speaker 1: did want to give everyone their mandatory FIFA is requiring
18:43
Speaker 1: that I let you know that this is your hydration break,
18:47
Speaker 1: so please go to the bar, stay hydrated, stay safe.
18:54
Speaker 1: But I want to like we're going to get to
18:59
Speaker 1: and zero in on the World Cup, you know, the
19:01
Speaker 1: authoritarians and the stink of Trump on the knicks, you
19:05
Speaker 1: know NBA Finals victory. But by way of getting there,
19:09
Speaker 1: I want to like focus in on again another aspect
19:12
Speaker 1: of the sports for all discussion that really doesn't get
19:15
Speaker 1: talked enough about, especially in leftist spaces. But I don't
19:20
Speaker 1: think at all, right because the only time we're talking
19:22
Speaker 1: about youth sports these days is when a bunch of
19:25
Speaker 1: weirdos obsess over the genitals of some of our children
19:29
Speaker 1: who were playing them, right, And that's not what youth
19:32
Speaker 1: sports was to me. It was my life. It was
19:35
Speaker 1: like the place where I found my motivation, where I
19:38
Speaker 1: learned to work on a team, where like my dad
19:41
Speaker 1: coached my brothers and then he coached me. It was like,
19:45
Speaker 1: youth sports is so much a part of me and
19:47
Speaker 1: will always be a part of me, and the older
19:51
Speaker 1: I've gotten and especially after I blew out my knee
19:54
Speaker 1: playing basketball, and I lost basketball. The thing that I
19:59
Speaker 1: had played three to four times a week every week
20:03
Speaker 1: for my whole life, like countless hours in the driveway
20:06
Speaker 1: with my dad and my brothers was gone. And I've
20:10
Speaker 1: realized since like that a huge chunk of my life
20:14
Speaker 1: was gone after that. Where else in my life do
20:18
Speaker 1: I walk up to strangers and say, Hey, you got next?
20:21
Speaker 1: Can I play with you? You know? And then you
20:24
Speaker 1: play with people that you don't know, you have to
20:26
Speaker 1: learn in a finite space with rules quickly, who what
20:30
Speaker 1: everyone's strengths and weaknesses are accomplishing a you know, a
20:35
Speaker 1: shared goal or not.
20:37
Speaker 3: You know.
20:37
Speaker 1: Like it's such a rarefied space and experience that I
20:40
Speaker 1: think so many of us need, whether it's in organized
20:44
Speaker 1: sports or just more play. And so I wanted to
20:48
Speaker 1: like throw this to you guys, because I don't think
20:51
Speaker 1: I get to hear you talk enough about like the
20:55
Speaker 1: human good of sport beyond just the professional sports world
21:02
Speaker 1: and capitalist shit show that most people see on their TVs.
21:07
Speaker 2: Oh man, so like what I love about sports? I mean,
21:11
Speaker 2: oh man, I had to give a toast for my
21:16
Speaker 2: dad on his eightieth birthday, and I was trying to
21:19
Speaker 2: think of what do I possibly say about this eighty
21:23
Speaker 2: year old guy whose that's such an impact on my life,
21:25
Speaker 2: And the first thing that came to my head is like,
21:27
Speaker 2: when did my dad ever mean the most to me
21:29
Speaker 2: in my entire life? And it was like, when was
21:32
Speaker 2: this moment? Because my parents were divorced, I saw my
21:34
Speaker 2: dad like four days a month growing up, so it's like,
21:37
Speaker 2: where was that real spot for us? And it was
21:40
Speaker 2: Game six, nineteen eighty six World Series, Mookie Wilson ground
21:46
Speaker 2: ball Bill Buckner's legs. You'd say to a baseball fan,
21:50
Speaker 2: game six, that's all you have to say, and they
21:52
Speaker 2: know what you're talking about. My dad took me there
21:55
Speaker 2: and I still have the ticket stub. It says fifteen
21:59
Speaker 2: dollars to go to the best World Series. And he
22:03
Speaker 2: got that ticket not by getting on his phone, because
22:06
Speaker 2: back then phones were these mammoth contraptions attached to walls.
22:09
Speaker 2: But he got it by waiting online at Shay Stadium
22:12
Speaker 2: and we got to go to this game, and then
22:14
Speaker 2: we got the game of all games, and when that
22:17
Speaker 2: ball went through Bill Buckner's legs, I went from being
22:22
Speaker 2: happier than I could ever remember being to being terrified
22:25
Speaker 2: because that stadium got so loud and grown ups got
22:30
Speaker 2: so crazy. And that was before they stopped selling beer
22:34
Speaker 2: after the seventh dty, And so we're in X ratings
22:39
Speaker 2: at this point, and my dad just put his arm
22:42
Speaker 2: around me and held me close. And it was a
22:44
Speaker 2: moment where I never felt both more imperiled and then
22:47
Speaker 2: more safe in a moment. And I feel like there's
22:51
Speaker 2: something about and that kind of hooked me for life
22:54
Speaker 2: on sports. Playing basketball for the New York City Fighting
22:58
Speaker 2: Quakers and high schools an experience onto itself. You didn't
23:03
Speaker 2: want to mess with the Fighting Quakers. But that's and
23:08
Speaker 2: me being a five foot ten inch center for that team.
23:10
Speaker 2: They called you white Chocolate Thunder. They called me, why
23:15
Speaker 2: the hell is he here? The one story I'll tell
23:20
Speaker 2: is I was playing one game against a freshman for
23:23
Speaker 2: Rice named Felipe Lopez, who went on to become the
23:26
Speaker 2: number one recruited player in the country. He was in
23:29
Speaker 2: ninth grade. I was in eleventh grade. That was their JV.
