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2013 16: 274International Area Studies ReviewSteven J. Jackson

The contested terrain of sport diplomacy in a globalizing world  

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The contested terrain of sport diplomacy in a globalizing world

Steven J. Jackson1

University of Otago, New Zealand

AbstractSport continues to occupy a rather ambiguous position within the context of politics, foreign policy and diplomatic relations. While one can identify a long list of cases where sport has been credited with diverting conflict, contributing to peace negotiations and helping develop better cultural understanding, there are also many cases where sport has not only fueled conflict but also served as its source. This paper seeks to: (1) highlight the unique features of sport as a cultural site and practice in relation to diplomacy; (2) briefly overview some key dimensions and limitations of sport as an instrument of diplomacy; and (3) offer a preliminary examination of contemporary sport organizations and events in order to understand the implications of the transformational shift occurring between state diplomacy and what might be termed “corporate diplomacy” within an increasingly global context.

KeywordsCorporate diplomacy, globalization, nation state, politics, sport

Introduction

Sport continues to occupy a rather ambiguous position within the context of politics, foreign policy and diplomatic relations (Jackson and Haigh, 2009; Kuper, 2006; Levermore and Budd, 2004). While there is much popular and scholarly speculation concerning why this is the case, one poten-tial reason is the rather schizophrenic way in which sport, as a cultural site and practice, is viewed within society. The term “schizophrenic” is used to highlight the conflicting and contradictory ways in which sport is considered both serious and important but insignificant and trivial at differ-ent times, in different contexts and by people representing different interest groups.

Ultimately, while some people may wish to continue to argue whether or not sport “should” remain pure and above and beyond politics, the fact is that it could not be otherwise—sport has always been and will remain a part of political life (Allison, 1993; Houlihan, 1994). Indeed, the more important sport becomes with respect to both its social and economic impact, both locally

Corresponding author:Steven J. Jackson, School of Physical Education, Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Otago, 46 Union Street, Dunedin 9015, New Zealand. Email: steve.jackson@otago.ac.nz

498867 IAS16310.1177/2233865913498867International Area Studies ReviewJackson2013

Article

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and globally, the more political it will become. Astute politicians throughout history have recog-nized the heuristic value of “sport” with respect to politics, public policy and popularity. However, it is only recently that academics outside the realm of sport studies have begun to take sport seri-ously. The sudden and dramatic interest in sport by scholars spanning such fields as sociology, history, literature, business and economics, geography and politics is both curious and long over-due. For example, a cursory review of the International Journal of Area Studies reveals that only two articles related to sport have been published since IAS was launched in 1997 – one article was about brand recall of 2008 Olympic sponsors in the Korean market (Ha et al., 2009) and one was related to the rising power of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as a transnational organi-zation with respect to global governance (Herguner, 2012). As such, this special issue dedicated to Sport and Diplomacy is very timely.

Overall, this paper seeks to: (1) highlight the unique features of sport as a cultural site and prac-tice in relation to diplomacy; (2) briefly overview some key dimensions and limitations of sport as an instrument of diplomacy; and (3) explore the interaction between nation-states, nongovernmen-tal organizations and transnational corporations in the process of diplomacy. More specifically, this paper offers a preliminary analysis of contemporary sport, including sport organizations, events and industries, in order to understand the implications of the transformational shift occurring between state diplomacy and what might be termed “corporate diplomacy” within an increasingly global context.

Unique features of sport as a cultural site and practice in relation to diplomacy

Beyond its universal and enduring place in societies throughout history, sport has been a central social practice and institution for a wide range of reasons (Jackson, 2013; Jackson and Andrews, 2005, 2012) including: (a) it represents human drama at its finest, providing a stimulus and an acceptable arena for the expression of the full range of human emotions; (b) it displays real people demonstrating the limits of the body in real time; (c) its embodied form and focus render it an implicitly and explicitly erotic practice (Guttmann, 1996); (d) it provides us with carefully crafted narratives of heroes and villains (Whannel, 2002); (e) it attracts large and passionately devoted audiences; (f) it is cheap to produce, relative to other types of media programming, and as such appeals to television networks; and (g) it is associated with positive images of health and nation-hood (Jackson, 2013; Rowe, 1996).

