S4E6: Gold Medals & Global Influence: Dr. Lindsay Krasnoff Unveils the Olympic Games’ Cultural and Diplomatic Impact

Transcript:

SPEAKERS

Jason Dressel, Madeline Qi, Dr. Lindsey Sarah Krasnoff

Jason Dressel 00:11

Today on the History Factory podcast, the Olympics and more with Dr. Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff. I’m Jason Dressel. And welcome to the history factory Podcast, the podcast at the intersection of business and history. The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris are here. And we have our own unofficial correspondents talk about it. Our friend Lindsey Krasnoff has been in Paris this summer. And Lindsay and I talk about some of the broad strokes of the history of business through the lens of sports and sports sponsorships. We talked about sports culture in France, a topic that we’ve talked about in the past, but this time we connect French sports culture through the lens of the modern Olympics. We also talked about the history of the Olympics, the issues facing the Olympics as a global business today, and more. A great conversation with Lindsey who, with her passion for France, love of sports and expertise in the role of sports and influence in global diplomacy and mass media just couldn’t be a better person to have on the history factory podcast. If you enjoy this episode, I’d encourage you to go back and listen to one of our shows from last fall when Lindsey joined us to talk about her new book, basketball empire, France and the making of a global NBA and WNBA. Please welcome Dr. Lindsay. Sarah Krasnoff.

 

Jason Dressel  01:39

Lindsay, welcome back to the history fracture podcast. Good to see you.

 

Dr. Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff 01:42

It’s great to be back. Thanks for having me.

 

Jason Dressel  01:48

Well, we couldn’t think of anyone better suited to be I guess for History Factory. French 2024 Olympics correspondent so we’re thrilled to have you. First how how’s it going in France? Well hopefully it’s not as hot there as it is here in the States. But what’s the vibe what’s the mood less than two weeks out from the Olympics.

 

Dr. Lindsay. Sarah Krasnoff 02:11

Love them or lose them. The games are here. So the you know, there’s been all kinds of anxieties griping and concerns in the months and weeks leading into the kickoff of Paris 2024. Leader next week, but now that we’re this close out, things are starting to click together. The Olympic flame arrived in the capital yesterday for the national holiday 14th of July. And today is the second of its two day cameo before it heads back out into the different provinces around France and finishes for the opening ceremony on the 26th. So I think you know its arrival and getting so close to the point of departure has finally made it feel real. There’s still a lot of people who are not happy with the significant disruptions to daily life that preparing for the games entails. For example, the usual 14th July military parade down the shops as we say, had to go in the opposite direction this year because at at the end, plus the Concorde where it usually ends and the presidential reviewing standards that’s all set up and blocked off for a Olympic three by three basketball skateboarding, BMX, biking, and breakdancing. So there’s, there’s, you know, there’s all these little daily inconveniences that yes, are there but are a part of hosting any major sporting event. But you know, the people in and around the sports world here super excited that it’s finally CLOSE TO SHOWTIME and excited to showcase sport to their fellow citizens as well as the rest of the world.

 

Jason Dressel  04:06

Awesome. Yeah. And it’s certainly has been an eventful summer there in France. So hopefully this will be an eventful but maybe less conflict oriented experience for the country. Well, before we get more into the Olympics, and into the sports and France, Wednesday, let’s talk about just some of the broad strokes and in a very general way about the business of sports and how businesses leverage sports from a historical perspective. You and I have talked a little bit about this. I have a theory that at least here in the states that there’s this prevailing attitude that sports has become more commercialized. And that’s true, I think in the context of how just the world in general has become more commercial, commercialized. But, you know, sports is obviously just continued to become such a big business. But, you know, my theory is it’s always been an area where businesses have invested. And you know, one of the examples that I always point out is, you know, when you think about, you know, to, you know, just historical gyms of, you know, American baseball, you know, Wrigley Field and Fenway Park, you know, understandably, you know, people would freak out if, you know, the Cubs changed their name to McDonald’s field, or, you know, the Boston Red Sox changed their name to, you know, fidelity park or something. But, you know, if you were to go back 100 years. I’m not sure that, you know, fans would feel that way. Wrigley was the name of the owner and was the name of a GM company, and Fenway, you know, yes, it was the name of the neighborhood and is the name of the neighborhood. There was also, you know, named after the Red Sox owners real estate company. So, I’m curious on your take, right, like, how would you generally characterize the evolution of businesses involvement in sports?

