Sports are a political vehicle
The myth of apolitical sport: from ancient arenas to modern circuits
Thank you for being here. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to Idée Fixe, the newsletter for curious minds. I’m Toni Cowan-Brown, a tech and F1 commentator. I’m a former tech executive who has spent the past five years on the floor of way too many F1, FE, and WEC team garages, learning about the business, politics, and technology of motorsports.
⏳ Reading time: 7 minutes
Every time a major sporting event approaches, we hear the same refrain: “Keep politics out of sports.” It’s a demand as predictable as it is ahistorical. Sports has never existed outside politics. From its ancient origins to the modern spectacle, sport has always been a stage where power is performed, ideology is reinforced, and empire is legitimised. This is a piece I’ve been wanting to write for a while now. I’ve done a few videos on the topics previously, such as this first attempt at busting the myth that sports can live outside of politics (2022), or this conversation about our Western bias when it comes to where we race in F1 (2024).
Sports will always be political because sports involve money, power, national identity, and the human desire for triumph and belonging. The ancient Greeks knew this. The Romans knew this. Every dictator and democratic leader since has known this.
The question isn’t whether sports and politics mix. They always have, and they always will. The question is whether we’re willing to examine our own complicity in sports as a vehicle for politics we agree with, or whether we’ll continue to pretend that politics only enters sport when our rivals do it. The ‘stadiums’ are never neutral ground. They never were.
The political origins of sport
The ancient Olympic Games, established in 776 BCE, were not some pure celebration of human athletic achievement divorced from worldly concerns. They were deeply embedded in Greek political and religious life. The games served as a temporary truce- otherwise known as the ekecheiria - that allowed safe passage for athletes and spectators, but this truce itself was a political instrument. It demonstrated Greek unity while simultaneously showcasing the superiority of individual city-states through their athletic champions. Winners returned home as heroes, their victories translated into political capital for their polis.
Rome elevated this political function to new heights. The gladiatorial games and chariot races weren’t just entertainment; they were sophisticated tools of social control and political messaging. Emperors used the Colosseum to demonstrate their power, wealth, and supposed generosity through panem et circenses - bread and circuses. The spectacle distracted from political turmoil while reinforcing hierarchies: who sat where in the arena was determined by social class, and the games themselves often featured the public execution of enemies of the state between athletic events. The violence wasn’t incidental; it was pedagogical, teaching citizens about the consequences of defying Rome.
The modern revival: nation-building through sport
When Pierre de Coubertin revived the Olympics in 1896, he did so with explicitly political aims. He believed that international sport could promote peace and understanding between nations, itself a political stance. But the Olympics quickly became a vehicle for nationalism and geopolitical competition. By the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Hitler understood exactly what the ancient Romans knew: sporting events could project national strength and ideological superiority to the world.
The Cold War transformed this dynamic into open proxy warfare. The Olympics became a medal count battle between capitalism and communism, with each gold medal treated as evidence of systemic superiority. The 1980 Moscow Olympics boycott led by the United States, and the Soviet-led counter-boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Games, demolished any pretence that politics could be separated from sport. Nations didn’t just compete; they weaponised athletic participation itself.
Sportswashing: the new empire builders
Today’s iteration of sports politics has a name: sportswashing. Authoritarian regimes and corporations with image problems use major sporting events to launder their reputations. The examples are obvious and widely criticised, at least when they occur in non-Western nations.
Qatar’s 2022 FIFA World Cup faced intense scrutiny (and rightly so) over migrant worker deaths, LGBTQ+ rights, and the fundamental question of whether a nation with such a human rights record should host a global celebration. Saudi Arabia’s massive investment in golf’s LIV Tour, Formula 1 races, and boxing matches is regularly described as an attempt to distract from the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and ongoing humanitarian crises. When these nations host Formula 1 races, for example, critics rightly point to the UAE’s treatment of migrant workers and restrictions on free expression.
These critiques are valid and necessary. But they reveal a glaring blind spot in Western discourse about sports and politics.
The selective outrage problem
Formula 1 provides a perfect case study in Western hypocrisy. The sport races in Texas and Florida - two states that have implemented some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the developed world, effectively stripping women of bodily autonomy. Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law restricts discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. Texas has criminalised gender-affirming care for minors and empowered citizens to sue anyone who helps someone obtain an abortion.
Where is the outcry? Where are the boycott demands? Where are the think pieces about whether Formula 1 should race in jurisdictions that deny fundamental human rights to women and LGBTQ+ individuals?
The answer is that these violations occur within Western democracies, and we have granted ourselves a moral exemption. We’ve created a framework where human rights abuses in the Middle East disqualify nations from hosting major sporting events, but similar abuses in Texas or Florida are treated as mere political disagreements. The lives of migrant workers building stadiums in Qatar are valued differently than the lives of women denied healthcare in Texas. This isn’t moral consistency; it’s geopolitical convenience.
The United States has hosted more Olympics than any other nation despite ongoing issues with mass incarceration, police violence, healthcare inequality, and Indigenous rights. When Los Angeles hosts the 2028 Olympics, will we demand the same accountability we demanded of Beijing or Moscow? Or will we simply assume that American democracy - however flawed - provides sufficient moral cover?
The corporate colonisation of sport
The political use of sports extends far beyond nation-states to corporations seeking legitimacy through association. The history is damning.
Tobacco companies spent decades sponsoring sporting events, associating their (proven) deadly products with health and vitality. When that became untenable, they were replaced by alcohol companies, junk food manufacturers, and gambling platforms - industries that profit from addiction and poor health outcomes, advertising on the bodies and uniforms of athletes (and cars/liveries, Formula 1) who represent peak physical achievement.
Now we’ve entered the era of cryptocurrency and sports gambling sponsors. Crypto companies, operating in a largely unregulated space that has seen spectacular frauds and collapses, have poured millions into sports sponsorships. FTX’s implosion, after the company had secured naming rights to the Miami Heat’s arena and partnerships with numerous athletes, revealed the risks of allowing reputation laundering through sports.
Oil companies have been particularly adept at using sports to greenwash their image. Shell, BP, and others sponsor everything from motorsport to youth soccer programs, associating their brands with community values and athletic excellence. This is often a ‘quick fix’ to an ongoing perceived PR crisis. These are never just sponsorships; there are attempts at fueling the conversation about their own future.
The illusion of neutrality
And now for the all-time favourite - the demand to “keep politics out of sports” - which is itself a political position. It’s a demand to maintain the status quo, to prevent athletes from using their platforms to challenge power, to keep sports as a depoliticised space where existing hierarchies go unquestioned.
When Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the national anthem, he was told he was injecting politics into football. But the military flyovers, the giant flag displays, the paid patriotic ceremonies - those are political too. We’ve just normalised them to the point of invisibility. The difference is that Kaepernick’s politics challenged power rather than celebrating it.
The same pattern repeats globally. When Mesut Özil criticised China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims, he faced consequences because his politics threatened lucrative markets. When athletes wear rainbow laces to support LGBTQ+ rights, they’re accused of making sport political, as if the enforcement of heteronormativity in sport isn’t itself a political choice.
The solution isn’t to somehow extract politics from sports, that’s simply impossible and always has been. The solution is honest accounting. If we’re going to criticise Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and China for using sports to launder their reputations, we must apply the same scrutiny to Western nations and the corporations that sponsor our favourite teams.
This means acknowledging that every major sporting event is political, that every sponsorship is a transaction involving reputation and power, and that our selective outrage reveals more about our geopolitical biases than it does about universal human rights principles.