Collectively these points highlight the social significance of sport as a part of human culture. However, beyond these there are also some unique features of sport that make it a strategic site for politics and diplomacy. Consider some of the following factors. First, there are 203 national Olympic committees in the IOC—11 more countries than there are national members of the United Nations (UN). This fact, in and of itself, demonstrates the significance and potential strategic value of sport as an instrument of international relations. Second, and related to the previous point, global-mediated sporting events attract large audiences, making them powerful sites with respect to demonstrations of ideology and nationalism on the one hand, and a source of wealth generation on the other (Horne, 2006; Horne and Manzenreiter, 2006; Jackson and Scherer, 2013). Third, sport is one of the few examples of a career or profession where people are actively recruited from one country to another and either rewarded with, or required to assume, a new or supplementary national identity (Jackson and Haigh, 2009). Consequently, the global search for “human” resources has extended far beyond doctors, nurses, engineers and information-technology specialists to include athletes. Indeed, within the increasingly free market economy of sport, we have witnessed the emergence of athletic mercenaries seeking to capitalize on the highest bidder for their services,

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raising important questions about the nature, flexibility and very future of national identity and citi-zenship. At its extreme, there have been cases of entire teams of athletes effectively being sold from one country to another—one example being the sale of members of the Bulgarian weightlift-ing team to Qatar.

In light of all these factors we should not be surprised that “sport” has become a strategic part of both public and state diplomacy. Of course, sport is not the only, nor even the most, important form of diplomatic relations. Scanning the literature, one can see the myriad types of diplomacy, including political, military, economic and cultural. The latter can be envisioned to include educa-tion, culinary (food), popular culture, religion and sport.

Arguably, we should neither overstate nor understate the diplomatic potential of sport, but rather seek to understand the nature and effects of its use with respect to diplomacy. This challenges us to consider diplomacy within sport, diplomacy for sport and diplomacy through sport. Moreover, it is important to recognize that these “types” of diplomacy do not operate in distinct and mutually exclu-sive ways, but rather tend to work in tandem, adopting a range of configurations depending upon the context. For example, consider the link between religion and sport. While sport has long had religious overtones, including the emergence of muscular Christianity, the more recent decline of some forms of Christianity has forced leaders to find new ways of attracting and retaining members. Consider the following quote by Pope John Paul II, which formed part of his call for the establishment of a sports department at the Vatican: “the church … is called upon without doubt to pay attention to sports, which certainly can be considered one of the nerve centers of contemporary culture and one of the frontiers for new evangelization” (“Pope promotes sports for Christianity”, 2004).

This highlights one of the diplomatic uses of sport but of course there are many others. It is not the intention of this paper to provide a historical overview and comprehensive analysis of the role of sport in political diplomacy. Rather, the aim is to offer a few brief examples of how sport is involved in various forms of diplomatic relations and, in turn, submit the case that, while the nation-state remains an important, indeed pivotal, structure in contemporary international rela-tions, within the context of global capitalism, transnational corporations are increasingly the key drivers.

Sport and diplomacy

When we hear the term “sport diplomacy” we probably think of such things as the Olympics Games, which historically were considered the ultimate example of how a collective human cultural event could halt, at least temporarily, conflict between nations so that they might com-pete in friendship and sportsmanship. However, as Barry Sanders (2011) notes, this ideal is largely myth:

In a tradition that lasted for almost 1,000 years, an Olympic Truce was called every four years for the weeks of the Games. It allowed athletes to get to the Games under a flag of truce, and embodied the idea that sport competition was a proxy battle for inter-city hostilities which could be harmlessly resolved in foot races and javelin throws. Nice as the theory sounds, is there any evidence that these non-lethal contests take the place of, or lessen the chances of actual international conflict? Does listening to another section of the audience shouting “We’re number one!” really add to cross-border understanding? More likely it builds resentment. The fifteen years of Olympic competition from the fall of the Soviet Union to the rise of the Chinese team during which the United States dominated the medal count did not win any friends for the Americans. In the times of World Wars I and II there was no Olympic truce; instead, there were no Olympics. In these cases, a country’s foreign policy trumped its sporting prowess; politics outweighed athletic tradition. And if relations are already tense, competing on the field of play can magnify hostility, especially if the competition is perceived as violating the ethics of the games.

