Unofficial Partner Podcast
Unofficial Partner Podcast
UP410 Ed Smith: 'The Olympics are a civilising force'
We’re in the middle of the Olympic Games in Paris so it’s a good time to ask some bigger questions as to the future of the Olympics and mega sports events more generally, with regular contributor Ed Smith, founder of the Institute of Sports Humanities and fellow guest Dr Simon Rofe, a world leading expert in the field of sports diplomacy, and himself a visiting lecturer at ISH, which helps its students decode the signals derived from history and interrogate the impact of globalisation on sport.
Simon has an international research profile addressing sports diplomacy, with a particular focus upon the relationship of the sporting ecosystem with diplomatic practice, having been instrumental in establishing the field of study since 2010.
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they may have become too big. But the fact of great sporting events bringing the eyeballs of the world to a particular city, I think does have a civilizing and cosmopolitan effect
Hello, Richard Gillis. That was ed Smith, a regular contributor to the Unofficial Partner podcast. We're in the middle of the Olympic games in Paris. So it's a good time to ask. Some bigger questions as to the future of the Olympics and mega sports events. More generally with ed Smith, founder of the Institute of sports humanities, along with fellow guests, Dr. Simon, Rofe a world leading expert in the field of sports diplomacy and himself, a visiting lecturer at IOSH, which helps students to code the signals, derived for mystery and interrogate the impact of globalization on sport.
Richard Gillis UP:Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. And you can join our community of tens of thousands of people. By signing up to our weekly newsletter on sub stack, which goes out every Thursday. Or find us in the usual places, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tik, TOK, and Instagram on Unofficial Partner. I think it's an interesting time to be talking about major events and what their impact are and the ambition of them and the size of them. So before we get into all that, Simon, you better just talk to us about sports diplomacy, cause that's your area of expertise and just the title intrigues me. So give us an idea of how you got to this position, where you are now.
Simon Rofe:Well, there's a little bit of autobiography to this because 12 years ago, I was preparing for the London 2012 Olympics as a member, very junior, unimportant member, but nonetheless valued by our chief Lord Sebastian Coe of LOCOG, that's the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games. And my role was in the international relations team and that was by virtue I think of the serendipity of having a master's degree in international relations and working in a university style international relations department for the then best part of a decade. But there was no more forethought to it than that. So what happened in the course of those six pivotal weeks in the summer of 2012, for me at least, was the opportunity to observe and live, in academic terms, ethnographically, the experience of the world's biggest sporting major event, the Olympic and Paralympic Games. And from that vantage point, it became very clear to me that the practices processes and protocols of international sport bore a great degree of resemblance to those within accepted formal diplomatic diplomacy. And those synergies, those coming together. of moments of opportunity for conversations that wouldn't happen otherwise was very much to the fore. And what I saw, which was very familiar to me as a scholar of diplomacy with the sort of three core characteristics of representation, negotiation and communication. And from there, the emergence of an understanding of what we've termed subsequently sports diplomacy. And that is the intersection of realms, the network of networks across sport and diplomacy. It provides under those three core characteristics of representation, negotiation and communication, a means for practitioners to reflect on their undertakings, to expand their skills and their capacities, and for A broader audience to really see how sport can be a force for good. As Nelson Mandela said in 2000, sport has the power to change the world. And sport diplomacy is the answer. The vehicle, in my opinion, the best vehicle for doing that.
Richard Gillis UP:Okay. So, let's have an example of where it works. Give me a, give me your sort of best case study.
Simon Rofe:Well, as with much in diplomacy, it works best when you don't notice it. So that's a hard question to answer. But as a good example, nonetheless, I would point to the practice of an organization which carries no international sovereign status in the world of nation states, but one that has a huge amount of influence in the world, in my opinion, and that's the IOC, the International Olympic Committee. So in 2018, its leader, Thomas Back, practiced a form of Olympic diplomacy, which brought together North Korea and South Korea, two countries that are technically still at war. Since the 1953 Armistice, in a moment of sports diplomacy at the highest level. It wasn't President Xi, President Putin, President Trump who brought together those two warring parties, but a gentleman in charge of an organization, a private members club to a point, based in Lausanne in Switzerland, many thousands of miles away. And. We know now, six years later, that this didn't lead to peace on the Korean peninsula, it didn't lead to necessarily, you know, a de escalation of tensions. But for a moment there, and for more than just a moment, You know, the length of time it takes to run the 100 metres. There was a more meaningful discussion between North and South Korea, away from Donald Trump and the North Korean leader talking in Singapore. And that to me is an opportunity that wouldn't have come about at all had it not been for a sporting occasion such as the Winter Olympic Games. And whilst that looks like a High level example, I would immediately provide an adjunct that sport diplomacy happens at the grassroots and local level equally as much. But again, to my first point, it's much harder to see.
