What happened to BLM-inspired activism in sports? w/Howard Bryant | Edge of Sports

Sports writing powerhouse Howard Bryant on  the state of athletic protest. I got spicy things to say about the evils of sports betting.  I've got a sports scholar that's going to blow your mind talking about the Women's World  Cup. You got to see it on Edge of Sports. (singing) Welcome to Edge of Sports, the TV show only on the Real News Network. I'm Dave  Zirin, and we have on our program one of the best sports writers by any measure. I actually have a  shelf in my house dedicated to his books.

His name is Howard Bryant and we're talking about where all  the activist energy in the sports world has gone. I've also got choice words about the social  cost of smartphone sports gambling becoming the economic lifeblood of the sports industry.  And in our segment, ask a sports scholar, I've got Hofstra prof, Brenda Elsey, whose  research is about the development of women's soccer internationally, which is kind of timely  given that this tournament is coming up you might know about called the

Women's World Cup.  But first, the author of The Heritage: Black Athletes, A Divided America, and the Politics of  Patriotism and the forthcoming Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America.  Ooh, I'm excited about that one. Howard Bryant. Howard Bryant, thanks so much for being here. Good to be here, Dave. All right, so just to background this  critical conversation, I want to read a line you wrote in The Heritage. You wrote,  "The black athlete wanted to stick to sports. It w

as white America that would not let  him." Could you explain that, please? Sure. I think that what it means  is that when you think about the conversations of where black athletes fit  in the political realm, and so much of it is accusatory, so much of it is why won't you stop  talking about politics and why do you have to ruin our games by talking about these things? And this  isn't the place where for you to choose that this is a topic that should be discussed. Now's not  the right time. The h

istorical roots of all of this come from white America. It comes from World  War II. It comes from the 1936 Olympics. It comes from all of these different places where it was  important that mainstream America hear from black athletes that they supported the country. It was  the Jewish athletes who were starting a boycott who wanted black athletes to support them and join  them in the '36 boycott of the Munich Olympics. And it was the black athlete who was actually  caught in the middle because

there were black athletes who sided and who were in support with  the Jewish American athletes in boycotting the Olympics. And it was the mainstream press, the  Westbrook Peglers of the world who would write columns saying that the best way to show Hitler  is for our guys to go over there and perform. This is politics. This isn't black athletes  talking about their own rights. This is them being thrust into the political arena. It was  Joe Louis. And once again, when we think about the way that

the United States government had  been treating black soldiers, it was a segregated military. There was huge percentages of military  thought in America that didn't even want to arm black citizens who were soldiers. Give them menial  tasks. Kitchen, mess, all of that stuff. That they were going to swab the decks. Do not give them guns. And so then what do we see? We see Joe Louis on  a poster with a rifle and a bayonet in his hands, which is antithetical to actually what a lot of  folks want but

it was the one way ... You weren't going to get the war effort drummed up by handing  a 19 year old black male a mop in a poster. You had to let him fight. And so once again, the  Joe Louis is the guy. Jackie Robinson. There are so many examples where what we wanted from  black athletes was their voice. And then when they took control of that voice, nobody liked it. White America, the power in America, they want black athletes speaking out during the context  of taking on, whether it's Nazism o

r whether it's communism, the Cold War. They want to counter  the idea that the United States is an inherently racist society by saying look at the black  athlete. But when black athletes started using that voice for their own self-determination,  that's when you start to hear shut up and dribble. Am I encapsulating that right? No. That's 100% right. They want you to speak when they want you to speak. When they need you.  And let's remember that within these frameworks you had the United States

foreign policy being  criticized heavily by axis powers saying, "Well, how can you criticize our society? Look  at your own. Look at how you treat black people. You have an underclass of second  class citizens as well so who were you to criticize?" So of course, to counter that it  was important that black athletes spoke up. So let's go to summer of 2020 after the police  killing of George Floyd. It was so common to say back then in the sports world that we were  living in a time with more what

we can call sports activism than any time since 1968. What did  you think of that '68 comparison in 2020 and did you find that historical parallel to be helpful? I thought it was helpful from the standpoint that you needed some form of touchstone.  And the 1960s is always the touchstone. I thought it was important from the standpoint  to show that the 1960s was a long time ago. So if you're in 2020 and you're saying, well, we haven't  really seen this since 1968, that's 52 years. And so I though