23:31
Speaker 2: They were playing our varsity. And I shot the ball
23:34
Speaker 2: and Felipe blocked it to half court half court, and
23:38
Speaker 2: the whole crowd goes oh, And I like hung my head.
23:41
Speaker 2: I was so embarrassed. And he put his arm around
23:44
Speaker 2: me and walked me to half court and was just like,
23:47
Speaker 2: it's okay, man, I do that to everybody. Do not
23:49
Speaker 2: take it. And I met him as a sports writer.
23:54
Speaker 2: I met him twenty years later and I said, yo, man,
23:57
Speaker 2: you blocked my shot to half court and then you
23:59
Speaker 2: put your arm around. It's a memory I'll never forget.
24:01
Speaker 2: And you looked at me and he said, yeah, I
24:03
Speaker 2: don't remember that at all. And I was like, oh,
24:06
Speaker 2: and he said, you got to understand. I just blocked
24:08
Speaker 2: a lot of people. That was kind of my move.
24:12
Speaker 2: And I was like, okay, all good.
24:13
Speaker 3: Still.
24:14
Speaker 2: So that's why I love sports. I chose to show
24:16
Speaker 2: rather than tell. You give me a good moment in
24:19
Speaker 2: a rocky relationship with my dad, or a great moment,
24:22
Speaker 2: and you give me Felipe Lopez blocking my shot. Couldn't
24:25
Speaker 2: be happier.
24:31
Speaker 4: So I'm really interested in when creative people who don't
24:36
Speaker 4: necessarily consider themselves athletes engage the space of sports, bringing
24:41
Speaker 4: their creativity to it. And one of my favorite places
24:44
Speaker 4: for this is roller Derby in Portland, Oregon, where I live.
24:48
Speaker 4: Where from the names that people adopt that are like
24:51
Speaker 4: freighted with beautiful politics and fight back in them to
24:56
Speaker 4: the very format of the event and to the very
24:58
Speaker 4: nature of its included because trans folks are always included
25:02
Speaker 4: on the skating rink in Portland, Oregon, it's like a
25:05
Speaker 4: really big part of the culture. Not only that, it's
25:08
Speaker 4: also a great chance for fundraising for those kind of
25:12
Speaker 4: causes at the local level. So I'm always about how
25:15
Speaker 4: can we use creative people's minds to come up with
25:18
Speaker 4: new ways of doing things. How can we have the
25:21
Speaker 4: soccer fields open in New York City all night long,
25:24
Speaker 4: which has been happening recently during the World Cup. Maybe
25:27
Speaker 4: the World Cup is just an entry into having that
25:29
Speaker 4: be something that we do more often. We've heard about
25:32
Speaker 4: midnight basketball. I love this idea of midnight soccer as well.
25:36
Speaker 4: So I just think that to build off what you're saying, like,
25:39
Speaker 4: this is a really fruitful area where we can all
25:41
Speaker 4: come together and think collectively and make some really magical
25:44
Speaker 4: things happen.
25:44
Speaker 3: For sure.
25:45
Speaker 2: M Hell yeah, jus, how do you not say that
25:47
Speaker 2: you played protess.
25:48
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say you're bearing the lead. Bro.
25:51
Speaker 2: Just give everybody your resume. I said I played basketball
25:54
Speaker 2: for the Fight and Quakers. I'm not saying you can
25:58
Speaker 2: tie to that, but you should try that.
26:02
Speaker 3: No, It's true.
26:03
Speaker 4: I did play soccer for a big part of my life,
26:06
Speaker 4: and honestly, that is why I one of the many
26:08
Speaker 4: reasons why I think it's worth fighting for. I had
26:12
Speaker 4: a nice professional soccer career, and I also played for
26:16
Speaker 4: the US under twenty three men's national soccer team.
26:19
Speaker 3: Although before you get too excited about.
26:21
Speaker 4: That, the last international match that I played for the
26:24
Speaker 4: US national soccer team at the U twenty three level
26:28
Speaker 4: was literally against the Soviet Union. So but yeah, I mean,
26:38
Speaker 4: I'm not necessarily I mean, I'm not proud necessarily like
26:41
Speaker 4: who I was back then because I was an absolute
26:43
Speaker 4: maniac in ways that weren't always good for me and
26:45
Speaker 4: the people around me.
26:46
Speaker 3: But it is definitely part of my life.
26:49
Speaker 2: But you stuck it to Krushev, and for that, America,
26:53
Speaker 2: thank you, sir, Thank you for your service.
26:57
Speaker 1: Well, I like, I really appreciate you, you guys going with
27:00
Speaker 1: me and sharing that because I thought that was you know,
27:03
Speaker 1: so powerful and you know again, made me feel closer
27:07
Speaker 1: to you in a way that like our discussions about
27:09
Speaker 1: politics haven't and I think that's kind of the point
27:12
Speaker 1: of why we're all here. But I think it's also
27:15
Speaker 1: really important to share with others out there, even those
27:19
Speaker 1: in our lives who don't get why we love sports.
27:23
Speaker 1: And it's not because like we you know, we we
27:27
Speaker 1: just are okay with ignoring all of the military jets
27:31
Speaker 1: flying over or Donald Trump's bulletproof bullshit. You know, you know,
27:37
Speaker 1: a booth at the NIXT game. You know, it's that
27:40
Speaker 1: like this thing we've loved for so long and have
27:43
Speaker 1: carried like into our love for watching it and others
27:46
Speaker 1: do it. You know, we're holding on to that while
27:50
Speaker 1: it's getting shrouded in so much crap, and that just
27:53
Speaker 1: makes it complicated for I think a lot of us.
