https://znetwork.org/category/topic/culture/sport/ Independent Left News, Analysis, Vision and Strategy Tue, 03 Feb 2026 14:42:04 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://znetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/cropped-Z_logo_512-32x32.png https://znetwork.org/category/topic/culture/sport/ 32 32 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/will-our-hometown-heroes-have-the-courage-to-stand-up-at-the-super-bowl/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/will-our-hometown-heroes-have-the-courage-to-stand-up-at-the-super-bowl/#respond Tue, 03 Feb 2026 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1294324 Last Sunday, I cheered on the Seahawks as they defeated the Rams to advance to the Super Bowl. But it felt strange watching football right after ICE officers killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good, and the Trump administration tried to stop Minnesota police from even investigating. The administration has been attacking democracy in every other [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/will-our-hometown-heroes-have-the-courage-to-stand-up-at-the-super-bowl/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/three-footballers-walk-into-a-stadium/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/three-footballers-walk-into-a-stadium/#respond Mon, 29 Dec 2025 18:42:41 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292875 Zinedine Zidane, Kylian Mbappé and Riyad Mahrez walking into the same stadium sounds like the opening line of a bad joke, yet it is exactly what the Africa Cup of Nations is bracing for on Sunday night, when Algeria face Burkina Faso at the Stade Moulay Hassan. Mahrez will be there as Algeria’s captain, the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/three-footballers-walk-into-a-stadium/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-farewell-to-sports/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-farewell-to-sports/#respond Fri, 19 Dec 2025 14:01:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292534 In the year I was born, 1938, the White Christian males who ruled the sports world considered their various games and pastimes as definers of righteousness, crucibles of character, and a preparation for dominance in business and war. Anyone who played but didn’t look like them was an interloper, clearly operating with some kind of [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-farewell-to-sports/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-capitalism-is-taking-over-college-sports/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-capitalism-is-taking-over-college-sports/#respond Mon, 24 Nov 2025 17:34:30 +0000 Did you wake up and find out that your favorite college football or basketball player suddenly left for another school? Don’t be surprised. It’s all part of the drastically changing landscape of college sports. Case in point: Back in 2005, University of Southern California football star Reggie Bush was awarded the Heisman Trophy as the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-capitalism-is-taking-over-college-sports/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/football-shouldnt-be-a-billboard-for-the-worlds-dictators/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/football-shouldnt-be-a-billboard-for-the-worlds-dictators/#respond Mon, 06 Oct 2025 16:08:35 +0000 Rwanda’s de facto dictator Paul Kagame is notorious for imprisoning his rivals (the less lucky ones are murdered). But why would he oversee Rwandan state sponsorship of Arsenal, one of the top sides in the English Premier League, ranked in eighth place on the Forbes list of the world’s most valuable football clubs? This is hardly the first example of “sportswashing,” so it’s [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/football-shouldnt-be-a-billboard-for-the-worlds-dictators/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/80-years-ago-a-jewish-radical-and-two-negro-league-stars-led-a-crusade-to-integrate-baseball-that-paved-the-way-for-jackie-robinson/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/80-years-ago-a-jewish-radical-and-two-negro-league-stars-led-a-crusade-to-integrate-baseball-that-paved-the-way-for-jackie-robinson/#respond Mon, 08 Sep 2025 16:34:55 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1288267 Eighty years ago this week—on September 8, 1945—a little-known episode in the struggle to challenge racial segregation took place in, of all places, Germany’s Nuremberg Stadium, where Adolf Hitler had previously addressed Nazi Party rallies. It was led by Sam Nahem, a left-wing Jewish pitcher who had a brief career in the major leagues, and [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/80-years-ago-a-jewish-radical-and-two-negro-league-stars-led-a-crusade-to-integrate-baseball-that-paved-the-way-for-jackie-robinson/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fifas-double-standards/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fifas-double-standards/#respond Wed, 12 Mar 2025 17:52:32 +0000 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fifas-double-standards/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-super-bowl-and-the-super-rich-partners-in-slime/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-super-bowl-and-the-super-rich-partners-in-slime/#respond Sun, 02 Feb 2025 15:47:50 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279188 About three score years ago, on a January Sunday afternoon in 1967, some of us gathered in college dorm basement lounges to watch pro football’s historic first “Super Bowl.” A good bit has changed since then — in football and America. The changes in pro football could hardly be more striking. Today’s players dwarf the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-super-bowl-and-the-super-rich-partners-in-slime/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/diaries-from-systemic-crumble/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/diaries-from-systemic-crumble/#respond Wed, 21 Aug 2024 16:00:00 +0000 [This article is part of ZNetwork.org‘s series, Activist Diaries.] The metabolic fault-line is open. Just bang the hammer. And capitalism will collapse.  I live in one of the most contaminated areas on the planet, caused by human arrogance. The western Veneto, the region of Venice. A high-income sacrifice zone (HISZ). Different from classic sacrifice zones [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/diaries-from-systemic-crumble/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/france-avoids-disaster-can-the-olympics-do-the-same/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/france-avoids-disaster-can-the-olympics-do-the-same/#respond Tue, 20 Aug 2024 17:44:40 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1271096 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/france-avoids-disaster-can-the-olympics-do-the-same/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-might-a-post-growth-olympics-look-like/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-might-a-post-growth-olympics-look-like/#comments Wed, 14 Aug 2024 17:02:42 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1270822 I don’t know quite what the Olympics are to me. Recently I said to a friend that they’re my grief circle — a place where I can sit and express the full range of emotions, from the joy of transcendence to the heartbreak of loss. That’s not quite true, of course, because there are emotions I’m still [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-might-a-post-growth-olympics-look-like/feed/ 2 https://znetwork.org/zvideo/2024-paris-olympics-highlights-and-lowlights-from-hijab-bans-to-social-cleansing-to-boxing-gold/ https://znetwork.org/zvideo/2024-paris-olympics-highlights-and-lowlights-from-hijab-bans-to-social-cleansing-to-boxing-gold/#respond Mon, 12 Aug 2024 15:37:13 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=video&p=1270715 With the 2024 Summer Olympics just concluded in Paris, we look at the highlights and lowlights of the past few weeks, both on and off the field. Journalist Shireen Ahmed discusses the victories for women in sport, including Dutch runner Sifan Hassan’s gold medal in the women’s marathon, which she accepted at the closing ceremony [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/zvideo/2024-paris-olympics-highlights-and-lowlights-from-hijab-bans-to-social-cleansing-to-boxing-gold/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/rolling-with-the-punches/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/rolling-with-the-punches/#respond Sat, 03 Aug 2024 14:50:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1270302 Imane Khelif must be feeling awfully confused. Out of nowhere, a woman who was raised in a poor, conservative family in Biban Mesbah—an agricultural village in central Algeria that even most Algerians aren’t familiar with—has been quickly plunged into a toxic culture war online, where she’s the target of global abuse and harassment. If Khelif has [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/rolling-with-the-punches/feed/ 0