t that was a very important benchmark  to realize just how quiet things have been. And I thought it was important for the athletes  as well in their own minds, to empower them, that they felt like they were part of this  heritage. That maybe it would spur them to do more things if they were linked to the Muhammad Alis  and the Tommy Smiths and the John Carlos's, and really linked to real people who did real things,  and that might affect them in a positive way. And I thought those comparisons we

re  appropriate. I wasn't sure they were completely appropriate because the times are so  different, but I didn't have a problem with it. So that energy of 2020, I mean, you spoke  about the importance of raising the issue of '68 with regards to modern times in the  hopes that more athletes would learn from it, feel a sense of connection, be inspired by  it, and yet that energy of 2020, we're not feeling that right now in the sports world. I think it's very important to recognize what has been h

appening, and I think it's  important to realize the speed in which things are happening. 2020 was a perfect storm. 2020,  you had a pandemic with everybody locked down. No one's going anywhere. You also are still  part of a remarkable decade going all the way back to the Miami Heat and Trayvon Martin with the  hoodie. So we've been through this, whether it's that or Freddie Gray or Ferguson. There are  so many examples, nevermind Colin Kaepernick taking his knee in 2016. So you have that as  a

backdrop. You have an incredibly polarizing election cycle on top of that. And so everything  is happening at once, and at the same time, people are afraid to go outside. So that  energy was not going to be sustainable. But what I thought was really interesting about 2020  wasn't just that you knew that you weren't going to have that kind of energy over this much time. The speed in which that energy was co-opted, not just by the pandemic, but by the  athletes' response to the pandemic, that the

players who had spent the last decade  really positioning themselves as forces for good, that they were going to be citizens suddenly  became individualists and suddenly they became libertarians and suddenly they were not interested  anymore in being part of the public solution. Now you've got LeBron James who has been credited with  building schools and getting people out to vote, and he's more than an athlete, and now he's  sending out memes. Countering the vaccine effort by sending out memes

equating covid to a common  cold. And so what's interesting about this and we're going to see over the next several years is  how those transitions affected the previous years. Did they undermine their own movement? And I  think the answer for now is absolutely yes. 2020, going back to it. Is that the sort of thing  where the wine is out of the bottle, the cork is out, and 2020 should be seen with ebbs and flows  as the beginnings ... And of course going back years, Kaepernick, the response to T

rayvon. So  this whole period, should we look at it as the beginnings of something that with ebbs and flows,  is now part of the sports landscape or are they in effect putting the wine back in the bottle? Well, I think it's the beginning of the end of something. I think that when you're looking  at eras, just as you looked at the early 1970s as the end of the 1960s in terms of political  movements, I think 2020 was the beginning of the end of something. And I say that because of two  events. I t

hink the first one was the realization in 2020 that the players had taken collectively,  they had taken a step from 2016. 2016, Donald Sterling in the Los Angeles Clippers scandal. The  players are threatening to boycott a playoff game. But they don't boycott. They throw their  jerseys, they turn them inside out, they toss them out at half court, but they  keep playing. The machine keeps rolling. Jacob Blake gets shot in Kenosha  in August of 2020, and the players stopped playing. The machine co

mes to a halt. That was a moment that we're going to remember and the response to that moment. Because the  players then went to former President Obama, who essentially stopped their strike, told them  to go back to work, lean in more deeply into the democracy. Even though the players weren't  protesting the lack of access to voting. They were protesting Jacob Blake's shooting. And they  went back to work and they dug in more deeply, and the Milwaukee Bucks set up polling centers  and LeBron Jam

es set up voter registration and the Atlanta Dream got ... And so all of the  movements got back involved more deeply into the democracy. They became be even better citizens.  And then six months after that, you get January 6th and the very people for the past decade who  have told you to shut up and play, who told you to stand for the flag and kneel for the cross,  who told you to do all of these things, they are doing the most undemocratic thing we've seen  in this country's history for a very

