Sports as soft power: The fierce faces of the Mexican athletes

A professor once told me my research topic wasn’t that deep. After I presented on the Dream Team and the NBA's global breakthrough, he dismissed it as “It’s just business, kid”

But it is in fact that deep.

The US has been the pinnacle of sports for a long time. The Dream Team was much more than just a basketball team, it was a geopolitical statement of American dominance. 1992 was the year the pros were called from the NBA, and they pushed US culture and hegemony to the world.

It was the country of the spectacle, exporting its culture one movie, game, and show at a time. The new NBA product made the league into what it is today. If you wanted to be the best you had to come to America. “I want to be like Michael” turned into “I want to be like Kobe.” Their success told kids that America was the land of opportunity, creating a pipeline that would feed athletes directly into their college institutions. This is soft power: the ability to shape preferences of others through appeal and attraction.

Today, that same strategy uses a blend of international talent to push the boundaries of the game across the globe.

A couple weeks ago, I watched the women’s flag football world cup final between Mexico and the US. As I watched my cousin chasing after the US quarterback I felt a long forgotten excitement.

The scale of American investment in its sports empire is almost unimaginable. The U.S. invests at least thirty times more in sports than Mexico does. So when Mexico scored a last-second touchdown, they not only broke the script of US dominance but they ended up beating them at their own game.

I looked at the fierce faces of the Mexican athletes throughout recent victories like the flag football team, the Gold cup win on US soil, and the recent victory of Renata Zarazua over Madison Keys at the US open. These victories are a message. In a world where people try to divide us and keep politics out of sports, it is hard for some to understand that sports are actually that deep.

The US strategy is bigger than sports. But with these small victories, we can see that sports mean a lot more for the people they represent. Sports are the only violent competition that can be confined by a set of rules and disputed on the field of play. Sometimes sports are louder than politicians, and sometimes, in sports the right team wins.