27:56
Speaker 1: But like let's sort of take that into to the
28:02
Speaker 1: vibe and time that we're in now, where a lot
28:05
Speaker 1: of us are struggling with that, be it this great city,
28:10
Speaker 1: like during a game that was so special to it
28:13
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump, you know, like put his stink on
28:17
Speaker 1: or you know, folks around the world who loved the
28:20
Speaker 1: World Cup and now know what that stink smells like
28:24
Speaker 1: and so much else. Yeah, so like let's talk about
28:27
Speaker 1: the big title of the event here like, first, how
28:31
Speaker 1: do we carry that love into sports today, especially the
28:35
Speaker 1: World Cup in a time like the one that we're
28:37
Speaker 1: living in. Now.
28:39
Speaker 2: Wow, I mean then that's a great question. I Mean
28:42
Speaker 2: the number one thing I say is like, look, the
28:45
Speaker 2: Knicks were ours long before they were the property of
28:47
Speaker 2: the Dawn family. That's our team, not theirs at best,
28:52
Speaker 2: at best they are renting it. It's our team, not
28:54
Speaker 2: the team of somebody who got married at mar A Lago,
28:57
Speaker 2: whose kid got married at mar A Lago, who's trying
28:59
Speaker 2: to change the name of Penn Station to Trump Penn Station,
29:03
Speaker 2: and who's given Trump millions of dollars throughout his political career,
29:07
Speaker 2: and even the worst indictment of all counts Donald Trump
29:10
Speaker 2: as a first close personal friend. So these are these
29:13
Speaker 2: are all reasons to say, wait a minute, you're not
29:16
Speaker 2: part of what we just want. And you know something
29:18
Speaker 2: you didn't really get on TV during the parade which
29:21
Speaker 2: I was at, I mean for the Knicks. By the way,
29:24
Speaker 2: Nixon five just throwing that up, is that it was.
29:28
Speaker 2: It was so raucous. People were so incredibly pumped and enthused,
29:32
Speaker 2: and Mayor Mom Donnie he gets up there and he
29:35
Speaker 2: does a sports speech that rivals, like the al Pacino
29:38
Speaker 2: speech in any given Sunday where he's like.
29:40
Speaker 3: He's like, you.
29:43
Speaker 2: Know your fingers, please for that inch. And and here's
29:49
Speaker 2: Mom Donnie up there. He's saying, like, they gave us
29:51
Speaker 2: a zeroint four percent chance of winning when we were
29:54
Speaker 2: down twenty nine. That's what the statistician said. Well, guess
29:57
Speaker 2: what you tell New Yorkers they have a point four
29:59
Speaker 2: percent chance? They say, why you giving me a head start?
30:03
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm hearing this and I'm like, yeah, let
30:07
Speaker 2: me bash my head through the TV screen right now.
30:10
Speaker 2: And then and then James Dolan gets up there and
30:13
Speaker 2: it was the only time of the whole day they
30:15
Speaker 2: cut this at people booed when he got up there.
30:18
Speaker 2: He's the kid the Knicks winning the championship. People booing
30:22
Speaker 2: the owner and he gets up there and he says
30:24
Speaker 2: something completely snarky about Mom Donnie and it just didn't fly.
30:28
Speaker 2: But that's just to say it shows his alienation from
30:31
Speaker 2: the vibe and mood of the city. And if he
30:33
Speaker 2: wasn't alienated from how this city was really feeling, he
30:37
Speaker 2: would never have invited Donald Trump to be there at
30:40
Speaker 2: Game three when we finally had a home game in
30:42
Speaker 2: a finals at MSG in twenty seven years. That's when
30:46
Speaker 2: you invite Donald Trump so it can be all about
30:48
Speaker 2: him and not the people themselves. Give me a break.
30:51
Speaker 2: And of course that's the one game they lose in
30:54
Speaker 2: the last three rounds of the playoffs. And O what's
30:56
Speaker 2: so amazing about it is that people sort of get that.
30:59
Speaker 2: And then when he doubled up with the US men's
31:01
Speaker 2: World Cup team and tried to rig things for them,
31:04
Speaker 2: it's that stink that he brings to the table. My
31:07
Speaker 2: buddy calls what Trump does. He calls it athletic fracking,
31:13
Speaker 2: like environment like he doesn't like sports at all. He
31:16
Speaker 2: wants to drill into it, destroy it, destroy everything around
31:21
Speaker 2: it if he can just get a drop of political benefit.
31:25
Speaker 2: So athletic fracking would not exist in a socialist utopia
31:29
Speaker 2: of a society, and frankly, in any sort of utopia,
31:33
Speaker 2: whatever you want to brand it, Donald Trump and the
31:35
Speaker 2: Trump family wouldn't exist either, or at the very least,
31:38
Speaker 2: they'd be, shall we say, put in their place. But
31:41
Speaker 2: just one thing before I passed this the Jewels, I
31:43
Speaker 2: gotta tell a story about a very quick conversation I
31:46
Speaker 2: had with Levi in the back in the orange shirt,
31:47
Speaker 2: just to give you an idea about what sports could
31:49
Speaker 2: mean if I could. He's in the orange shirt.
31:54
Speaker 1: And.