long time. They are attacking the most symbolically  important legislative building in the world. These are the people who were offended by you protesting, taking a knee, raising  your fist, and you said nothing. And I think we're going to remember their silence  in response to that. It was to me, the biggest slap in the face to every black athlete in  the country. And none of them said a word. And I was really surprised by that. Maybe they  weren't connecting those dots or maybe the moment was

over or maybe they were thinking about  vaccines or whatever. But the bottom line is you want to talk about irony, about doing things the  right way, about the time being inappropriate. They did everything that they were accusing  the players of doing, and the players didn't do anything close to that. All the players was  a little silence during the national anthem. Do you feel like in some respects the players  lived through a, you could call it a rhyming version of that infamous time when the

march  on Washington had been called and Bob Kennedy said to John Lewis, "Why don't you stop all this  freedom riding, sitting in shit and protesting, and in return you can do voter registration  and we'll give you tax free status?" Yeah. It feels like that. Let's ingest you into the system. Absolutely. To avert a challenge. Well, no question. And what you end up with is a weakening of your movement. It's a constant  weakening and a diluting of your standing. And I think that that was something

, that  moment, at least to me in looking at it, was a huge missed opportunity on the part of the  players. Even if they didn't produce any protests, just to call it out, to say something, to  have some form of sustained response to it. That this is what you are doing. You are  the very people who told us not to protest. Yeah. So is it fear? Is it the quietude of broader  resistance movements in recent years? Is it post pandemic malaise? Is it the right wing feeling on  the offensive and that ac

tually scaring people? How do you understand putting a button on  2020? Because I didn't see it. I thought, oh, this is about a birth of something even  bigger when it was more the end of something that was big, but maybe not as  transformative as it could have been. Yeah, I thought it was the end of  something because of the Obama presence. Got you. I thought that this is what the players had been threatening to do for 50 years. We saw this  in Missouri at the college level back in 2015. Yeah,

2015. That's right. And this was averted by actual movement. So the players had an opportunity to really  assert some control and then that was diluted. And I think that there's one school of thought  that showing that you could do it and doing it for one day or for a weekend was enough and enough  was enough. Or there's another school of thought that says, now's the time if you want something to  demand it, because they know that you're serious. And what I always found interesting about  that t

ime period was Naomi Osaka was an athlete playing an individual sport, tennis,  and she had simply said, "I'm not playing." And the tournament, Western and Southern in  Cincinnati had pretty much co-opted her protest and said, "We're all not playing. We're going  to just take a break.' What did they call it? They called it a pause. And then the whole sports  world took a pause, which tells you how much the industry was aware both of what the players  can do and the optics of it. So it suddenly w

asn't a strike. It was a collective breather.  It was a collective timeout, which is not what it was at all. It was the athletes saying,  we're not playing. Very different messaging. I'm constantly scouring the landscape and trying  to see, okay, when's the next energy going to come to the fore, and where is that energy going  to come from? Is it going to come from women athletes? Is it going to come from the college  ranks? Just looking to see what's bubbling and what's not. I'd like to say tha

t because the  attacks on the right have been so intense against transgender athletes that you might see  some broader solidarity in the sports world, the whole anyone can play, anyone should play  slogan, which took root about a decade ago, and you're not seeing that much at all. I mean, to  me, one of the most poignant parts or sad parts of the recent NBA finals was Heat players not really  saying anything about the fact that the most famous Heat player of all, Dwayne Wade, just had  to leave

the state of Florida because he didn't feel safe with his daughter. And the only person  to say anything on the Heat about Ron DeSantis or anything was Udonis Haslem who might have been  playing in 1968. So you didn't get any of the leaders stepping up to saying anything about a  governor who's basically on a wrecking mission of all marginalized communities in the state of  Florida. That to me, the contrast of that to the Trayvon Martin response was pretty sharp. Well, once again, what do we alw

ays say in sports? The smartest guy  in the room is the guy with the biggest number of zeros on his paycheck. Who do we follow? We follow  the guys with the biggest number of zeros on his paycheck. So you look at the leaders of the Miami  Heat in 2023 are very different than the leaders of the Miami Heat in 2012 and 2011. And so the  question has always been for me, how much are we asking of these athletes and is it foolish to ask  that much of them? I could not disagree more that the transgende