Richard Gillis UP:Ed, do you, what's your view? Just, just give me a sort of, before we get into any specifics about just this field, because I can sort of see it. I understand what the argument for it, where are you coming from? What's
Ed Smith:it?
Richard Gillis UP:position?
Ed Smith:Actually, we've just been chatting about it. I'm at my parents house and we've just been chatting about this subject with three generations. My children, who are eight and eleven, and my parents, who, you know, in the seventies and eighties. And we were talking about major sports events as a, from the perspective of people who consume and watch sports. And actually, the argument, the question was, Would the world be significantly impoverished without, for example, the Olympic Games? And we felt it would be. So if I look back on my own sort of childhood, the first time I really became aware of Los Angeles as a place and a concept and that style and that way of presenting Americana was the 1984 Olympic Games. And also if I think about 1992 in Barcelona, There was a sense of a, of a new Spain, Spain emerging, you know, Barcelona kind of joins up with the, with the sea and there's a, there's a completely changing atmosphere about the way the place presents to the world. So even before we get to Simon's points about how sport provides opportunities for conversations and people to discuss things that might have a more universal value. I also think the fact of international competition being staged in great cities of the world. is a fundamentally cosmopolitan and progressive force, which of course was at the heart of, you know, Cupertino's vision for the Olympics in the first place, internationalism. So whilst I think that hosting mega events in the jargon is obviously under scrutiny at the moment, and often it has gone wrong, often it has led to huge deficits, often the question of legacy is highly contested and dubious. So they may have become too big. But the fact of great sporting events bringing the eyeballs of the world to a particular city, I think does have a civilizing and cosmopolitan effect. Of course, it's never quite like it looks like on the television. And of course, you know, cities go to great lengths to cleanse and distort the way those eyeballs, you know, light upon their city. But nonetheless, at essence, I think it's a very civilizing force.
Richard Gillis UP:So I'm going to just read something which is Something I got from Anthony Seddon's book on Boris Johnson. It's called Number 10, when he's during his time at Number 10. I just wanted to sort of frame it. It's from the political aspect of this and what a prime minister or a leader of a country looks at when he looks at the Olympics. This is the passage, so bear with me. Johnson was above all a showman as mayor, receiving his highest ratings from the public when he was stuck on a zip wire during the 2012 Olympic Games. He loved the adulation of the crowds during the Olympics. He developed an almost godlike aura during them, said his City Hall communications director, Will Warden, who recalls Johnson saying, It just doesn't get any better than this. The Olympics were to be the centerpiece of his mayoralty. His first term was devoted to preparing for them, his second to reaping the harvest, but in Downing Street. There was to be no equivalent of the Olympics, nor anything that came near to giving him the same buzz, however hard he looked and he looked hard. He was a buzz addict. That side of it. So when governments look and when leaders and politicians look at major events and look at the Olympics, there is ego. There is everything in, wrapped in, in that. So Simon, I'm just trying to sort of work out. Where the reality is and where I can see the sort of visuals and it might be that the visuals are enough that the image of it we'll get to sports washing in a minute, you'll get your, there's a sort of burnishing a national image, image of the the individual politicians involved. Is that enough? Or is what you're saying is that actually, no, that's just a gateway into something real. Or something tangible.
Simon Rofe:Well I think we're, what we're dealing with is sometimes the image is enough. Sometimes a powerful image can paint those thousand words as it were. And if you think of John Carlos and Tommy Smith that topped the podium in 1968 with their black gloved fists raised to the sky, that image, which only was presented to the world by virtue of an Olympic podium was one that has resonated since. It was a very difficult moment for those two athletes. It cost them their, their sporting career. You know, the IOC banned them. Now, if you go to the IOC museum, it's the first image you see. So the, the quality here of the images that sport provides, whether it's athletic performance you know, Faces in the crowd, the executive royal box scenario. There are very powerful images that can come about and they are seen by audiences that wouldn't necessarily. See those individuals and those circumstances. So I think there's a necessary visual audio quality to the sporting event over and above the value of the particular sporting competition. Some have more resonance with different audiences than others. What that also suggests to me is that it does provide means to have conversations. So, you know, the contemporary Olympic Games is a world summit by any other means. You know, the General Assembly in New York in September will have the same cast of characters. As those who attend, you know, the Paris Olympics over the next two weeks. And by virtue of having political leaders, such as, you know, erstwhile prime ministers in those circumstances is they are still conducting the business of diplomacy, whether official or not in terms of practicing communication, representation, negotiation, and those things often. When you add in ego in the case of someone like Johnson and his political career that he's had and whatever may come, then you do create those kind of sport diplomacy moment. But I would equally point to the fact that you don't need to have those high profile individuals and ego to be able to undertake the practices of sport diplomacy at a sport mega event. There are many conversations that will happen in the queue to get in, in the you know, bus and transport arrangements, in the executive boxes and under cross of stadiums that would simply would not happen regardless of whether the people who are there are interested in the sport. They are in that same space, what Ivan Newman calls a site of diplomacy because of the convening power of sport. And that to me makes sport diplomacy a vehicle and an end to undertake something real and substantial. Whether that then subsequently produces outcomes that are broadly observed and fundamentally change the nature of the world, you know, I'm with the old saying, plus ça change on this, you know, there's a quality to diplomacy that's as old as the hills. And we are still. As human beings and engaging with different polities engaged in the same practices that are ancient relatives.