31:56
Speaker 2: You know, I'll be real quick. I'd been having like
31:58
Speaker 2: a difficult year, if you will, or a decade, whatever
32:02
Speaker 2: you want to call it. And I was sitting with
32:06
Speaker 2: Lev the other day and I said to Lev, I said,
32:08
Speaker 2: you know, the last couple of months have actually been
32:11
Speaker 2: a lot better. I'm feeling really good. I don't know
32:14
Speaker 2: why that is, but I'm just really doing better. And
32:16
Speaker 2: left silent for a second. He just looks at me
32:18
Speaker 2: and he says, the knicks, and I realized he was
32:22
Speaker 2: fucking right. That like having this run had this animating
32:27
Speaker 2: effect on so many other things in my life, and
32:30
Speaker 2: that's I guess. In some ways that makes me just
32:33
Speaker 2: a weirdo, a die R fan, somebody off the beam,
32:36
Speaker 2: whatever you want to call it. But I think it
32:38
Speaker 2: also kind of made me feel human for a second,
32:40
Speaker 2: because it's like I felt connected with the city in
32:42
Speaker 2: a way that I hadn't honestly since nine to eleven.
32:45
Speaker 2: But instead of it being this moment of abject tragedy,
32:48
Speaker 2: it was a moment of joy.
32:50
Speaker 3: Wow, that's beautiful, that's beautiful.
32:52
Speaker 1: Well, and Jules, if I'm made like just to like
32:56
Speaker 1: throw a little extra bit of sauce before you you
32:59
Speaker 1: hop in is like, it's not just Trump right, Like
33:02
Speaker 1: it's Cash Patel jumping around like an idiot and with
33:06
Speaker 1: the men's hockey team, like as a as someone who
33:09
Speaker 1: wore that jersey. Does that piss you off? Like, I mean,
33:13
Speaker 1: we don't ever get to hear like from your side
33:15
Speaker 1: of that.
33:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, we often don't get to hear from the athlete
33:18
Speaker 4: side of things, despite the fact that they've got social
33:21
Speaker 4: media at their fingertips. There's often a hesitancy to push
33:23
Speaker 4: back at things like Cash Ptel And I think you
33:26
Speaker 4: make a good point. Although the Trump curse is very real.
33:29
Speaker 4: I mean, talk to Harry Kane about it. He went
33:31
Speaker 4: golfing eighteen months ago.
33:34
Speaker 2: People were blaming Trump for them losing.
33:36
Speaker 3: Well then you know he didn't score.
33:37
Speaker 4: After it was revealed about the golf and saying the
33:39
Speaker 4: Trump curse has many many forms there, But yes.
33:43
Speaker 1: Dave calls it the reverse Midas touched.
33:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, and that it is.
33:48
Speaker 2: I tried calling it the Trump taints, but for a
33:51
Speaker 2: lot of reasons, my editor at The Nation was like, no, yeah.
33:58
Speaker 4: Very good call back, But you do make the really
34:02
Speaker 4: important point that it's not just Trump himself and the
34:05
Speaker 4: Trump curse. It's the Trump administration that is really doing
34:09
Speaker 4: this sort of athletic fracking that you're talking about. The
34:12
Speaker 4: cash Betel's a really good example from the recent Olympics
34:14
Speaker 4: and the hockey team and sort of attaching themselves like
34:17
Speaker 4: a barnacle on the side of the ship that won
34:18
Speaker 4: that gold medal. But I mean, you've even seen during
34:21
Speaker 4: this World Cup a number of instances that maybe aren't
34:25
Speaker 4: as high profile. Everyone knows about the fuller and ballagoon
34:28
Speaker 4: red card that President Trump made some phone calls to
34:31
Speaker 4: his bff over at FIFA, Gianni and Fontino, and lo
34:34
Speaker 4: and behold, the thing gets overturned first time during a
34:37
Speaker 4: World Cup since nineteen sixty two. The predecessor using that
34:41
Speaker 4: rule was Christiano Ronaldo a few months ago, so that
34:43
Speaker 4: he could play in the World Cup because they wanted him,
34:46
Speaker 4: even though he's has credible allegations of rape in the
34:50
Speaker 4: United States against him.
34:51
Speaker 3: So it was a horrible thing there all around.
34:54
Speaker 4: But what I'm trying to say is that it's not
34:57
Speaker 4: just Trump, it's also the administration. Think about the Department
35:00
Speaker 4: of Homeland Security during this very event, after the United
35:04
Speaker 4: States beat Australia, they went on Twitter, DHS did, and
35:09
Speaker 4: they posted two really interesting and terrifying tweets.
35:13
Speaker 3: One of them was all.
35:14
Speaker 4: Had three of the players the sort of on the
35:17
Speaker 4: tweet a picture of them, and then behind them it
35:21
Speaker 4: said like one homeland. It was basically short of just
35:24
Speaker 4: saying blood and soil, and it was like total pure fascism,
35:28
Speaker 4: and experts in fascism jumped up and said, wow, that
35:30
Speaker 4: sounds like a lot like a phrase that Nazis would
35:32
Speaker 4: have said, and then they actually traced it out and
35:34
Speaker 4: it was very similar to a phrase used during World
35:37
Speaker 4: War Two by Nazis. And it's like, I think it's
35:40
Speaker 4: really interesting for a number of reasons and obviously disturbing
35:43
Speaker 4: for a number of reasons. But if you're going to
35:45
Speaker 4: talk about sportswashing, and I do talk about sports washing
35:49
Speaker 4: in the book and more widely, and so maybe I
35:51
Speaker 4: should just define my term really quickly before I go
35:53
Speaker 4: into it for a sec. But sportswashing for me is
35:56
Speaker 4: when political leaders use sports to try to deflect it
35:59
Speaker 4: to from chronic social problems and human rights rose at
36:03
Speaker 4: home to try to look important or legitimate on the
36:06
Speaker 4: world stage and to set themselves up for political, economic,
36:11
Speaker 4: sometimes diplomatic advancement. And a lot of people don't like
36:15
Speaker 4: the term because of the way it's been used in
36:17
Speaker 4: the past, which quite frankly, has been done in an ethnocentric,
36:21
Speaker 4: if not xenophobic fashion, where they say, it's those countries
36:25
Speaker 4: over there, Russia, China, Qatar that engages in sports washing,
36:30
Speaker 4: But we're a democracy, so it couldn't possibly happen here.
