As 2022 wraps up, SI staffers Jon Wertheim and Chris Almeida will discuss some of the themes of the year in sports. First up: sportswashing.
Jon Wertheim: Sportswashing to me is interesting on a few levels. This whole idea is predicated on the fact that sports have become so big that they can be used to rehabilitate a country's reputation, supposedly. And then you also have the potential backlash from sportswashing attempts. Sure, we had a well-watched World Cup in Qatar, but everyone knows a little bit more about Qatar than they used to. And all of these complaints and concerns about human rights abuses and labor abuses, they seemed to dwindle once the game started, which was predictable, but I don't know … are people dying to go vacation in Qatar now?
Chris Almeida: This is the thing that I've been thinking about all year. This really revved up right at the beginning of the year with the emergence of LIV Golf. And I think that the conversation has evolved a lot over the course of the past few months. At the beginning of the year, most people were approaching this to say: Saudi Arabia is trying to launder its reputation by hosting sporting events. Then it became O.K., maybe they’re not trying to get the world to love them immediately and instead they’re just trying to diversify their investments. And then the Zach Helfand piece in The New Yorker came out, in that there were experts quoted saying: No, actually, this is basically just an ad for their golf courses and developments. And I buy that.