Ed Smith:I see. Just on that point. When I look back to the years I had as England's selector in cricket, I would often watch the game from being inside the ground, but we didn't, the culture was we didn't go in the dressing room to watch and sort of get in the way of the players, so we would usually be, you know, in a box at the test match, and one of the things that I reflected on at the end of the three years was how interesting and diverse and you know, surprising those conversations were all taken together over three years, and that just, you know, It's exactly Richard's point about the convening power of sport, that sport is also is about entertainment and about a narrative being revealed and turning into a result here and now, but it's also a social occasion with a diplomatic dimension often when there's international sport at play. And there's nothing quite like sport for creating a dramatic backdrop to other conversations. So I think that. That sport has evolved more and more in that way as it has become more and more explicitly globalized. So in some ways I think Simon's the discipline that he pioneered of sports diplomacy is is becoming ever more important as international sport becomes a sort of hyper globalized entity.
Richard Gillis UP:So it's a sort of happy externality of a major event. I mean, you wouldn't, you wouldn't have a major event explicitly for this purpose, but it's important people go. So it's an opportunity, I guess, is
Simon Rofe:And with any diplomatic activity, you can be intentful in that. It doesn't mean you achieve. All of the outcomes you intend, but if you put, as it were, the concentration of people, the level of people, the change of atmosphere that not meeting over a conference table gives, as opposed to sitting next to each other, watching perhaps the sport itself or dinner or something, that is the quality that diplomats throughout the ages have sought to provide that understanding of each other's Positions and perspectives. And in doing that, you get a great degree of. Well, you potentially have a greater degree of understanding.
Richard Gillis UP:Right. Let's talk about the size and scope of them. Because the IOC and FIFA and, you know, lots of sports, big sports governing bodies don't need any encouragement to sort of mission creep because it's in their commercial interest to do so they get bigger and bigger each year. Now the question is, are they too big? How big is too big? And what is it? What are the implications of that? I've got a suspicion that there is an over claim taking place within sport. And I think it, you see it quite often that people are, you know, people who are running sports organizations will make all sorts of Promises because they want a big event, a big expensive event to come to your town. And so, you know, that, that part of the game is one that I'm, I'm quite skeptical about. But Ed, what do you think about the size of major events?
Ed Smith:Well, if we look at the decisions made by major cities suggest it's becoming increasingly problematic and You know weighing up the downside is an increasingly At the forefront of decision makers minds and I understand that perhaps Sports mega events have got too big and too expensive for many cities to countenance and that's totally understandable I just would challenge one thing which is that I agree with you I also have a sense of skepticism about the explicit claims that are made for legacy or economic benefits for mega events. However, I also think it's very difficult to quantify them. So if you, if you position your country in a way that seems attractive and interesting and culturally exciting, if you, Invest heavily in your infrastructure and you create new districts in your city, which may be there for hundreds of years. We aren't going to be counting the, the legacy of the London 2012 games or Barcelona 2 or whatever it might be, you know, in 150 years, but if those regions and districts succeed and, and become, become, a central part of the city fabric, then they will have been given a prompt and a you know, they would have benefited from a catholic effect from the games. So it's always very hard to quantify. That's even before you get to like feel good factor and those sort of intangibles, but even if you, if you're looking at the more sort of Social and economic fabric questions. They're very hard to quantify. But you're, the main thrust of what you say is correct, which is that more and more cities are thinking this is a bad idea. And we see cities pulling out when, you know, circumstances turn against it. And of course, that also connects with your, the question you raised earlier on that, you know, it's no surprise that Gulf states are stepping into that, that sort of vacuum where they have the means and they have the desire. Yeah. And it's perfectly understandable that, you know, they would view it as an opportunity.
Richard Gillis UP:Simon, what do you think? the sports watching, we talk about this quite often, as you can imagine on this podcast, and sometimes I listen back and I think, I sound like someone who just doesn't want events to go to regimes I don't like very much. And I'm very aware that that's a very narrow, Anglo centric view. Perspective, but just give me a, broaden me, but this is, this is the worry. That's at the heart of many people who look at the Olympics and they say, well, actually it's okay. Well, China, you've got a whole load of, you know, organizations that are doing it. You don't need to put an ROI on it, but London or Paris need to, to get it through. So that's going to be where they end up.