r movement is going to be the spot.  It should be because this is the reality for this new generation coming up. But when you combine  the religious elements to it, when you combine the attacks, you look at the legislation that is being  passed in different places around the country, whether it's Montana or Utah, places where this  isn't even an issue per se, it's just an assault. The right wing is always on the offensive, as  we're seeing with the Supreme Court. The best defense is a good offen

se. You're constantly  on the defensive to make it seem as though you are the aggrieved party. I don't think  the players are going to rally around this because I don't think the players know.  And I think you've got other athletes in the game who don't know what to say  yet. They don't know how they feel. And you talk to them about all their notions of  fair competition, et cetera, I don't think anyone over there yet, at least en masse, feels  comfortable taking a leadership position because th

e opportunities have been  there to do that and they haven't. Yeah. And you mentioned the recent Supreme  Court rulings. Again, a large silence in the face of that which becomes jarring when you  start ... And this is part of the problem too, when we start looking to athletes habitually for  the response as opposed to looking to ourselves, looking to protest movements. Because I find  myself getting caught in that trap. You start looking for athletes to say and do things that  you don't see broa

der society playing in the hopes that they'll be ahead of the pack and leading,  but that is a lot to ask from people who in 2023, a lot of them are corporations with legs. That's right. Well, we can't have it both ways. Exactly. One of the things that I've always talked about, whether it was  in The Heritage and then also the book that followed that Full Dissidence, more so in Full  Dissidence, is if we're really being honest, the athletes never lead. They've really never led  in a lot of ways.

There are a handful of examples over the course of the century where you can say  the athletes led. Normally what the athletes do is they amplify an existing movement. Even Muhammad  Ali was amplifying an existing anti-war sentiment. When you look at what the players  were doing during the last decade, it was the people who were actually  in the street first. The people were the ones blocking traffic at the airports and  standing in the middle of the highways and doing all these things and prot

esting Freddie Gray. It didn't start with the players. The players recognized that they were reacting to Ferguson as  well. So the reason why we look to them so much is because they have these massive, massive, massive  platforms of accessibility. People listen to them. But they're never leaders. I'm not really sure  I can think of too many movements historically where it started with a professional athlete.  Normally what happens is they're following. Obviously inside of their own business. You

may  see some leadership, Kurt Flood for example. But Kurt Flood was not a larger labor leader.  Kurt Flood was a labor pioneer in his industry. Well, you've been so generous with your time. I'd  be remiss if I didn't mention that your next book, interestingly, is about two people who were part  of movement leaderships and were people who spoke at rallies. Two of the most important examples of  that and two of the lonely examples of that. I'm talking about Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson.  The

book is called Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America. Why take on  this as a writing topic? I think it's fascinating. I can't wait. Can you speak a little bit about  the highlighting of Robinson and Robeson, when they came together, when they collided,  and why you think that moment is so evocative? Yeah. Thank you for that. I think that  the biggest reason for me is because of fascination with these two giants and certainly  fascination with Paul Robeson in terms of what

we do to people in this country and how he  has essentially been erased and erased from black America in a lot of ways at the hands  of black America, which I'm very interested in exploring. I'm fascinated by this moment in  time because the moments that we're in right now when you're talking about Ron DeSantis and  the political movement we're in now is not that different in some ways from the hysterias  of the 1950s and '40s and McCarthyism. So these two giants were obvious ... And also for 

the writing that I've done over the course of my career, it's always fascinated me that that  moment, July 18th, 1949 when Jackie Robinson testified against Paul Robeson in front of  the House and American Activities Committee has always been whittled down to a sentence.  That's a pretty damn big sentence that this moment happened and I'm guilty of it myself. And  when I've written about it, it's just a line. It's not just a line. What happened? And what happened  to us, what happened to those t

wo individuals. I think what this book really is about is how  you have these two people who were essentially on opposite sides of a political spectrum, wound  up within 15 years on the same side of political disillusionment as black Americans. And this is  the story of that day and how they both ended up wounded pretty fatally by this country. I'm imagining like an isosceles triangle. They start in two different places, but with  some hope in humanity, if not in America, and they end up in a ve