 

Dr. Lindsay. Sarah Krasnoff 06:00

Well, I think it certainly depends on which region of the world or which country we’re talking about, because growth and commercialization of sports as a business as a big business has not been even right across many, many countries of the world. Some are just playing catch up today. Some are just embarking on that journey. So it depends. But I think, broadly speaking, there’s always been a commercial or business involvement and investment in sport in the modern era, particularly when we have the onslaught of professionalization at the turn of the 20th century. You know, we think about perhaps one of the oldest, not maybe not the oldest, but one of the older sporting traditions that’s, you know, still going on right now, as we speak, the Tour de France was launched in 1903. And very much was sponsored by Lotto, the French sports newspaper, predecessor to today’s upkeep. So, you know, there’s always been business involvement there. And I think when we talk about the growth of global sport, I’ll hold the Olympics aside for right now. But businesses and business sponsors have been involved in that I point to martini and Rossi, the Italian drinks company that in the 1960s increasingly sponsored women’s sports in Italy, like the Italian women’s fencing League, but most notably in 1970 sponsored the first women’s football soccer World Cup, in which eight teams competed for no for sporting honors, and martini and Rossi sponsored the next edition the following year in 1971. In Mexico City, in which for the final how that Azteca Stadium filled theory, the stadium, more nearly 100,000, paying spectators to watch women’s soccer. And so while these two tournaments are now kind of recognized by FIFA as early important parts of the game, at the time, FIFA didn’t even officially recognize women’s football globally. So there have been many different ways that businesses have been involved in sports, historically, kind of over the long day. And in this particular instance, which I think is a good example of the kinds of benefit that they can bring, help to make access and opportunity possible when sports governing structures or organizations are not up to the task for any variety of reasons

 

Jason Dressel  08:56

to shifting to the Olympics, and we’ll talk in a minute about sort of the distinction of the modern day Olympics, right? How long have the kind of modern day Olympics really, you know, been sort of, you know, a big organization that’s really a business with a lot of business partners, who’ve been some of the long standing companies and brands that have been associated with the modern day Olympics.

 

 

Dr. Lindsay. Sarah Krasnoff  09:24

Yeah, the so although the first modern Olympiad occurred in 1896, in Athens, and its first initial editions, pretty small, particularly by our standards today, typically, you know, more a reflection of who was able to travel to compete and who had the time and the resources, the financial resources to compete, because from the get go, the Olympic Movement celebrated the ideals of amateurism. And there’s long been this tension between amateur athletes and professional athletes within the Olympics and movement. So we can come back to that. But when we look at sponsorship of the games, the oldest still standing sponsor of the modern Olympics is Coca Cola, which began sponsoring the Olympics in 1928. And has not missed an Olympiad or a Paralympic Games since then. So, interestingly enough, it was Coca Cola that was kind of at the get go. And we think of the 1920s. And why you would start to see such major sponsorships, a the tournament had begun to grow and expand in terms of where it’s being held and who is participating, but also the advent of mass media. At that time, by the 1920s, we have not just newspapers and film moving picture, but also radio, right, which starts to put things in an entirely different, different level. And so it’s really not just business involvement in the Olympics themselves and sports more broadly, but also the ways that communications technology enables mass media to kind of go up a few notches or, you know, go on steroids for it. But you know, that that helps to kind of grease the wheel and all of this.

 

Jason Dressel  11:20

Yeah, that’s a great point. So, you’re referring to the modern day Olympics. And you know, that story actually begins in France, right?

 

 

Dr. Lindsay. Sarah Krasnoff 11:31

Yes, yes, the quote unquote, founding father of the modern Olympic movement, French citizen, and aristocrat, Pierre de goober 10, gave a speech at the Sorbonne, the major university here in Paris, in June 18 94, in which he very much introduced the concept of Olympism, right? How sport can serve to bring peoples of the world together, or friendly competition to promote greater unity and friendship. And this was in an era of intense nationalism. And so he gave a speech 100 years ago in Paris, and the first Olympiad itself, as mentioned, was held in Athens in 1896. And the 1900 edition came to Paris as part of the World Fair, the World Exposition. The interesting thing about that 1900 Paris Games is that it was much more about the World Fair and far less about the Olympic Games, as we think of them today. But we had some early prototypes, for example, temporary stadiums, or seating was set up for some of the events. That is something we will be seeing, we already are seeing again this summer with many of the venues around Paris’s most historic monuments, temporary seating so that the games are taking place across this, you know, postcard picture perfect vision of the city. And so the game is very much associated with Paris and Pierre de Cooper 10. This year is also the centennial the 100 years since the last time the Olympics were held in Paris in 1924. And at that time, they were very much used to help to promote the values and universalism of the French Republic. And its role in internationalization of sport to the larger world. And that’s notable because that was the first and Olympics where we really have radio presence and to help to take all of this as mentioned to the next level.

 

Jason Dressel  13:47

When we’ve talked in the past, Lindsay was one of the things that you really helped bring to my attention was that France doesn’t have a true sporting culture, certainly, like we have here in the United States, but even in a lot of the other major global economies. And, you know, one of the things that I was thinking about, as we’ve talked is, there is kind of an intrinsic link seemingly between that culture or lack of sort of cadence and passion for professional sports in France and the Olympics now.