Simon Rofe:I mean, to take the, the, again, the arc of that, of this discussion over the course of the last, even just 20 years, maybe even 16, quadrennial terms. For the competition to host 2012, which let's not forget was supposed to go to Paris in 2005, there were eight bidding nations to start with, and the competition was fierce. You know, Sebastian Coe's careful, stage managed, intentful diplomacy of taking 12 children to Singapore to, you know, perhaps sway those final voters where the vote was made in July 2005, that was a, you know, a tough competition. The 2024, 2028, 2032 Olympics, Summer Olympics and Paralympics have been awarded essentially without competition. So within not very long, it's gone from being something very prized to something that the IOC are almost persuading people to do. In the case of Paris, Los Angeles. And then the Gold Coast, you've essentially got return provision. These aren't cities in countries that are making huge one off investments. And so therefore, you know, because, you know, this will be the third time the Games are in Paris. The Games will have been in Los Angeles for a third time in 2028. Brisbane and the Gold Coast have hosted many sporting events, not least, most recently, the Commonwealth Games. So, there are There is history there. Now, what we observe with countries and cities from the gulf, It's a change to that narrative where they actively are building resources and logistics to cater to these for the first time. And therefore the contrast, I think, is, is much starker. One of the bidding nations in 2005 or 2012 was Istanbul and Turkey. And that would have been, you know, Again, a sort of perhaps game changing decision had IOC members voted in that regard. So I think what you're, you're seeing here in terms of scale is the scale of ambition as well as the project. And those two things can, you know, run against each other. The opportunity for golf countries to develop resources, facilities. Yeah, they have the resources, but the opportunity for them to match those ambitions. That's, you know, as yet unknown question. We've seen hints of it with the FIFA Men's World Cup in Qatar and opportunities elsewhere across the, across the golf in hosting Grand Prix and golf events. So there is. There are opportunities there. And I think that the scale, if big is best, then the scale leads to, so the decision leads in the direction of further events in that space, but some consideration of what constitutes the sporting event. And I think that's worth, it doesn't always have to be bigger. You know, the resources for 2012 were considerably less than they were for 2008 summer Olympic Games and Paralympic Games in Beijing. So there are questions here about how big, how much, you know, we know well that, you know, the Sochi Winter Olympic Games were the most expensive ever. And these are. You know, important ways of thinking about what constitutes the sporting event, right from the micro, local, regional, national dimension through to the platinum level sport mega events that is the summer Olympic and Paralympic games.
Ed Smith:There's another thing I think, which is, there's a club country dimension to it. If we take a big sweep of how sports kind of progressing and what the implications are for Mega events, particularly like Olympic games. Think of something like football. when I was growing up, the only chance you had to see the greatest overseas players was at a world cup, you know, Mexico 86 was the first time I really sort of tuned in. But now with the premier league and the champions league, that kind of the world's talent is being convened on a stage near you every Wednesday night. So, and Saturday too, in the premier league. So it. It's completely different relationship we have with World Cups, where usually the question we ask is, you know, how come they aren't playing as well when they play for their country when they're so good for Real Madrid? Now, in some ways that occupies the space that those international mega events used to do, where they, where suddenly the world got a chance to see everyone all together and compare, contrast, thrill to their talent. And the advantage that club leagues have is a sustainable economic model where there's a certain number of games every year and it's going to happen again next year and we know what the fixture list is and they're in control and they don't have to set up shop in Milan, London and Paris to play the Champions League. They're all pretty much there already. So I think that does have implications for, if you like, what mega events can do, like World Cups and Olympics. And to some degree, now so globalized that, the paradox is the actual global event is, is less significant because talent is, you know, if you look at something like cricket where, you know, there's a sort of existential angst within international cricket and people who, you know, Gained their careers in prestige through international cricket because they, they intuitively understand all the best players play in the IPL, the Indian Premier League. That's a massively lucrative and successful league that's not going away anytime soon. And players, the first thing they wanna do is make sure that's secure. And then they'll consider their other options. And normally, not absolutely everyone, but normally that's what they do. And then they look at their international commitments and whether they can manage it all. So for the international game, that sense that they're not laying on the biggest show in town anymore, because club cricket through the IPL or franchise cricket is providing that, just shows you how the balance of power is always shifting inside sport between leagues versus sort of international mega events.
Richard Gillis UP:what's your view on cricket in the Olympics?
