The United States’ joint bid with Canada and Mexico once felt like a lock but it is looking more vulnerable by the day thanks in no small part to the US presidentThirteen months ago when the United States launched a joint bid to host the World Cup with Mexico and Canada at a news conference on the 102nd floor of One World Trade Center, the outcome felt like little more than a formality.There was a compelling proof of concept in USA 94, which set a World Cup attendance record that still stands with nearly 3.6m spectators (for only 52 matches), auguring record-smashing profits for the expanded 48-team, 80-match tournament in 2026. There was a nod toward the fiscally responsible, infrastructure-ready...
The Winter Games are rarely a hotbed of political intrigue. But these are strange times – and athletes want to make their voices heardWhen Lindsey Vonn looked toward the Pyeongchang Winter Games, which kick off in 30 days’ time, the Olympic gold-medalist seized the opportunity to slam Donald Trump: “I hope to represent the people of the United States, not the president.” She added: “I want to represent our country well. I don’t think that there are a lot of people currently in our government that do that.”In a country where unquestioning deference to the office of the presidency is a presumed duty of citizenship, this was a remarkable statement. But was it a clarion call for athletes to become...
US sport – from NFL to basketball and Olympic skiing – is caught up in actions of a president unafraid, and determined, to change the rulesSports and politics have always existed at a very public intersection in the United States, but you would be hard-pressed to recall a time when the illusory firewall keeping them apart was more nakedly exposed.Over the past year Trump has co-opted American sports as not merely a proxy battle in the culture wars that reflect a country’s deep divides but the primary theatre. It is fair to say there was no more influential sports figure this year than the president, whose bellicose rhetoric and crisp volume counterpunching have had far-reaching effects on the industry (ask...
Lindsey Vonn’s outburst against Donald Trump means she takes her place in a complex game where politics and sport have once again become deeply entangledOn the face of it, Lindsey Vonn looks like Donald Trump’s type. Tall, blond, blue-eyed and a former star – naked but for a coat of paint – of Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit issue, the champion skier is the epitome of what would once have been called an all-American girl. And she will be one of the main draws of February’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, hoping to repeat her 2010 Olympic downhill win in Vancouver and thus take a measure of solace for her absence through injury in Sochi four years ago.Coming off a 2016-17 season...
In LaVar Ball, the president of the United States has finally met his match: a master troll with an appetite for attention even bigger than his ownOn November 23rd, Thanksgiving Day in the United States, a day set aside on the calendar for gratitude, the man who just 10 months prior had been inaugurated president of the world’s leading superpower rose in the early morning hours before a planned day of golfing and tweeted about LaVar Ball, the self-proclaimed “CEO” of a tiny, family-based basketball apparel company in Chino Hills, California. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Related: Donald Trump blasts 'ungrateful fool' LaVar Ball as war of words escalates Related: LaVar Ball, the $495 sneakers and the battle against basketball's status...