36:34
Speaker 4: So part of the argument in the book is that
36:36
Speaker 4: even places that consider themselves democracies can very much engage
36:40
Speaker 4: in sportswashing. But what is Trump doing here in terms
36:44
Speaker 4: of is he trying to does sportswashing work? When people
36:48
Speaker 4: talk about do sportswashing work, a lot of times they
36:51
Speaker 4: mean does it work on an international audience? And the
36:55
Speaker 4: truth is Trump has very little interest in having sportswashing
36:58
Speaker 4: work on.
36:59
Speaker 3: An internettional audience.
37:00
Speaker 4: He makes it clear with his actions he doesn't care
37:02
Speaker 4: what Europe thinks, Africa thinks, Asia, Latin America.
37:04
Speaker 3: He doesn't care what they all think.
37:07
Speaker 4: But that sometimes misses the key audience of people in
37:10
Speaker 4: this country, who I think are the prime audience for
37:14
Speaker 4: Trump and sports washing and for the DHS tweets, and
37:17
Speaker 4: when Trump keeps the Somali referee Omar Abdul Khadir Artan
37:20
Speaker 4: out of the country, that's not he doesn't care what
37:23
Speaker 4: the rest of the world thinks, and they very much
37:24
Speaker 4: didn't like it. But he likes the fact that the
37:27
Speaker 4: Maga Bass sees a guy sticking it to a Somali
37:29
Speaker 4: person who, as you'll know, he talked as trash and
37:33
Speaker 4: garbage in the past. So when all these things are happening,
37:36
Speaker 4: if you look at it through the lens of Trump
37:38
Speaker 4: trying to cater to people here in this country ahead
37:41
Speaker 4: of a key election, everything starts to make a lot more.
37:45
Speaker 3: Sense through the lens of sports washing.
37:47
Speaker 4: And so I think it also gives us this incredible
37:50
Speaker 4: opportunity to see things with clarity and to also kind
37:54
Speaker 4: of figure out how we're going to push back.
37:55
Speaker 3: Against these things. Hmmm he nicely said.
37:58
Speaker 1: Wow, beautiful, powerfully put. And as we sort of make
38:05
Speaker 1: the final turn here, I want to like end with
38:10
Speaker 1: looking ahead to Sunday, but by way of getting there,
38:13
Speaker 1: let's look back on, like, you know, the path to
38:16
Speaker 1: this Sunday with the World Cup finals there's been a
38:18
Speaker 1: whole lot of Again, the theme of the night is like,
38:22
Speaker 1: how do you hold onto the thing that you love
38:25
Speaker 1: when the stink is all around you and everything is
38:29
Speaker 1: corrupting it? You know, the whole world has been asking
38:32
Speaker 1: itself that question over the past month, you know, is
38:35
Speaker 1: they've been dealing with like the Ronaldo stuff, the bracket
38:39
Speaker 1: like stuff, and like the very fact that the two people,
38:42
Speaker 1: the two teams in the finals now were like sort
38:45
Speaker 1: of it was impossible for them to face each other
38:47
Speaker 1: until now, and that feels in retrospect, like, you know,
38:50
Speaker 1: kind of shady. The Egypt Games, Like there's so much
38:54
Speaker 1: that people have had to sort of work through with
38:56
Speaker 1: that stink, including the Donald Trump, the infamous Donald Trump call.
39:01
Speaker 1: So like let's take a look back at that really quick.
39:04
Speaker 1: And I wanted to ask you guys, like your hottest
39:06
Speaker 1: takes on, like the hottest controversies of this World Cup
39:11
Speaker 1: that have sort of brought that stink that we're dealing
39:14
Speaker 1: with here in the US to like a full blown
39:18
Speaker 1: international scale. Mmmm.
39:21
Speaker 2: The hottest World Cup take that I'll have first of all,
39:26
Speaker 2: is rooting for Argentina because of Diego Maradonna, which was
39:31
Speaker 2: forty years ago. It's like, come on, that can't be
39:36
Speaker 2: your reason for rooting for Argentina is Diego Maradona. I
39:40
Speaker 2: think I want Argentina to lose. There are rumors that
39:42
Speaker 2: Jules is pro Argentina.
39:44
Speaker 1: You gotta say it.
39:45
Speaker 3: That's the final question.
39:46
Speaker 2: That's the one we're not. I won't go there.
39:48
Speaker 3: I won't go I'm just gonna say.
39:51
Speaker 2: I love doing that to you. I've known Jewels a
39:53
Speaker 2: lot of time, but the number my number one hottest
39:57
Speaker 2: take from this World Cup is Anybody who says that
40:02
Speaker 2: if the US's best athletes just played soccer, like if
40:06
Speaker 2: Lebron James played goalie, then the US will win every
40:10
Speaker 2: World Cup I think is incredibly insulting to people who
40:14
Speaker 2: actually play soccer. The reason why the US doesn't do better,
40:17
Speaker 2: straight up is that the Pipeline is a country club,
40:20
Speaker 2: and it costs so much money to play youth sports
40:23
Speaker 2: in this country. Does it different than every other country.
