The Diplomacy and International Commerce of Sports

Following up on Erik’s thoughts about the diplomacy of sports, I wrote a column this week about the Trump administration’s diplomacy of sports efforts:

Further complicating World Cup logistics is the fact that the United States is currently involved in uncharacteristically sharp disputes with its two co-hosts, Canada and Mexico. Ease of cross-border travel is critical to the success of a co-hosted World Cup, as fans want to follow teams to venues in each country.

However, while Customs and Border Patrol has publicly committed to easing entry and egress, it has also confirmed that it will continue to aggressively investigate social media postings by tourists, potentially generating delay and disarray. The suspension of processing of visas from 75 countries has only made the confusion worse. 

The Trump administration needs to make a credible commitment to the many tourists expecting to attend World Cup football matches that they will not be harassed, either by Customs and Border Patrol or by ICE. But given that ICE has focused much of its attention on Americans of Latino descent, and that several teams from Latin America are expected to bring large contingents of fans to the United States, concern over the activities of the organization are hardly surprising.

The poor training and discipline that ICE has displayed in Minneapolis and elsewhere have raised alarm bells for diplomats worried about the safety of their citizens being hosted in the United States. 

I also had the good fortune last semester of overseeing an independent study by two of my students on the diplomacy and international commerce of sports. They are building out a website on the topic in their spare time, and they also recorded three podcasts:

• Diplomacy of Sport with Devin Moss of PNW Sports Group, discussing the commerce and soft power of international athletics.
• The World Cup with Erin Miller, a Patterson graduate who worked for several years for Austin FC.
• The Emerging NIL Environment with Grant Peters on general NIL issues and specifics to how the University of Kentucky does NIL.

See also the profile of Charles Tillman, the Bears cornerback who joined the FBI after his NFL career wound down… until last January when he left over concerns about immigration enforcement.

Tillman and the other FBI agents in Chicago received word that White House border czar Tom Homan and TV personality “Dr. Phil” McGraw were coming to town with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to lead a crackdown on illegal immigration. There would be targeted arrests; participation from the FBI, the DEA, the ATF, the Border Patrol and the U.S. Marshals was expected.

“It was, ‘We need everybody outside, and we want everyone standing guard,’” Tillman says. “And they wanted us to make arrests. It wasn’t just about going after the violent individuals. It was, ‘There’s some guys working on a house outside. Let’s go swap them up, and it will count for the quota system.’ To me, it felt political.”

Tillman has long believed the United States has an immigration problem. But he thought it was wrong to harass people just because they looked a certain way. Racial profiling? He had a deep, personal understanding. And the way he understood it, investigations were supposed to take months, not minutes.

Tillman’s daughter Tessa had a basketball game that day. Rather than join an immigration raid, he went to her game.

Above the sounds of dribbling balls and squeaking shoes, he heard something else.

His inner voice was telling him that how he would be remembered means something.

Not long after, he resigned from the FBI.