KARIM ZIDAN, Sports Investigative Journalist PART 2

Watch the Media with John Shrader

KARIM ZIDAN is an investigative journalist working at the intersection of sports and politics. His newsletter at Substack is called Sports Politika. We talk here about sports washing and so much more, including how sports fits into the wide world of business and politics. He talks about Saudi Arabia, LIV golf, FIFA and IOC (“they are big mafias”) and the state of American sports journalism.

INTERVIEW NOTES:

00:00 introduces Zidan

00:45 admiration for the New York Times and that newspaper’s decision to outsource its sports to a subsidiary, The Athletic [includes personal history in interest for the paper]

5:30 Includes talk of his experiences reporting and writing for the Times]

7:30 The Athletic works differently than the Times sports department

9:30 question: the sports business worldwide is seeing a lot of money and attention and Zidan says they need inspection [refers to the ‘two big mafias, the IOC and FIFA]

12:30 Messi to Miami; context is important

15:40 Benzema to Saudi Arabia

17:15 Henderson from Liverpool to Saudi Arabia [who was a big supporter of LGBTQ causes]

20:50 Sportswashing

21:30 the great American value of capitalism [the bottom feeders of some sports, such as LIV golf, underpaid UFC fighters]

24:40 Reference to WWE and Saudi Arabia

26:20 The rules of capitalism are out the window [competing with Saudi’s ‘bottomless pit of money’]

27:30 reference to Billie Jean King’s comment that they should talk with the Saudis

31:00 what’s difference in sportswashing and the NBA in China?