40:26
Speaker 2: The reason why a country of three hundred million people
40:28
Speaker 2: that has a large immigrant population that is sports obsessed
40:31
Speaker 2: can't feeld a halfway decent World Cup team, it's because
40:36
Speaker 2: the way we do it in this country is pay
40:37
Speaker 2: to play. You want to be trained at the top clubs,
40:40
Speaker 2: you better have minimum ten grand on the table for
40:43
Speaker 2: your kid, and Lord knows how much under the table
40:45
Speaker 2: to make sure your kid gets those positions. As long
40:48
Speaker 2: as that's the case, this country will always suck at soccer.
40:51
Speaker 2: So the next time someone says to you, why doesn't
40:53
Speaker 2: the US do better at soccer, y'all just look at
40:56
Speaker 2: them and be like, because of the way this country
40:57
Speaker 2: practices capitalism, and you know you need to. If you're
41:01
Speaker 2: not practicing soccer as a democratic socialist exercise, your team
41:05
Speaker 2: is going to suck. And that's why the US sucks.
41:11
Speaker 3: Do you want to argue for argument team or from Spain? Though?
41:14
Speaker 3: Do you want to give your argument?
41:15
Speaker 2: No? Okay, yeah, that's the question.
41:18
Speaker 3: That's last question.
41:18
Speaker 2: Now.
41:20
Speaker 4: So I recently had the good fortune of interviewing this
41:23
Speaker 4: man named Timu furul Home. Timufurl Home played for the
41:28
Speaker 4: Finnish national men's soccer team, and the thing that's interesting
41:33
Speaker 4: about him is that after his career, he's now become
41:36
Speaker 4: a member of the National Parliament in Finland as a leftist.
41:40
Speaker 3: He's part of the Left Alliance.
41:42
Speaker 4: Now, you'll know that soccer has a pretty notorious history
41:46
Speaker 4: of soccer players turned politicians that are right wingers, including
41:50
Speaker 4: like your buddy ro Mario from Brazil who started as
41:53
Speaker 4: a socialist on the left and kind of eked his
41:55
Speaker 4: way over and finally endorsed Bolsonaro.
41:58
Speaker 3: At one point, my dear friend.
42:01
Speaker 4: Your dear friend Mario, and so I was talking to
42:05
Speaker 4: him and we were talking about like sort of the
42:08
Speaker 4: system in Finland and how the soccer system there was
42:11
Speaker 4: so different and how it was bricked into society in
42:14
Speaker 4: a way that's not the country club soccer circuit that
42:17
Speaker 4: Dave so nicely described. And I was asking about, like
42:21
Speaker 4: Finland is the happiest country in the world year after year,
42:25
Speaker 4: and instantly I could tell like it was a bad question.
42:27
Speaker 4: He's like, oh God, like I'm so sick of hearing
42:29
Speaker 4: about that, and he said, he goes, you know, the
42:33
Speaker 4: thing about Finland is that we don't try try to
42:36
Speaker 4: take the moon from the skies. We want everybody to
42:39
Speaker 4: be able to play sports at whatever level they want.
42:43
Speaker 4: We want people to be able to go to music
42:45
Speaker 4: concerts and experience culture for free and easily. And he
42:50
Speaker 4: also added, we also want people to be able to
42:52
Speaker 4: take a one week trip to the Canary Islands every year, which.
42:55
Speaker 3: I thought, Okay, that's fine.
42:58
Speaker 4: Yeah saying there are models out there, I mean, Finland
43:02
Speaker 4: is not at the other end of the universe, and
43:06
Speaker 4: I do think that they provide some ideas for how
43:08
Speaker 4: we could move forward and how we can just have
43:10
Speaker 4: a whole different way of thinking about life, and how
43:13
Speaker 4: soccer and culture, and soccer is a big part of culture,
43:16
Speaker 4: how it all kind of fits into one bigger hole.
43:19
Speaker 3: But I and by the way, before I have to defend.
43:21
Speaker 4: Argentina, I just want to say I've been backed into
43:24
Speaker 4: a corner.
43:24
Speaker 3: But I'm going to do my damn this tune a second.
43:26
Speaker 1: Thank you Jewels do the short straw, because we were like,
43:30
Speaker 1: we got a debate. You can't both root for the
43:32
Speaker 1: same team. So yeah, give it up to Jewles for
43:35
Speaker 1: defending the Argentina side of our final celebrity deathmatch here.
43:40
Speaker 1: But like you know, we've all been watching the World Cup.
43:43
Speaker 1: We got the final coming up on Sunday. None of
43:46
Speaker 1: us are all that excited. It's Spain versus Argentina, Okay,
43:50
Speaker 1: but like let's make the most of it. So in
43:53
Speaker 1: our final round, which is gonna be a genuine debate,
43:56
Speaker 1: and the crowd is going to decide who won.
43:58
Speaker 2: Oh my god, but again, and like we're you.
44:01
Speaker 1: Know, we're recognizing that Dave's got a point for second
44:05
Speaker 1: head start, So as principled leftists or people of conscience
44:12
Speaker 1: like who is the right team to root for this someday?