ry similar place of,  you could call it a radical disillusionment. That's right. And that's exactly what the project  is all about and that's why I'm really excited about it. Because you look and you see all the  opportunities and you get to pinpoint ... And that's what we do as writers and as is people  who love history as well. You pinpoint these moments. As the great David Halberstam used  to tell me all the time, you think about these intersections where history could have gone this  way or

history could have gone that way. You take those moments and you examine those moments and it  will tell you so much about where you are today. Wow. Howard Bryant, thank you so much  for joining us here on Edge of Sports TV. I know you've got a great book  topic because I'm totally jealous that you're writing this and I'm also  super excited and jealous. It's like some odd combination of emotions. So you've  got it going, man. I'm just proud to know you and proud you're writing this, so thank yo

u. I thank you and thank you for having me on, Dave. And all I can say whenever I think about  this book is I can't wait for it to be done because now you're in the middle of it and you're  saying, okay, did I take on a little ... It's an incredible subject and it's really, really fun.  And you know how that is when you have a book project that you just love. It's a great subject. Every day is a joy. Those rare moments where that happens when you're really in the sweet spot of  loving something.

Howard Bryant, thanks so much, man. I really appreciate you. No, my pleasure. Thanks Dave. And now some choice words. Okay, look, we  need to talk about the new national pastime, sports betting. I'm old enough to remember lo the  many years ago when Pete Rose was banned for life from Major League Baseball for placing bets on  his own team. I remember when sports leagues said they would never put a team in Las Vegas  because of the very physical proximity to legal gambling. I remember when the o

fficial line was  that the integrity of the game and placing bets could not even exist in the same zip code. Well,  fast forward a few decades, hell a few years, and it's remarkable how much has changed. Now gambling  is as much a part of sports as beer commercials. Smartphones have opened the door to sports betting  apps, and the leagues have embraced the lucrative bounty created and generated by smartphone  gambling. They've jumped on this with the wanton shamelessness of a puppy licking its b

owl. It's dizzying how quickly the commissioners have made this turn from gambling is evil, to  selling it to fans is all fun and Americana. I won't insult your intelligence by explaining  this radical shift. It's money. A ton of it. But it's not just the league owners  panting with their puppy bowls out. Sports media like the trendsetter, ESPN Sports  Center and its tall, smoothly bald host, Scott Van Pelt, are always ready with  the special sports betting segment. Also, the most esteemed comme

ntators in the sports media  world like TNT's studio hoops team led by Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith now do their own giggly  gambling bits. In other words, a massive portion of the economic lifeblood of pro sports, from the  leagues to the top of the media food chain, is being underwritten by sports gambling. Actually,  that's not quite right. It's being underwritten by fans making bets they overwhelmingly lose. It's a regressive tax on fans. Sort of like the lottery, except with one vital di

fference.  It's privatized. So instead of money going to build roads or schools, it goes into the pockets  of billionaires. Now, I know some, clearly most, will say it's all good, clean fun. But this isn't  just about sports betting. It's about access to betting and it's about the apps. Yes, anyone,  especially in the digital age, can gamble when everyone likes. But there's something called  a hassle cost that has been eliminated by the apps. Now if anyone wants to lay down some money,  there is

no need to find a bookie or even navigate a casino website. Just swipe your finger and as  quickly as checking text messages, you are done. They have taken the most dangerous part of  gambling, and I do speak from experience here, and that's that it's addictive, and  they've combined it with that other great modern addiction, the smartphone. And for the  leagues, it's been like cracking open Fort Knox. Now, the phone app giants do have a warning label  for gambling addicts, but it's about as si

ncere as a lung cancer warning on a pack of smokes.  The leagues do not care. And as long as the sweet dough trickles down to players and the now  compromised media, no one else is going to raise a stink about this either. But as Neil Young wrote,  the devil fools with the best laid plans and wow, is old Satan fooled with the plans here because  something incredibly predictable has taken place. The players are deciding in every violation  of every league rule to place their own bets. As a result

