• Slug: Sports-Globalization of Sports, 1,800 words.
• Photo available.

By Doyal D’angelo
Cronkite News

PHOENIX – Killings, kidnappings, violent oppression of political opposition, torture and censorship are just a few human rights abuses that officials in the Rwandan dictatorship are either credibly accused of committing or failing to investigate.

Paul Kagame, the Rwandan dictator who helped lead his country out of its horrid genocidal past, has been in power since 2000 and with no end to his reign in sight – yet the NBA is doing business with him.

As part of a widespread effort to expand his league’s global reach, Adam Silver and his team met with Kagame in Kigali in 2018 and advised him to build a new facility, BK Arena, that would host the first Basketball African League game in 2021.

BAL became the NBA’s first pro league outside of the U.S. in 2019, and Kigali is home to the BAL championship every year which features DJs, vendors and hordes of fans filling out the area.

The NBA looks to benefit from merchandise, ticket sales and television exposure, which will take time to show profit as Africa is home to seven of the 10 poorest countries in the world. But the league also looks to make basketball a major sport on the continent through programs like the NBA Africa Academy in Senegal and the NBA Basketball School in Egypt.

Gaining investments or making partnerships with foreign regimes known for having dubious human rights environments has been a source of criticism, but revenue generation often prevails in the face of intense backlash.

Global expansion or sportswashing?

The NBA is not alone in making decisions that challenge American values. As preeminent sports leagues across the globe like the NFL and LIV Golf are at the forefront of the globalization of sports, intense scrutiny and tough questions about worldwide ethics come with the cost of doing business. Making these private entities reflect on their conscience while expanding business practices could be a tall task, despite the potential for sportswashing and the pursuit of soft power.

The NBA’s business in China, valued at around $5 billion, and LIV Golf, backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, are considered major red flags for American sports in some circles. But as seen with the financial pressure that is currently put on the PGA Tour, the economics can sometimes leave established organizations with no choice but to create unprecedented relationships, illustrated by the PGA’s merger agreement with LIV.

Looking behind the millions and billions of dollars, the color of green quickly turns dark.

The Saudi regime, much like the Rwandan regime, has been perpetually accused of a long list of human rights abuses, including murder, abductions, torture, violence and hostility toward same-sex relations and censorship through a wide variety of means, according to the U.S. Department of State, not to mention Saudi’s alleged involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

U.S. Intelligence concluded that 15 Saudi operatives flew to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018 to silence Jamal Khashoggi, a widely-known Saudi regime dissenter and journalist who worked for the Washington Post. The operatives confronted Khashoggi, strangled him and dismembered his body.

Another gulf country diving head first into the sports world is the United Arab Emirates, also accused of a large swath of human rights violations.

Yet, the NBA recently brought in the Emirates airline as the sponsor for the NBA Cup and played preseason games in Abu Dhabi. The NFL could follow the NBA’s lead after representatives recently toured Abu Dhabi in search of fresh locations for its international series.

As leagues are willing to bypass human rights issues, countries treat sports as more than just a cover-up for governmental malpractice – it serves a purpose for producing needed growth socially and economically in regions that might not otherwise have it.

Saudi Arabia has allocated major dollars, well over $6 billion, into sports since 2021 which coincides with their Vision 2030 plan that aims to make sports a prominent part of the country’s social structure and investment portfolio.

Vision 2030 is a comprehensive plan to improve the diversity and sustainability of Saudi Arabia’s economy through strategic investment outside of oil, and to improve the country’s cultural and social environment through factors like entertainment and urbanism.

Along with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and other Middle Eastern countries have poured billions into sports.

Spending big and expanding their economic portfolio is a pointed strategy on both the western and eastern sides of the world, but the motivation behind these investments may not be attributable to one factor, like sportswashing alone.

‘There’s no such thing as a good country’

David Andrews, who authored several books on the intersection of sports and politics, sees sportswashing and soft power as part of a wider strategy for influence.

“It’s not just a matter of going out and making money and looking for markets,” Andrews said. “It’s also about exporting culture and being that de facto representative of the country.”

Conducting business abroad comes with the understanding of cultural and social differences, and as Western ideals often clash with Eastern ideals, recriminations go both ways.

Stuart Murray, co-founder of Sports Diplomacy Alliance, does not find sportwashing or soft power to be terms that paint the full picture, and points out that human rights violations happen across the globe, including the U.K. and U.S.

“There’s no such thing as a good country,” Murray said. “They’re all dodgy – even Australia, even America. Everyone can be accused of sportswashing.”