Ed Smith:Well, actually, this is a classic example of. Someone holding two contradictory ideas, one of which is selfish and one which relates to other people. I think that the Olympics are probably too big is point one, and there are probably too many events and it costs too much money and blah, blah, blah. And I also would like cricket to be in the Olympics too. So, you know, like my, my own sport, I'll make a special case for. And that's pretty much where everyone is, you know, I suppose, you know, I would love to see cricket grow and, and attract new talent. Regions, territories, countries, populations, and I'd love to see it have vibrant teams that don't currently exist. So, yes, I think the Olympics could definitely be a part of that. It's funny, isn't it, in cricket that we're very resistant usually to new forms of spreading the game. But if we reflect on how well the old order has done at spreading the game, you know, it's not that well. The club of international nations has been pretty static and could do with being boosted.
Simon Rofe:I mean, it's an, it's an intriguing example. Sport like cricket, which has. In the case of both the IPL and you know, broadly around the world has an appeal in certain markets, does it have in the market? Absolutely globally, or is it essentially a sport limited to a certain number of countries in the case of India, a very big, important country in many regards, but. Sports universality is another way of looking at this. To what extent are there sports that transcend the globe? Football, soccer, really is perhaps the only one that has both the appeal at the international global level and at the global level. what you see in the park on any given evening. Now that's not to say that sports aren't played worldwide by any stretch of the imagination, but there are facilities that are often needed for sport. There are skills that are coached to a greater or lesser extent in other sports. There are geographic and indeed climate specificities that shape the sporting environment and some of that shapes football as well. It's quite difficult to play under two feet of water or indeed in two feet of snow. But, you know, people have tried. But these are the, the, the binding that sport gives you, the commonality of watching sports that maybe you've never played, you're not familiar with, and possibly you don't even understand, you know, that doesn't mean that it doesn't have that convening power. And I think that is where sport gives you More opportunity, not, not exclusively, and not by any means as a sort of silver bullet solution to the world's ills, but it gives you a conversation starter, and it allows you to talk to often some non sport outcomes. You know, it's not about necessarily playing, you know, a beautiful cover drive, but it's about understanding, you know, the consequences of making a decision which saw you caught at mid off. You know, that's the, the, the, the, the opportunity that sport gives you in a different way than making better decisions because you've made some bad decisions in, you know, your personal life and your finances in, you know, things that have happened in other realms. So the sport as metaphor can be extended way too often and way too much, but it does stand up. As you know, an opportunity to think about other dimensions where that's health care, education you know, legal matters. There's many different touch points to it.
Richard Gillis UP:Do you think that there's a sort of power balance between a sport? We had this with other sports over the last sort of 15 years. But does the Olympics need cricket more than cricket needs the Olympics? Is always the question, because again, when you get, and this is a business When you get to how many, you know, the TV rights that India pays to the IOC is, relatively low around about 15 million, I think is the, is the number. So the question is always, well, cricket in the Olympics, will that then increase That marketplace. There's the sort of selling cricket to the US, which is again a sort of side issue around the next one. But what do you think about that? Because again, wrapped into diplomacy is business and economics. And quite often, It's very hard to sort of separate those out and we get to making arguments that, ignore the money and following the money is never a bad principle.
Ed Smith:Simon, I'll bet you should know what you think about that.
Simon Rofe:Well, there's, again, there's, there's always attention here. I'm sure, you know, many of your listeners are familiar with Swiss Rambles, sort of, financial expertise in looking at football finances. And he very much adheres to, and I'm, I'm happy to follow this, or, you know, following the money tells you a lot. But one of the qualities that the Olympic movement had, and it's not to say that the Olympic movement isn't tainted, isn't hugely, you know, challenged by issues of corruption, of doping, of all sorts of financial propriety of misogyny of, you know, racism over the years, but. The IOC people are still want to be able to both participate in and tune into a sporting event where not the entire value is around the money and the sort of kickback and I think it's very telling the sort of athletes perspective on, you know, and he's come up again Lorde, Coase decision as chair of the International Amateur Athletics Federation to reward gold medalists only, gold medalists with a fee for their you know, excellence in the Olympics. And it's a relatively small amount of money in sponsorship terms, for example. But the, the, the, and it's not to say that the kickback means it won't happen because you know, the executive decision making that a head of an international sporting federation has. Thank you.
Richard Gillis UP:Do you mean, do you mean pushback rather than kickback? Because kickback comes with all sorts of
Simon Rofe:yeah, maybe push, maybe pushback. Oh, kickback.
Richard Gillis UP:I mean, in, in Olympic, recent Olympic past
Simon Rofe:Yeah, well, again, maybe a little bit of progression. No, no, that's worth, worth doing. So, yeah, perhaps pushback, from the athlete's perspective in particular. Yeah, other kickbacks have happened. But the pushback I think is, testament to that tension. And I think the, the, you know, someone with Coase Acumen in many regards didn't necessarily take that on board and where it leaves us, because it leads us to my mind towards more money being rewarded in more different ways, to athletes.
Richard Gillis UP:So are you in favor of pushback? Paying athletes at the Olympics.