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Certainly there are many examples of the potential of sport to promote dialogue, interaction, friend-ship, cooperation and perhaps even temporary peace. The successful hosting of almost any inter-national sporting event is evidence of this, as are the wide range of United Nations and other “sport for peace and development” initiatives that have emerged over the past few decades. Other histori-cal examples, such as the infamous 1971 China–USA “Ping Pong” diplomacy, which celebrated its fortieth anniversary in 2011, may also come to mind. However, it was inevitable that a cultural site and practice that could attract global attention would eventually be used as a site of protest, politi-cal activism and even terrorism (Kuper, 2006; Toohey, 2006). The USA-led Western boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the subsequent Soviet boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles games illus-trate the tame end of the spectrum of political uses of sport. More serious cases include the 1972 Munich Olympics, where the Palestinian group called “Black September” killed 11 Israeli Olympians and a German police officer. More recently, on 15 April 2013, the Boston Marathon served as a site of alleged terrorist activity when two Chechen-born brothers were suspected of planting pressure cooker bombs which killed three people and injured over 200 others. As previ-ously noted, these are at the extreme end of the political resistance spectrum. Generally speaking, sport is more commonly used for diplomatic purposes as a mechanism of soft power. This includes the intersecting forms of diplomacy that occur within the context of state initiatives, sport mega-events, the sports industry and even sport celebrities.

Consider the diplomatic use of sport by the USA. Extending former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s vision of “smart power diplomacy”, which uses a full range of diplomatic tools, the USA has developed a strategic, and fairly well-funded, platform for the use of sport in diplo-matic relations. One particular initiative is SportsUnited, which advances the USA’s foreign policy goals by engaging with people from around the world in three key ways: the Sports Envoy pro-gram, the Sports Visitors program and Sports Grant. The SportsUnited program utilizes celebrity athletes, such as retired Major League Baseball Hall of Fame player Cal Ripken, to promote the initiative (“SportsUnited: Bringing People Together Through Sports”: Fact Sheet, 2011). While there are no doubt numerous examples of positive experiences emerging from this program, critics of American foreign policy will probably view it with great skepticism. This example illustrates a nation-state’s strategic use of “sport” through a global sport organization, that is Major League Baseball, and one of its most popular celebrities, Cal Ripken Jr.

Notably, not all US sport diplomacy occurs through official state channels. In early 2013, former National Basketball Association star Dennis Rodman made a trip to North Korea, where he met with leader Kim Jong-Un and watched a promotional basketball game. The event made international headlines, especially in light of escalating tensions between North Korea and the West. Chances are, we will never know the true rationale for Rodman’s visit, but we can certainly speculate. Kim Jong-Un is a well-known basketball fan and a Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan admirer, in par-ticular. Aside from satisfying his own cultural appetite for sport, Kim Jong-Un was able to show his people that he is well connected with, and respected by, important people, even in the USA. Conversely, Dennis Rodman was able to gain entry to North Korea to film a segment of American cable television network’s HBO program titled “Vice”, which describes itself as presenting: “a vari-ety of mind-melting stories from around the globe and immersive detours into the scariest, most absurd, and flat-out unbelievable cultures and situations around the globe’” (‘HBO gave us our own tv show’, 2012). Hence, we can read Rodman’s visit as a way of producing a television show whose premise is the display of the exotic, bizarre and extreme. Yet, “Vice” is only one part of Dennis Rodman’s own business empire which also includes his website, Dennisrodman.com, that promotes and sells a wide range of personalized sporting memorabilia. This initiative, and aspects of Cal Ripken Jr’s links with the SportsUnited program, are part of a much wider process that I describe as “corporate diplomacy”, and it is to this concept and its links with sport that we now turn.

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Sport and corporate diplomacy

In his book International diplomacy and the Olympic Movement: The New Mediators, Aaron Beacom (2012: 1) argues that: “while changing patterns of diplomacy related to the Games reflect the general diffusion of the diplomatic process, the state remains the key stakeholder in that process and continues to set the terms of reference through which other stakeholders increasingly engage in a variety of forms of interest representation”. Acknowledging its enduring significance, this paper challenges the assumption that the nation-state is the exclusive player in diplomatic relations and suggests that, while it is an important, indeed pivotal, stakeholder in diplomatic relations, its role is changing. Thus, while recognizing the undeniable influence of the state as a mediator, the main drivers and indeed the very nature of diplomacy itself are changing, with a shift in influence from the public to the private and from the national to the transnational realms.