If an American sports league does business in a place with non-democratic values, will they try to spread those democratic values in their absence?

The NBA says it’s focusing on improving the lives of the Rwandan people, but details remain unclear about if the league has talked to Kagame about his repressive political tactics in a serious way.

Sada Reed, associate professor of journalism and mass communication at Arizona State University, believes that leagues shouldn’t just leave ethical standards to the government.

“That is on the business to decide what their stipulations are going to be,” Reed said. “And then you have to know and have a way of seeing whether that’s actually happening or not. That’s really hard to do.”

For sports leagues, action or showing disdain for the state of foreign countries could inherently risk the financial and social benefits of a partnership.

“Kagame will expect tailored, top-down messaging. He will expect the NBA messaging to align with his goals and he will expect NBA affiliates to be on board with that messaging,” Reed said of the Rwandan dictator. “All it will take is one NBA employee posting what they perceive as an innocent comment on social media about an observation they’ve made about Rwanda, and the NBA’s goals in the region could be severely foiled.”

As Daryl Morey, who was then the Rockets general manager and is now the Philadelphia 76ers president of basketball, tweeted in 2019: “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.” China proceeded to ban the league’s viewership on CCTV in the country, which Silver says cost the NBA “hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Every business has a bottom line and speaking up may jeopardize that function.

“The American government has public diplomacy and foreign policy goals, but the NBA is really just a big commercial sports organization that’s wanting more players, more dollars and more eyeballs,” Murray said.

That leaves American professional sports leagues in a bind: To satisfy a business model that inherently survives and thrives off strategic partnerships, leave money on the table due to foreign local issues or focus on bettering those communities through sports – something Mark Tatum, the NBA’s Deputy Commissioner, said was a major talking point with Kagame.

“There’s the relationship and the understanding of sport as an expression of the culture, technology, politics and economics,” Andrews said. “But it’s also something that helps to produce social arrangements.”

Growth and diplomacy through sports

In preparation for the 1988 Seoul Olympics, South Korea transformed from being a developing country to an industrialized power, reportedly taking in around $300 million in profit after the Games.

The Seoul Olympics were an example of using sports as an engine for growth in the international space of politics, but also to create a favorable image for locals.

“It’s an often overlooked point about soft power. It’s always viewed as being an international, diplomatic thing,” Andrews said. “But internally it can be used politically to demonstrate to populations that the regime in charge is doing a good job.”

Despite Rwanda’s underdevelopment and haunted by its troubled history, Saudi Arabia and UAE, for example, remain developing countries.

Expanding connectivity through sports might have as much to do with the changing landscape and accessibility of world significance as it does with the possibility of sportswashing.

Danyel Reich, a leading researcher on sports and politics, believes people aren’t focusing on the full picture, but only the negative.

“There are good reasons to criticize them but to think that they would just put billions into sports to distract from something, this doesn’t give the complex processes that happen in those societies justice,” Reich said.

Saudi, UAE and Rwanda have plans to diversify their economic investments and improve their social standing, and sports are part of that, but they are far from the only ones.

The Qatar Investment Authority, for example, bought a 5% stake in the Washington Wizards, Washington Capitals and Washington Mystics in 2023.

Some international relations experts believe the sports industry is an ideal way to promote diplomacy and expand access to wealth, even though criticism is due. Ultimately, sports leagues and franchises, as private entities, take whichever direction they prefer.

J. Simon Rofe, an early advocate and leading expert in sports diplomacy, sees sports as an engine for change, even if the connections might be murky and questionable depending on the source of opposition.

“As a student of diplomacy, I would certainly rather be working with people than not,” Rofe said. “Sometimes that puts you in awkward situations, but I think it’s also incumbent on people who seek change to be prepared to go some way to make that change.”

Sports diplomacy is partially based on shaping and influencing other countries through the connections that are inevitably being made. With the globalization of sports, powerful leagues and athletes have an opportunity to spur action and positive development abroad.

“Having a dialogue where there isn’t one before, that’s the kind of thing that makes a difference, palpably,” Rofe said.

With the connections that could be forged with global sports, keeping note of the impact is imperative, whether tracking how many lives are positively influenced or the amount of investments in communities that need them.

But even with the possibility of creating a dialogue, the risk for sports organizations doing business abroad could prove troublesome over time.

“They’re not going to be able to ignore it forever,” Reed said about the NBA in Rwanda. “There will be other things that happen, other tensions that are going to come with them being there.”

For more stories from Cronkite News, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org.