, the NFL has just suspended four more  players for gambling. And they didn't get any slap on the wrist either. These players are suspended  for the entire 2023 season. It's an incredibly harsh punishment for doing what everyone in the  sports world is promoting, from the boss to the media interviewing these players after the game. The sports owners, let's be clear about this, are terrified that if fans think players are  operating in a way that compromises the alleged integrity of the games, th

e financial hit could  be catastrophic. That makes referees as well, who make a fraction of the players' salaries  particularly vulnerable to the allure of gambling and players know it. The ugliest scene  from the NBA season on the court was for me when Dallas Mavericks Superstar, Luca Doncic, late in  a close game, started to make dollar signs with his fingers in the ref's face to indicate that  he thought the fix was in. Expect more of that. So it's Vegas for the fans, owners and media and  th

e Vatican for the players and the refs. And this is a recipe for future disasters. Players will  gamble. The commissioner's office will hand out year long suspensions. And the media will get  in deeper with gambling companies they should be covering instead of profiting from. The  early sports organizers way back in the late 19th century, were terrified of sports betting,  fearful that fans would leave in droves if they felt like the outcomes were manipulated. A little  more healthy fear, a litt

le more introspection, a little more critical thinking, and a  little less blind devotion to taxing fans would be a step in the right direction.  But until there is a massive scandal, and that day is coming, we can only sit back and  watch gambling swallow the sports world hole. We'll be back right after this  with ask a sports scholar. And now in our segment, ask a sports scholar,  as promised, we have Dr. Brenda Elsey from Hofstra. How are you Dr. Elsey? Good. Thanks for having me. A thrill to

have you and I can't think of  anyone else I want to ask this question to more. As we approach the Women's World Cup,  which we're all very excited about over here, how would you summarize the state  of women's soccer in Latin America? I think uneven is a really fair word. You have  amazing things happening in the professional leagues in Mexico, for example, which is breaking  attendance records and has been for several years, and yet we won't see their national team. And yet  on the other hand

, you have Colombian professional leagues in shambles and we will see their  professional team. So there's a lot going on, a lot of work being done at the grassroots level.  Very little of that gets the glory it should. So we're in a place where, as always, you do  not lack for talent, you lack for support. Wow. You call it a corrupt system steeped  in misogyny. Could you speak to that? What is it about the system that's steeped  in ... How does the misogyny operate to prevent full flowering of

women's soccer? Oh, that's like my life's work, Dave. It is a corrupt system and it is one that requires  misogyny and misogyny requires ... They work together. So what happens is things like the  normalization of violence, the normalization of inequality happens through gender relations in  Latin America. That really feeds into corruption. Lack of accountability. Even the kind of  promises that are made to young players of just, we operate in this system, you will never get in  trouble for anyt

hing. There is no accountability. And so I think the two work together. I don't  think Latin America is uniquely misogynist. I don't think it's uniquely corrupt. It's just the  place I study. And in this space, the two go hand in hand and women are also very powerful in terms  of making the federation look good and making them look like they care about development, but  what's happening on the ground is very different. You just wrote an amazing article that I'll  put out on the show's feed so ev

erybody can read it. It's called Cafe [foreign  language 00:36:20], Colombian Woman's Football In Crisis. Cafe [foreign language  00:36:24] means coffee with spoiled milk. I was hoping you could explain the title and  the current state of affairs in Columbia. The Colombian team often comes with different  kinds of nicknames related to Coffee. [foreign language 00:36:36]. And of course, because  Colombian coffee is such a national icon, piece of identity that often goes with the  team. And the te

am itself is wonderful and made up of amazing people. Linda Caicedo. People  are really looking to her as the breakout star for Latin American soccer in this World Cup with good  reason. She is a phenomenal player. And yet what we know is that since 2015, this is a program  that has actively avoided grappling with very serious charges of sexual assault, harassment,  and other kinds of negligence in terms of fields, in terms of scheduling matches. I mean, it's  a really wide range. And that's par

t of the problem is that you might say, "Hey, what's  the big deal? Women don't get the same kind of fields." And what I'm trying to argue is that  that all exists on a spectrum. And of course the most horrific charges are ones of sexual  assault of minors, which has been ongoing since 2017. And yet we have the same federation  president in Colombia, Ramón Jesurún, who has faced nothing. Even under investigation from the  Colombian government all this time, and he just continues to be promoted w

ithin FIFA and CONMEBOL. Wow. Bigger question for you. Sports has always been integrated into feminist and women's  movements in the United States for almost as long as there have been women's movements in the  United States. In Latin America, are we seeing sports becoming integrated into pushes for women's  rights and autonomy? Has it been a part of women's movements in the past? If so, how recent? Could  you speak about that particular intersection? I'm so glad you asked because I think when p