Simon Rofe:I think it's, you know, a necessary function of competition to reward, you know, the best performers. Is that their motivation? I think there's a difference between reward and motivation in this regard. You know, the reward of participating in sport, given the vast majority of people will never earn any money from it, is not because it is, you know, financially rewarding. And I think that is also a function of, and again I see a parallel with diplomacy. Lots of diplomacy doesn't mean that we've, you know, created an entirely peaceful environment. So I think the, gray area between, as it were, reward on the one hand and finance. is the interesting space to inhabit. I think what we've done in establishing the field of sport diplomacy and looking at the sport mega event is put more of a focus on that, delimited the parameters to a greater extent, and meant that when we talk of, you know, as the IOC was, was want to do, in fact, you know, just within hours Of, you know, one of the most tragic events to take place at an Olympic Games in Munich in 1972. The then chair Bunderidge Avery, suggested that sport and politics had nothing to do with each other. Which, you know, laughed in the face of reality. So, that we are able to apply a further level of scrutiny to this space. Both the physical and, you know, environmental, financial, legal space to me is what we're, you know, what's most exciting and most interesting in this regard.
Ed Smith:I was thinking as I was listening to Simon that You know, throughout this conversation, we've focused on lots of tensions and contradictions and, you know, ways in which you could make one case, but also make the opposite. To some degree, that's, there's nothing new there in sport. I mean, there's a really excellent exhibition at the moment at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge about the Paris Olympics. 1924 Olympics. And the two things that really stood out for me was one, even though it was a much earlier moment in the development of modern sport and the Olympic Games are still getting going, and they were in relative terms tiny compared to what we have today, there's still the same argument going on. It's that this is chariots of fire Olympics. And, you know, Harold Abrams, is he, is he allowed to And then there's this contradiction between the amateur ideal and style and effortlessness, and yet actually also there's a scientific edge to what's going on to the preparation for the games. And then the games also represents a kind of fascinating moment in the history of art. Art in terms of its interest in sport and design. Lots of different forces come together in the aesthetic and the style and the mood of the Paris 24 games. And those things, you know, remain true now. I think the only thing is that, that's, and I think to Simon's point, I think the commercialization of sport is now so complete that in some ways, even though they may be accused of having hypocritical of being sort of, unconvincing or even hypocritical. Things which have some power beyond money have increasing relevance actually because it feels, it adds texture to the value of the competition. I think that's Simon's point also about even if athletes are getting paid and everyone likes getting paid, the real value of winning a medal will transcend that transaction. So I think that There have always been strands of sport which either don't make much sense or seem internally contradictory or pull in two directions at the same time. I don't think that's necessarily a problem, I think that's inevitable because at the heart of sport it's about excellence but it's also about sharing a stage, it's about cooperation, it's about competition, it's about profit, it's about glory, it's about sportsmanship, it's about selfishness, it's about all these things all at the same time. So, in some ways, picking apart. You know, strands within Olympic movement or, you know, other mega events which draw on all sorts of complicated ideas is quite easy, but they don't necessarily, they aren't necessarily harmed by those tensions. If anything, they can sometimes be sustained by them.
Richard Gillis UP:we had Jack Buckner on the podcast, who former athlete and now chief executive of UK athletics, he made the point that the Olympics is in the Olympic movement is in real trouble, more trouble than most people realize, and that it's held together by broadcast rights. The broadcast rights market is not going to continue to fund The games to the same extent. You've got one enormous deal with NBC, which runs to 2032. And, you know, within the Olympic movement, people are saying, well, actually that money that's, that's been around since the sort of LA games last time, 84 was the first time that, you know, the sort of commercialization of the games kicked in in earnest has really. Led to a period of complacency within the Olympic movement and that actually the individual sports haven't evolved. They haven't had to because they keep, they get drip fed money from broadcasting and the top sponsorship program. Got any sympathy with that idea as a, thought? Because I think if you take the money away, there's a lot of innovation in and around professional sport. Lots of leagues springing up various, you know, some good ones, some not very good ones. But. Innovation of products. We've talked about cricket and 2020 cricket and the IPL and all of these things. These have evolved there is a commercial private sector, which is driving it. And then you've got the IOC that sits in the middle and is feeding whole load of sports that essentially haven't changed for a long time. Michael Johnson's view and Seb Coe's view is that, you know, athletics The innovation athletics is, it just hasn't been there and when it has been there, things like Parkrun, it's, it's grown from outside of the official governing body model. So you've got this essential problem. What do we think about that? Just throw that out there.