While it is not intended to identify all of the dimensions in the sport and corporate diplomacy matrix, Figure 1 offers a model that outlines the relationship between the nation-state and three of the key global sport mechanisms through which various forms of diplomacy, including “corporate diplomacy”, operate.

This model is used to highlight 3 interrelated aspects of “corporate” diplomacy: (1) global sport organizations and sport mega-events; (2) the sport industry; and (3) sport celebrities. It is beyond the scope of this paper to address each of these aspects in detail, hence the focus is on (1) global sport organizations and sport mega-events. Notably, while the nation-state fea-tures prominently in the model and is pivotal to the goals and aspirations of global sport organizations such as the IOC and FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), like Herguner (2012), I suggest that it is increasingly a means to an end to the extent that the nation-state:

Global Sport Organiza�ons, Sport Mega-

Events & Diplomacy

Sport Industry & Diplomacy

Na�on-State

Sport Celebri�es &

Diplomacy

Figure 1. Model of “sport and corporate diplomacy”.

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• offers legitimacy to both the IOC (and other global sport organizations) and its events;• through national teams and individual athletes, provides a “commodity” to be sold—a com-

modity that arguably has less value if not attached to the nation;• provides funding for the training of athletic commodities/entertainers that often compete on

the global stage, wearing uniforms that display not only national emblems but also the spon-sorship logos of major corporate brands;

• provides funding to host IOC/sport mega-events, including funding for bids and to host events, including for stadia and security; perhaps most significantly the IOC needs nations as “sites” for global corporate sports spectacles, in effect “renting” the nation for a brief period of time;

• is complicit in reproducing what some have described as propaganda via, for example, the Olympic “education” system.

Thus, the model recognizes that the nation-state is important, but increasingly its significance within global sport is shifting towards its function as a resource base, both material and symbolic, that can be drawn upon by transnational corporations in pursuit of capital accumulation (Jackson, 2004; Scherer and Jackson, 2010, 2013). Conversely, the political power and influence of the nation-state, while certainly substantial, is nevertheless changing and (often through international accords and free trade agreements) in some cases diminishing. Consider Herguner’s observations on the shifting levels of power between the nation-state and the world’s most powerful sport organ-ization, the IOC:

First of all, “the radius of action” for states has decreased in favour of the IOC. For example, in the past, it was easier for national governments to decide on a boycott, but taking such a decision is relatively more difficult today as it is hard to find public support for such an action. Furthermore, the prospect of a boycott decision may draw a negative reaction from firms and media companies within the country … New IOC regulations are also a sign of change. According to the new IOC rules in the aftermath of major boycotts, if a country decides not to participate in the Games after acceptance of the IOC’s invitation, it is banned from the next Olympic Games. (Herguner, 2012: 181-182)

While we tend to take for granted the right of organizations such as the IOC to regulate not only who qualifies as a nation in the Olympics, but also how they will be identified (e.g. Chinese Taipei vs Taiwan), there is a tendency to overlook the near complete lack of transparency and accountability within such organizations. This is clearly evident not only in light of the questionable awarding of the 2008 Olympics to China despite concerns over human rights, but also the well documented cases of corruption within both the IOC and FIFA (Jennings, 2000, 2006; Lenskyj, 2000, 2008; Simson and Jennings, 1992). At this point a few brief examples are offered which illustrate the “contested terrain” of the “sport and corporate diplomacy” model, with the focus being on the first dimension of sport organizations and mega-events. According to Jackson and Scherer (2013: 888–889):

we we can think of a contested terrain as a site of struggle not unlike a battlefield, involving key interest groups with varying resources and material interests, and competing ideas and beliefs. Sometimes, these struggles appear to encompass only small differences of opinions and perspectives but, as innumerable examples throughout the course of history attest, they can also descend into conflict, violence and even war. Ultimately, though, within advanced capitalist democracies, contested terrains are about power struggles over resources (financial, material and human) and ideological and moral/ethical beliefs. Stated another way, contested terrains involve competing claims over national common sense as various groups seek to continually endeavour to refashion their way(s) of life and interests as legitimate and apolitical.

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To this extent almost any aspect of culture can be examined with respect to how it operates as a contested terrain, including sport and the focus of this paper, sport mega-events as sites of corpo-rate diplomacy.