eople  are looking for progress and looking for change, the most success that we've seen in the case of  equal conditions for women's sports is when it comes with feminist agendas and grassroots support  from the feminist movement. Going back to the very first case of a professional woman who was  unfairly fired from her club, Macarena Sanchez in Argentina, that became a really big feminist cause  as part of [foreign language 00:39:11]. In Brazil, that's probably been more true than anywhere  el

se because of the law that banned women from playing football in Brazil. It was very early on  a feminist cause. So it hasn't been the athletes that aren't looking to be feminist, but the  feminist movement itself, which was like in most places dominated by some very elite Latin American  women that were more interested in things like education perhaps, and didn't really see sports  always. Not all of them, of course. I'm speaking very broadly. As central to their cause. But right  now you saw t

he Brazilian women's team arrive, they've been convoked, and they come with  a message of support for Iranian women. I saw that that. That was in incredible. So the whole region has had a ton of feminist solidarity  since years. I was on your show a while ago talking about the very first official friendly  of the Puerto Rican women's team when they played Argentina and they did an on-field protest, and  they asked the Argentine team, "Is it okay if we do this?" And the Argentine team was like, "

Oh my  gosh, yes. We're just going to let that ball sit there until you're done." So there's really  wonderful solidarity among these teams, and not all of them might call themselves feminist,  but I think it's fair to say they're challenging a patriarchy and their actions are feminist. The last World Cup, the political cry that rang out was very US centric. It was about equal pay,  it was beautiful, it was progressive. It was also, to repeat, very US centric. Are there  reform measures on an in

ternational scale that those of us who are going to support  and enjoy and cheer for the Women's World Cup, are there reform measures that we can champion  in the process that are international in scope? I think the number one area that has been really  successful in terms of international organization is FIFPRO. FIFPRO, the International Players  Union has taken a really strong interest in women and said, "Hey, just because they're not  professionalized in Colombian labor law doesn't mean we ca

n't advocate for them as workers." And  so FIFPRO has put a number of measures out there, some have been picked up. I think we have to keep  our eye on where that FIFA money goes. There was that big announcement a few weeks ago by FIFA that  said, we're going to play the players directly after a number of federations, Nigeria, Columbia  included, and others complained they weren't paid. They said, we're going to pay the players  directly. But it's still not clear. I mean, do they have their bank

account details or is this  really going to go through the Federation? So I think we need to just keep watching and listening  to the aftermath too, because the tournament's going to be so exciting, but we have to make  sure that they're adequately compensated after. One last question. You've been so great with your  time. Earlier in the episode, I did a rather hard polemic against sports betting, so excuse my  hypocrisy. But for sports bettors out there, what is the team that you see giving th

e best  opportunity to knock off the United States? Who are the teams that you think we should be  looking at that have a real shot at sending the US home without the top prize? Okay. You know that I, as an historian, not only am I  totally against sports betting, but I'm also terrible at predicting  the future in any way, shape or form. I have heard almost nothing about Germany, and  I'm surprised about that. Ada Hegerberg is back for Norway so I'm interested in that. I always  want Brazil to d

o better than we think they're going to do. Their friendlies performance  have not dazzled, but that's a possibility as well. But I'm with you on sports betting. I can't wait for you to see my little rant, hopefully. I'm excited. Yeah, I'll send it to you without  question. Dr. Brenda Elsey, it's such a joy. Thanks so much for being on the show. Thank you. It's so wonderful to see you, Dave. Well, that's all the time for this week's  show. Oh, I love doing this show. I love what we're doing beca

use it's unlike any sports  show out there, and that's what makes it fun, from my perspective at least. Yo, thank you  so much, Howard Bryant. Thank you so much, Dr. Brenda Elsey. Thank you to everybody at  the Real News Network. For everybody watching, please stay frosty. We are out of here. Peace. Thank you so much for watching The Real  News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories and struggles that you care about most.  And we need your help to keep doing this work so please tap your s

creen now, subscribe and donate  to the Real News Network. Solidarity forever.