Ed Smith:Well, that's usually the case, isn't it? So usually, you know, the general trajectory in sport is that, you know, the disruption happens and then it either is or isn't sort of folded into the mainstream. And even if it isn't at the initial stages, it probably is eventually if it really works and the disruptor then becomes part of the establishment. So if you look at, you know, Kerry Packer in cricket, there's initially a schism and then eventually that he's sort of. form of cricket becomes the financial engine of the, of the main game, if you like, international, and then the franchise game, white ball cricket, colored clothing and the lights, all the razzmatazz and all the rest of it. So I don't think that's unusual or specific to athletics that it hasn't successfully innovated nor had cricket and nor had golf, you know, and many other examples. I think I'd be surprised. I think it's perfectly possible. The Olympics will have to shrink for the reasons we discussed at the beginning of the call of the conversation and also just now, which is where, you know, the funding model is going to have to change and those deals are expiring with massive, huge, you know, support from broadcasters and it's probably not going to be as big a deal next time around and cities are reticent to host as we discussed earlier, but I'd be very surprised if the tradition winds up anytime soon. I think the magic and. The, the, the kudos of the Olympics game of the Olympic Games is, is gonna be incredibly resonant for a whole of my lifetime. I think they'll change and adapt. And actually it's a really interesting thing about sport, isn't it? And you know, with a sort of small c conservative hat on, I don't think we should necessarily assume that bigger is more valuable. Value is a complicated concept. And you know, we've lived through a period of exponential growth in sports financial muscle. But in actual fact, that, by definition, that can't continue at the same pace indefinitely. And some events may have to decide to become a little less financially, you know, massive, but they can still throw up fantastic sporting value and create amazing drama and also amazing rich experiences for, for spectators too. So that doesn't have to be a disaster if things get smaller. Well, I'm probably in a minority, you
Simon Rofe:I think it's difficult to frame, you know, that reconciliation or perhaps resilience whilst, you know, meeting the ambition of, of something like Mandela's words. And, you know, sport provides an escape, you know, just the opiate, the masses have whatever you want to describe it as, but it does give a sense of perspective. And in that regard, when you're talking to You know, kids in the playground, you know, as well as elite athletes, the opportunity to change and alter your perspective isn't one that is necessarily going to be groundbreaking, you know, it's because it means something to you as an individual, it might be something to, you know, because of a family relation or, you know, the, the, the practice of spectatorship, but there is something that, you know, can speak to, and even those who don't like sport, who would never choose to watch it or participate in it, Can perhaps in a reflective moment, see the value to others in that shaping of, you know, our society. So the, the capacity for the monetary dimension to always be paramount, it would be naive to say it's not there. But it doesn't always follow in a sort of linear spreadsheet style fashion from, you know, exposure to opportunity to make money and, you know, ROI, you know, when the accounts come.
Richard Gillis UP:mean, one of the strong arguments and is for the, for an Olympic games is the, the big signals. And we said that right at the beginning that, that there is a leadership position. There is a, again, one of the criticisms of not just the IOC, but of, of. Major events, sports events generally has been its relationship with, with environmental sustainability and can they carry on growing and carry on being the size that they are whilst also simultaneously attempting to sort of be beacons of environmental sustainability and they've got mission statements talking about net zero, etc, etc. And we know we, we all know that there's a, you know, a contradiction there. It sometimes feels like it's a shame. A conversation with James Williams, who were, who ran Coca Cola's Olympic program for many years and his view it was interesting. He sort of recognized that, that problem. You've got Coke as a sponsor and you've got, who are a massive plastic polluter, one of the biggest in the world, sponsoring an Olympic games. You've also got each Olympic games and you'll recognize this, Simon, that, Locog in London and their equivalents each time, Paris this time, LA the next time, have a very sort of selfish window or selfish agenda to get the best games that they can for it to be successful. The IOC is the one with a longer term perspective and change, particularly in relation to environmentalism, does need a long term or a longer term perspective. window or, or roadmap because politicians can't do it. They're on a, they're on a shorter scale. Individual cities can't do it. What do we think about just, just the general point there about its relationship to the environment, how it could be shifted into a, into a better platform for that conversation.