According to Hayes and Karamichas (2012: 2) sport mega-events are important because they are:

political and economic events, characterized by the generation and projection of symbolic meanings—most obviously over the nature of statehood, economic power and collective identity—and by social conflict, especially over land use, and over the extent and contours of public spending commitments … Most fundamentally, sports mega-events interest us because of their capacity to reveal the orientation of national and global political systems and processes, and the ideological assumptions and operations that underpin them.

Sport mega-events such as the Olympics or FIFA World Cup provide valuable insights into the nature, strategic importance and power of “corporate diplomacy”. As previously noted, the IOC and FIFA control almost every aspect of these events: which nation will host, what nations and sports will be recognized to participate, and which corporate sponsors will secure exclusive nam-ing and promotional rights. Given the complex, nontransparent and expensive cost of even bidding to host the Olympics or World Cup, one wonders why nations compete so intensely to secure them. Citizens are told of the immense economic impact through tourism and trade opportunities and of the “legacy” of new infrastructure development, not to mention the unrivalled global media cover-age that will maximize “nation brand” exposure. Yet, there is a major difference between the hope and the reality of hosting a sport mega-event. Let us reflect on the legacy of South Africa’s hosting of the FIFA 2010 World Cup. The event was sold to the public as an opportunity to showcase the “new” South Africa as a nation of progress, a place for tourists to visit and a place for foreign com-panies to do business—in short, a place of hope. However, the reality of the legacy of FIFA 2010, at least for many, was far different. According to one “expert”, Simon Anholt, CEO of “The Nation Brands Index”:

South Africa, since the end of apartheid had been selling a vision of itself which was calculated to make the rest of the world believe that South Africa was now part of Western Europe. And with their investment promotion and their tourist promotion they sent out, as these bodies will do, a highly idealised version of the country. Then the football came along and people saw slums and they saw poverty and they saw great areas which were rather short on development and equality. And they said to themselves, “Oh my God, South Africa is in Africa.” And this set back the image of South Africa by about two years. In many, many countries the image of South Africa was actually worse in 2010 than it had been in 2008. Exactly the same thing that I predict is going to happen in Brazil with the World Cup and the Olympic Games, because I personally have seen worse slums in Brazil than I’ve ever seen anywhere in Africa. And I think that that’s the danger. (“Does sport matter to diplomacy?”, 2012: 8–9)

Here, it is worth considering the insightful critique of Ashraf Cassiem, an anti-eviction campaign coordinator, who fought to protect the rights of poor citizens who were forced from their homes in Cape Town in order that a new stadium could be built. According to Cassium, “FIFA 2010 World Cup … its not a South African thing … its labelled ‘FIFA 2010 World Cup in South Africa’ … so FIFA, this year, is renting out our country to have a soccer tournament” (“Tin town: The unac-countable cost of the 2010 World Cup”, 2011). As Cassiem astutely observes, FIFA, the IOC and other global sport organizations, in conjunction with a range of transnational corporate sponsors, are effectively “renting” nations to host sport mega-events. One way of conceptualizing the renting

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of nations for sport mega-events is with respect to David Harvey’s notion of “monopoly rents”. According to Harvey (2002: 90):

All rent is based on the monopoly power of private owners over certain assets. Monopoly rent arises because social actors can realize an enhanced income stream over an extended time by virtue of their exclusive control over some directly or indirectly tradable item which is in some crucial respects unique and non-replicable.

Although Harvey himself did not apply monopoly rents to sport per se, there are some elements of sport mega-events that would seem to facilitate the extraction of rents. As previously noted, organi-zations such as the IOC and FIFA negotiate guaranteed, exclusive access for both themselves and their corporate sponsors. While sport mega-events are often relatively short in duration, the exclu-sivity associated with the intellectual property of the events in terms of television rights and the use of imagery related to the event is often perpetual. A caution is warranted here as even the word “rent” is misleading given that the host nation and city are required to fund almost every aspect of the event (including facilities, security and VIP hosting) and generally offer low tax rates or tax-free status. To this extent we witness the perversion of capitalism whereby the host nation does not actually receive rent from the private interests who profit from the event, but in a range of ways actually pay those same private interests. At the time of this writing, the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil is on the horizon and we see a similar pattern of “corporate diplomacy”, including the relo-cation of poor people from their favelas (shanty towns). However, in this case FIFA’s “corporate diplomacy” extends much further. In order to protect the commercial interests and rights of one of its World Cup Sponsors, American beer company Budweiser, FIFA forced Brazil to make a change in their laws that had prohibited the sale of alcohol in sports stadiums since 2003. According to FIFA General Secretary, Jerome Valcke:

Alcoholic drinks are part of the FIFA World Cup, so we’re going to have them. Excuse me if I sound a bit arrogant but that’s something we won’t negotiate. The fact that we have the right to sell beer has to be part of the law. (“Beer ‘must be sold’ at Brazil World Cup, says FIFA”, 2012).