44:16
Speaker 2: Well, Nixon five, of course, that's what you say in
44:20
Speaker 2: New York get a good response. Look, here's the thing
44:24
Speaker 2: I get asked sometimes, like why are you always trying
44:27
Speaker 2: to make sports political? This is our escape, this is
44:30
Speaker 2: our fun. Why are you trying to make sports political?
44:32
Speaker 2: And the answer is, like, you can't say. You can
44:37
Speaker 2: say you don't believe in gravity. When you fall out
44:39
Speaker 2: of an airplane, it doesn't really matter whether you believe
44:42
Speaker 2: in gravity or not. You're falling out of an airplane.
44:44
Speaker 2: Whether I say sports are political or not does not
44:47
Speaker 2: change the fact that they are political. It's just whether
44:49
Speaker 2: we're going to be quiet about it or not. It's
44:52
Speaker 2: just you know, if you're pointing out a building and
44:53
Speaker 2: saying it's on fire, that doesn't make you an arsonist.
44:57
Speaker 2: And so to take it to this particular thing, and
45:00
Speaker 2: Jules is going to win this debate because this is soccer.
45:02
Speaker 2: I'm a visitor on his field here. But to take this,
45:06
Speaker 2: it's like the World Cup is political, whether we want
45:10
Speaker 2: it to be or not, not just because it's like
45:12
Speaker 2: nation against nation or whatnot. But this is the last
45:15
Speaker 2: thing that we have that the whole world watches, and
45:18
Speaker 2: that gives it a tremendous amount of power if that
45:21
Speaker 2: can be steered in one direction politically or another. And
45:25
Speaker 2: every single World Cup, at least since the thirty four
45:28
Speaker 2: World Cup hosted by Mussolini in Italy, has attempted to
45:32
Speaker 2: use this particular event to steer people politically in one
45:36
Speaker 2: direction or the next. And we have a particularly fraught
45:40
Speaker 2: political battle coming this Sunday because think about it like this,
45:45
Speaker 2: whether Spain wins or whether Argentina wins, the leader of
45:49
Speaker 2: that country will get a boost in the rarest commodity
45:53
Speaker 2: in all of politics in twenty twenty six. And that's hope.
45:57
Speaker 2: People feel better in a very difficult time. People feel
46:00
Speaker 2: hopeful in a difficult time. Ask mom Donnie what it
46:03
Speaker 2: meant to him now the nixt win, like it actually
46:06
Speaker 2: does make a difference if you have that collective sense
46:09
Speaker 2: of we're really doing something here, the direction we're going
46:13
Speaker 2: really matters. So if you agree with me up to
46:15
Speaker 2: that point, then let's take a quick look at what
46:18
Speaker 2: we're dealing with. Uh. In Spain, the leader is a
46:21
Speaker 2: guy by the name of I believe, Pedro Sanchez. Pedro
46:25
Speaker 2: Sanchez is a social democrat. He's the leader of an
46:28
Speaker 2: organization called the Socialist Workers Party. There they believe in
46:32
Speaker 2: a much a progressive stance on immigration, they believe in
46:36
Speaker 2: mass social spending and having a social safety net. And
46:39
Speaker 2: most importantly, they have earned the undying hatred of Donald
46:43
Speaker 2: Trump because they refuse to let their bases be used
46:46
Speaker 2: in the war on Iran. And the leader of that country,
46:50
Speaker 2: Pedro Sanchez, has called out Israel's genocide and Gaza, and
46:54
Speaker 2: he has refused aid and fuel and military aid that
46:57
Speaker 2: were pre existing contracts to Israel he pulled because of
47:00
Speaker 2: what's happening in Gaza. So you have to think, oh,
47:04
Speaker 2: and also he's in a very polarizing situation where you know,
47:08
Speaker 2: the country loves him, the country hates him. There's all
47:10
Speaker 2: this going on there, and so you think, Okay, what
47:12
Speaker 2: will it mean to this individual if Spain wins. Then
47:16
Speaker 2: you go to Argentina. Who's running that place? Good lord,
47:20
Speaker 2: good lord? Someone who genuinely looks like a Muppet, and
47:26
Speaker 2: I love the Muppets. So that's the nicest thing I'm
47:28
Speaker 2: gonna say about him. Named Javier Milay and old Malay here.
47:33
Speaker 2: You know, if you don't know him, he's a good
47:35
Speaker 2: friend of Trump, billionaire and Israel loves him so much
47:41
Speaker 2: that when Benjamin Netanyahu was asked who he was rooting
47:44
Speaker 2: for in the World Cup, he said Argentina, and they
47:48
Speaker 2: asked him because of Messi and he said, not because
47:51
Speaker 2: of Messi. Milay he's the superstar, and he is also
47:57
Speaker 2: somebody who's in a huge corruption scandal. Is popularity is plummeting.
48:02
Speaker 2: The country is very polarized, and so then you think
48:05
Speaker 2: what it would mean to Malay if Argentina wins the
48:09
Speaker 2: World Cup. If nothing else, I think, if Argentina wins,
48:12
Speaker 2: you're gonna see Malay on the field with Donald Trump
48:15
Speaker 2: holding up the trophy. If Spain wins, Donald Trump will
48:19
Speaker 2: find him. It will be probably swimming at the bottom
48:22
Speaker 2: of that algae belching reflecting pool in Washington. I have
48:25
Speaker 2: a better time there than at the World Cup if
48:27
Speaker 2: Spain wins. So I say root for Spain because I
48:33
Speaker 2: want to see a world as far away from the
48:36
Speaker 2: vision that Javier Malay has for this world as humanly possible.
48:42
Speaker 3: That's good.