Simon Rofe:I think one of the things the, that's happened in sport as a whole particularly for the Olympics in the last decade or so is, Talking about sustainability and environmental impact is something that they can do, they have more agency over than some of the externalities of international conflict. It's also the case that they start, as it were, from either a high bar or a low bar, depending on where you look at it, in that they were huge, polluters and therefore the opportunities to produce, you know, reduce plastic waste, single use items, you know, kits you know, to utilize the actual infrastructure was actually in some senses a, a, you know, relative quick win, both in terms of time and finance. So The recognition of that, I mean, you know, difficult not to give some credit, however cynical one might be, but beyond that, what is the acceptable level of cost to the environment, cost to individuals who will not be party to the, you know, the sporting event itself? But we'll feel the impact of that, whether that's in, you know, relocating from certain parts of cities, whether that's in, you know, increases in you know, temperatures and sea level rises halfway around the world, you know, one of the most, the greatest, you know, sort of. Inconsistencies in this is, you know, all of the events in the next three weeks will take place in France. Some parts of France are in the South Pacific. The surfing event will take place in Tahiti. The carbon footprint of, you know, building the facilities on the reef that is, by all accounts, a very fine reef for surfing, halfway around the world from the host city, that is uh, Deeply troubling to my mind example of how the sustainability of the Olympics is not you know, being lived up to, but there will be things and I'm sure there will be innovations and whether that's in sort of something like kit manufacturer, you know, by all accounts, the kit that the team GB are wearing comes from about 90 percent recycled materials. There are costs of processing them, but once they're produced, actually recycling and upcycling them to my mind, you know, makes good sense. It's not going to landfill. The tracks themselves, they are relatively easy to recycle by all accounts. The thought processes that accompany some of the physical processes, you know, having plastic bottle tops that don't fall off and therefore drift off because they're harder to pick up. These are little things. And I think sports capacity to make little changes on a grand scale because of it, both its appeal and its reach is something that means it can be, you know, have a make, make a meaningful contribution to discussions of sustainability and environmental platform, not least also, and we shouldn't lose sight of this, because athletes. I'll give them the voice to talk to that. Whether they speak to it or not, up to them, but it is a platform and many people, particularly younger generations, predominantly is where sports men and women and those in between come from, actually have that opportunity.
Richard Gillis UP:Not during the Olympics. They don't, the Olympics, the IOC won't let
Simon Rofe:Well, the IOC have mellowed in their interpretation of Article 50. I will be interested, as I always am, to see the level of interpretation this time around. It was certainly mollified in the last iteration in my mind, even in Beijing. Now, some athletes took that up, some didn't. But, I would suggest that, you know, the days of protest being met with the same kind of outcome that John Carlos and Tommy Smith felt, I think the IOC would recognize the kickback that that would cause.
Ed Smith:know, the conversation got around to clothing in the end. It should do really well because if everyone wore, you know, flannels and, you know, cotton, it'd be much more sustainable than this horrible plastic stuff, that nylon that came into sport, you know, just bring, bring back the real classy clubber and everything would be fine again,
Simon Rofe:everyone wore the same, white singlet, there were no national emblems, it was a universal, because sport was universal, the kit was universal. You're
Ed Smith:One more thought about hosting, actually, and I was just trying to, I was sort of grappling with my own hypocrisy that you know, before 2012 Games, you were telling us to be a great success and, you know, that they did a brilliant job. Simon, it wasn't wholly your credit, you know, as one of the organizers, but I was a little bit grumpy before 2012. Londoner at that stage and I was like, God, well then, you know, I can't drive there. I can't do this. They've nicked the park, you know, I, I sort of deny these things now, but I've been completely candid. I was a bit grumpy and then I'm, you know, we're all going to have to like mop up afterwards and then there's the bill and all that stuff as well. Now, if I compare contrast, even though they were great success and swept us all along with it, of course, when it started. And now I'm really looking forward to Paris. I'm thinking I'm going to get to see how Paris is looking and it's going to be great to see it all and it'll be televised beautifully and I'll be picking things out that I like about the city when I'm watching it. And of course that's, you know, mainly because it's not our country on the hook this time, which is a bit like giving a party, isn't it? Every time you give a party thing, why on earth am I doing this? My house is going to be trashed, you know, then I'm going to have to clear up and I'm going to be up late and you know, blah, blah. But if no one gave parties, the world would be a pretty boring place. And actually that's the other thing is that You know, let's, let's slightly, I know that every country's got their own profit and loss and no one, you know, we live in straitened times and public money's under pressure and all sorts of places, but actually we also have to live as well as just survive. And hosting great sporting events and laying on entertainment and beauty and competition and style for the world is also a gift and it's something that should be celebrated. It's not easy, of course it's complicated and has a downside too but if everyone acted in a totally rational and self interested way. You know, the world wouldn't turn.
Richard Gillis UP:Okay. I think that is a very good place to finish. I like a, I like an uplifting end.
Ed Smith:Well, I got in trouble last time when, when you said that my definition of how to win at sport, which is the least dysfunctional team wins or the team that loses last wins. You said, what about this Hopi stuff? And I was going to quote Sarah Palin, but I thought better of it. So there you go.
Richard Gillis UP:you've done it. You've done it nicely there. I like it. It's almost, almost Churchillian there at the end there. I like that.
Simon Rofe:Chilean, Ed. Take that. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Ed Smith:Good thing, bad thing. Let's discuss on
Richard Gillis UP:Yeah. Yeah. That's a whole different podcast.
Ed Smith:podcast. Yeah.
Richard Gillis UP:Right. Okay. Ed Simon. Thanks very much for your time. Really enjoyed it.
Ed Smith:enjoyed it. Thank you.