This demonstrates the power of an international sport organization such as FIFA—the ability to literally dictate laws of nations—laws which have presumably been developed over time and in the interests of citizens. However, no form of hegemony is ever guaranteed, as the emerging contested terrain of Brazil reveals: citizens are protesting in large numbers, challenging the government’s prioritization of sport over more basic human needs such as housing, health and education.

The previous examples, while illustrative, nevertheless fail to capture the increasingly signifi-cant role that transnational corporations play in setting the framework and agenda for some of the world’s most important cultural events—global sport spectacles that become the focus of the world’s citizens. Moreover, it is important to keep in mind the other interrelated dimensions of the “sport and corporate diplomacy” model: the global sport industry and sport celebrities. With respect to the former, we only need to think about large sportswear manufacturing companies, such as Nike, whose business model rests on finding the cheapest source of labour and is typi-cally exploitive of women and children in developing nations (Sage, 2010). Such a case raises important questions not only about morals and ethics but also about the diplomatic role of the nation-state. On the one hand, we can ask whether any American state agencies play a role in facilitating international business links between companies like Nike and overseas manufactur-ers. On the other, we might ask what responsibility the representatives of both producing and

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consuming nation-states have with respect to protecting human rights. The very fact that sport commodities that are known to be produced under conditions that would be violations of our own nation’s labour laws are able to be imported points directly to the power of corporate diplo-macy. This is not to suggest that the state agencies of developing nations are all engaged in a conspiratorial cover up of illegal practices, but rather they are often complicit by not regulating such violations. Extending this logic, those celebrity athletes who sign million-dollar sponsor-ship deals with sport companies with the full knowledge that their endorsement income is only possible through the exploitation of labour need to be held to account (Jackson, 2013; Jackson and Andrews, 2012). Here, we begin to see the complex and interrelated nature of corporate diplomacy. Celebrity athletes are paid enormous sums of money to endorse particular brands, largely because they are highly visible commodities themselves through media. During sport mega-events, such media coverage becomes more exclusive in terms of who owns the rights. Global sport organizations such as the IOC and FIFA have complete control over which televi-sion network gains the rights to which broadcast territories, and they also control which corpo-rate brands will gain exclusive exposure through advertising, team and athlete sponsorship. This is the essence, but not the entirety, of sport corporate diplomacy. Arguably, the articulation of these three dimensions provides a powerful alliance of political, corporate and media interests that work in, for, through and sometimes beyond the nation-state. This paper argues that such an alliance is part of a broader process of “corporate diplomacy” that, in this case, operates within the context of sport—a cultural practice and institution that, while inherently political, is often neglected as a contested site of serious politics and diplomatic relations.

Conclusion

Global sport has become less an avenue for genuine and enduring diplomacy that advances human rights, cultural understanding, and sustainable peace than a means to an end for global sport organizations (IOC, FIFA and others) and their corporate sponsors. Nation-states play a pivotal, and sometimes complicit, role in what has herein been conceptualized as “corporate diplomacy” by not only sanctioning these global sport organizations but, in some cases, hosting events which often involve enormous amounts of public funding and resources. However, given the global popularity of sport and its capacity to not only reach, but also capture, the hearts and imaginations of billions of people around the world, we should not be surprised that nation-states downplay the financial and other risks associated with hosting sport mega-events in the hope of attracting tour-ists and promoting their national “brand”. Ultimately, international sport organizations such as the IOC and FIFA occupy a unique and powerful position through which to mediate and regulate global sport mega-events, industries and celebrity athletes. Moreover, while these unique transna-tional sport organizations need the nation-state, it is increasingly for reasons that are aligned to fostering deregulation, expanding markets and the advancement of global capitalism. Future stud-ies may wish to explore further case studies of both the organizational structure and process of negotiations between global sport organizations, nation-states and corporations. In addition, future studies may wish to examine cases of “state-owned” corporations and how they engage in various forms of corporate diplomacy.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Note

1. Steve Jackson is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

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