48:43
Speaker 4: That's good, really good, really really convincing argument. But it
48:48
Speaker 4: could be even more convincing because I have a few
48:50
Speaker 4: other things I want to add to that.
48:51
Speaker 3: You can't go well for starters.
48:55
Speaker 4: There's a guy on Spain by the name of Lemine Jamaal,
49:00
Speaker 4: magical left foot, beautiful player, and by all appearance is
49:04
Speaker 4: a beautiful human being. And his en years old nineteen
49:09
Speaker 4: years old, and his dad's families from Morocco. His mom's
49:14
Speaker 4: family's from Equatorial Guinea, and he's sure to represent every
49:19
Speaker 4: part of his heritage and background in creative and beautiful ways.
49:23
Speaker 4: He also recently he's on Barcelona Football Club as well,
49:26
Speaker 4: which recently won La Liga, and at the celebration afterwards
49:31
Speaker 4: on the team bus he was on the top and
49:33
Speaker 4: he was waving a Palestinian flag. He's a Muslim man
49:37
Speaker 4: who's been very outsquoken for Palestinian rights. So how do
49:40
Speaker 4: you not like lam Jamal. He's just a lovely human being.
49:45
Speaker 4: On the flip side, over on the Argentina side, there's
49:48
Speaker 4: a guy named Enzo Fernandez. You might remember him most
49:51
Speaker 4: recently for scoring the first goal against England to equalize
49:55
Speaker 4: a one to one off an assist.
49:57
Speaker 3: From Leonel Messi.
49:59
Speaker 4: That was about the best thing he's probably done in
50:01
Speaker 4: his life. He's done some terrible things. After the Copa
50:04
Speaker 4: America tournament recently, after they beat Columbia for the title,
50:08
Speaker 4: he was caught on the bus singing racist songs and
50:13
Speaker 4: singing anti trans songs right there on the bus.
50:16
Speaker 2: This is the best debate I've ever had.
50:20
Speaker 3: I'm chilling it right now.
50:22
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
50:22
Speaker 3: Go ahead, you can just try to know he can
50:26
Speaker 3: just trying to help you.
50:26
Speaker 4: I'm just trying to keep out because you need a
50:29
Speaker 4: lot of help over there, since you so so. There
50:32
Speaker 4: are so many reasons if you start going down the roster,
50:35
Speaker 4: but there.
50:37
Speaker 3: Is one reason why you might want to slow down.
50:39
Speaker 4: For two reasons why you might want to slow down
50:41
Speaker 4: and have a little bit of sympathy for Argentina. One
50:44
Speaker 4: is the one that Dave just preemptively mixed going after
50:49
Speaker 4: the Maradonna factor.
50:50
Speaker 3: I don't think we can just skim over the surface
50:52
Speaker 3: of that that easy.
50:53
Speaker 4: I mean, this is one of the all time legends
50:56
Speaker 4: of athlete activism in the history of football. If you
51:00
Speaker 4: yourself have written wonderful work columns about this man, so
51:03
Speaker 4: I don't think we should just get rid of him
51:06
Speaker 4: into history.
51:07
Speaker 3: I actually like unlike some people, I like having history
51:10
Speaker 3: present temporary mom so I mean Diego Maradona.
51:15
Speaker 4: And the other thing is I do have some sympathy
51:18
Speaker 4: for Leo Messi.
51:20
Speaker 3: Thirty nine years old.
51:21
Speaker 4: He's going to set a record for the most steps
51:24
Speaker 4: walked on the field in a World Cup.
51:26
Speaker 3: He does not run that much. They do not make this.
51:29
Speaker 4: Man play any defense whatsoever. It's fun to watch in
51:32
Speaker 4: a sense because he's just like kind of walking.
51:33
Speaker 3: Then they feed him the ball.
51:35
Speaker 4: It's not a very complex offensive structure that Argentina's working
51:38
Speaker 4: with here, especially for a World Cup final. But you know,
51:40
Speaker 4: he's thirty nine years old and in some ways an
51:43
Speaker 4: inspiration that regard. I know he took a bunch of
51:46
Speaker 4: Saudi Arabia money for their tourism. I wrote about that plenty,
51:50
Speaker 4: But you know, I got put in this difficult position.
51:53
Speaker 3: Of trying to make Argentina look good and I just
51:55
Speaker 3: can't do it. Okay, side those things, let's.
52:02
Speaker 1: Give it up for Jules Boycoff and Dave's aroon.
52:04
Speaker 2: Everybody y'all. Give it up from Max Alvarez in the
52:08
Speaker 2: Real News netwek Kayla Rovar two, Where's Kayla? I don't
52:15
Speaker 2: even see U?
52:17
Speaker 1: And last, give it up for Chilo's Bar again for
52:20
Speaker 1: hosting us. Thank you so much Chilos for having us.
52:24
Speaker 1: Hell Ya, thank you for listening to this episode of
52:27
Speaker 1: the Real News Network podcast. Thank you to everyone who
52:30
Speaker 1: came out in person for this incredible event. Thank you
52:34
Speaker 1: to the good folks at Chilo's Bar for hosting us.
52:37
Speaker 1: And thank you to Dave's Iron and Jules Boycott for
52:40
Speaker 1: this incredible and incredibly fun and meaningful conversation. We are
52:45
Speaker 1: absolutely going to be doing more in person events like
52:49
Speaker 1: this in Baltimore, Washington, d C, Philadelphia, New York, and Moore.
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53:28
Speaker 1: Alvarez signing off from Baltimore. Take care of yourselves and
53:32
Speaker 1: take care of each other.