The World Cup is the planet's biggest sporting event, and the most political one. This year, it will also be the most profitable spectacle of all time.
It’s been a big week for professional basketball leagues catching heat. Fans were outraged to learn that college basketball legend and all-time NCAA top-scorer and top WNBA draft pick Caitlin Clarkwill earn a meager $338,056 over four years with the Indiana Fever.
The streets of Kabul erupted in joy Monday night as Afghans celebrated their national team’s massive upset victory against Pakistan in the Cricket World Cup.
Saudi Arabia announced this week that it plans to launch a new sports investment company that will be part of the oil-rich Gulf kingdom’s $650 sovereign wealth fund.
A new book called Fans Have More Friends argues that highly-engaged sports fans are less politically polarized, have greater trust in institutions, and generally live happier lives. To learn more, GZERO's Alex Kliment met up with one of the book's authors, Dave Sikorjak -- at a tailgate in Philadelphia ahead of a game between the Giants and the Eagles. It all went great until Alex got taped to the front of a bus...
Listen: A look at the long history of protest at the Games with Dick Pound, the longest serving member of the International Olympic Committee and a former Olympic athlete himself. With COVID rates rising globally, this year's Olympics faced some major hurdles. But the pandemic was only part of the picture. The Tokyo Games played out against a backdrop of mounting global tension surrounding gender equality, racism and human rights, leaving many people to examine the place of politics on the playing field and podium.
Before the Olympics, most Japanese people were against the Games due to fear of COVID. As the tournament got on, the International Olympic Committee's Dick Pound says that most resistance vanished, but some resentment still lingers among Tokyo's residents. "There's that tension, that still exists, but it's not interfering with the sport," Pound tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.
For Dick Pound, the longest serving member of the International Olympic Committee, protesting at the Games is fine — as long as it doesn't "interfere" with the competition itself or awards ceremonies. The Olympics, in his view, are an oasis of calm in the middle of an increasingly tense world, and "we shouldn't be spoiling that by pointing out the obvious , which is that there are social and political problems." Watch his interview with Ian Bremmer on the latest episode of GZERO World on US public television.