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Sports Diplomacy As An Engagement Tool


Now, the hard work begins. For the past four years, the retreat of U.S. leadership in diplomacy, the immigration ban, withdrawal from the Paris Accords, cavalier attitude toward the COVID-19 pandemic, and much more has diminished the country’s overseas image to historic lows. According to a recent Pew Research Center study, only 41% of Britons, 31% of French, and 26% of Germans view the United States favorably. Moreover, U.S. soft power, the ability to be liked, to persuade, and to lead is also in decline, ranking fifth in the 2019 Global30’s annual Soft Power 30 Rankings, down from first place in 2016. While these are problems for U.S. foreign policy, loss of cultural cachet also directly affects the sports world in its cultivation of overseas fans, markets, and growth. That’s why, in addition to a refreshed U.S. government approach, the sports industry should step up and engage with the world through sports diplomacy.

Sports diplomacy is when the world of diplomacy intersects with the sporting one. Historically, nation-states or government representatives have served as the primary actors in sports diplomacy. Examples of this more traditional form of formal sports diplomacy include the U.S. Department of State’s sports visits, envoyships, and exchange programs; elite athletes representing their country at major international tournaments; a nation welcoming the world to a Sporting Mega Event (SME) like the FIFA World Cup where international fans and tourists can experience and learn more about the host country firsthand.

But the concept of who conducts these sorts of diplomatic exchanges is changing in an Internet-connected world where the line separating diplomat and athlete can blur. As J. Simon Rofe argues, sports diplomacy is when the functions of diplomacy — communication, representation, negotiation — intersect around and within the sports world. Individuals are thus empowered to participate and informal sports diplomacy, when private citizens engage in people-to-people cultural, technical, and exchange, is increasingly more common.

Globalization of the sports industry means that the wider sports ecosystem has a role to play. And at this moment in time, the industry should tap into the sports diplomacy framework as an impactful tool to more clearly communicate, represent, and negotiate about the U.S., including its sports culture. Although presently difficult to do so in person due to the pandemic, leagues, teams, companies, as well as athletes, coaches, media, and sponsors should utilize the sports diplomacy prism of our Zoomified, Twitter-centric world to (re)engage with colleagues, friends, and fans around the world and serve as a corrective to the erosion of U.S. cultural cachet.

This approach isn’t about “sport for good,” although often that’s a complementary component. Instead, greater engagement with sports diplomacy is about (re)joining the global team — and in certain select instances, demonstrating renewed leadership. Take for example the Black Lives Matter protests unleashed by the death of George Floyd. The demands for an end to systemic racism and discrimination instantly spread from U.S. athletes, who were in the streets side-by-side with their communities organizing marches and demonstrations, to their counterparts in the Bundesliga, Premier League, and others overseas who took a knee in solidarity. In this instance, athletes, coaches, teams, and leagues like the WNBA, NBA, NWSL, and MLS communicated and represented the ideals of inclusion and the push for greater social justice, winning admiration for their leadership and renegotiating foreign fan and public perceptions of the country.

It’s also about investing in the future of the U.S. sports ecosystem. The double-punch of the pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement revealed that leagues and teams need to reboot their approach to content development and fan engagement. As Monumental Sports’ Zach Leonsis noted, “reaching the next generation of fans” is critical for the sports business industry. It’s no longer sufficient to focus communications strategy and storytelling solely on marketing and ticket sales; it’s now vital to represent and convey how the values, ethics, and leadership that an organization stands for play out daily across various narratives. Clubs overseas have a natural advantage as they were often founded as sports associations for their local communities rather than the for-profit DNA of most U.S. teams. Greater storytelling through the sports diplomacy prism can help provide brands and entities with a stronger “so what” to potential fans overseas, while highlighting roles within the global sports ecosystem. That’s why a more participatory informal sports diplomacy, especially through digital and social media, can help stakeholders interact internationally around shared values and how to be a team player in a global sports world.

Rather than engage in sports diplomacy unknowingly, as in these examples, stakeholders across the industry should act with greater intentionality to better communicate, represent, and negotiate their lived experiences to an international sports, and sports fan, audience. Unpacking socio-cultural complexities through individual exchanges under the sports diplomacy umbrella can help others better understand nuances and serve as starting points for the difficult conversations of how to live better together.

It is perhaps easier for athletes and coaches to do so, as they are so often the public faces in the spotlight. And players have historically been at the front lines communicating, representing, and negotiating foreign perceptions of U.S. culture, society, and ideals, especially African American athletes, as Damion L. Thomas notes. But it is time to take the onus off of athletes’ shoulders and burden-share the workload, which is why the industry as a whole should do more to engage the world through sports diplomacy.

Dr. Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff (@Lempika7) is a consultant and historian working at the intersection of sports, communications, and diplomacy. She is co-director of the Basketball Diplomacy in Africa Project, author of “The Making of Les Bleus: Sport in France 1958-2010,” and a contributing writer on global sports for CNN International, Washington Post, The Athletic, VICE Sports, Sporting News, The New Yorker and more.