 

 

Dr. Lindsay. Sarah Krasnoff 14:22

Yes, very much and it’s, it’s what we call the French paradox within sports, while France and citizens have been very influential in sculpting a global and globalizing sports world from coopertown and the Olympics to longtime president of FIFA and Frenchmen who will remain who give us the first FIFA World Cup. Another example of a huge sporting sponsor mega event to other founding figures like Alice Milliyet, who really helped to create the first Women’s Olympiads and women ever more involved in the Olympic Games and other international sports competitions. A prince has led in these ways and many others as well at the global level, yet at the same time, it lacks a sports culture at home, mostly because sports have usually been viewed as something for leisure or entertainment kind of in line with that older ideal of amateurism and those who played professionally, particularly football soccer, which was the first professional. Well, the first team sport to professionalize in France in the 1930s was not looked down upon right, that you had sullied the ideal of sport horse sports sake by, you know, taking money to be involved in it. And so, you know, those sorts of sentiments even as football remained the most popular sport in France, the most mediatized sport in France, the most consumed and played sport in France. You know, that’s illustration of some of these tensions that have long been there. Fast forward, no, why does there remain a lack of a sporting culture in France, today, this heritage helps to explain it, but also the notoriously long school day, where kids basically go to school from 830 in the morning till five in the evening, sometimes a little later, there is very little time in that day for sports, which is why you don’t have school sports in France in the way that you do in the United States or Canada, for example. While there is some time for physical education, it’s not really the same and so sports have not been seen as an equal part of cultural endeavors in France in the same way that arts, literature, gastronomy, wine, and other things are.

 

Jason Dressel  16:55

So what’s kind of the level of involvement with French brands in sports in France? Is there still that kind of prevalence of French brands in terms of sports, sponsorship, and sports marketing? Is it something that’s more prevalent for those companies even outside of France? Do you see any distinctions in terms of how French companies approach opportunities in the sports space versus, say, American or other European businesses and brands?

 

 

Dr. Lindsay. Sarah Krasnoff  17:31

Great question. I think we see some of these tensions playing out today, particularly within professional football. One of the, you know, larger sponsors within that realm is Nikes. Jordan brand. And although they have a French division that handles a lot at the marketing hearing country, it’s ultimately an American based, multinational. So you know that there’s a little bit of that duality. But there has long been French business involvement in sports, you could, you know, the 24 hours of LeMans, one of the world’s oldest Endurance Auto races, you could say that in itself is a massive, sponsoring, but also advertising, when for any of the manufacturers that pulled together cars and teams to race, whether it was the Bugatti or the Porsches, or, you know, today, the Fords and Ferraris, and Mercedes and so forth. So There’s long been that involvement. But it is not nearly as advanced as in the United States, although that was starting to change a little bit. As sports have become a business industry and Fraps, again, not nearly to the extent that it is in the United States, but it is starting to get there. And once it’s becomes a professional and business endeavor, that’s when you start to get a lot more sponsorships and involvement from a variety of different businesses, not just the kind of the usual ones you might think of in terms of the athletic providers of the world, or the media companies or the liquor companies, but others such as tech, and so forth.

 

Jason Dressel  19:25

Right. And how are fringe businesses and brands involved in the Olympics this year, I would assume that they’re taking full advantage.

 

 

Dr. Lindsay. Sarah Krasnoff  19:34

Super involved, perhaps one of the biggest sponsors for Paris 24 is LVMH Louis Vuitton Moet Hennesey, the multi conglomerate, and they are involved in so many different ways. One of the you know, looking a little bit, you know, on their, you know, They portray themselves LVMH has said that they are the artisan of all victories for this Olympic and Paralympic Games. And they’ve been doing pretty much that in terms of being a creative force they’ve wanted their houses has designed the metals that will be given out including each that has a little piece of the Eiffel Tower in it. They have designed the French team Olympic outfits they have designed the uniforms worn by all of the Olympic volunteers. They have designed the trees and trunks that the medals will be awarded on and stored in LVMH brand Sephora, the makeup and cosmetics conglomerate has sponsored the Olympic torch relay around the world. And they’ve also sponsored or are supporting several key French Olympians including gymnast Melanie De Jesus Dos Santos, which I can never pronounce. And she trains with the same coach as Simone Biles as well as swimmer Leon Monchard so LVMH is involved in pretty much every capacity. There was a recent article out over the weekend from eater talking about how feeding the Olympians in the Olympic Village 15,000 athletes, how the majority of the foods and products are being sourced from French producers and farmers. Except for things like coffee, chocolate, and the two to 3 million bananas that they anticipate importing to provide for the athletes needs. But you know, it’s just full of really fascinating information, particularly noting that all of the eggs that will be eaten or used in the cooking are sourced from France. So that might not be say, you know, labeled as much of a French business investment but when you look at who is very much involved in kitting out the Olympians, and Paralympians dietary needs, a lot of that is going to come for French producers, artisans, farmers, and so forth. 

 

Jason Dressel  22:22

Yeah. So, you know, one of the things I always loved about talking about you is you’ve got this kind of expertise and passion at the intersection of sports in history in business, but also the global diplomacy. And in that context, you know, and you mentioned, Coca Cola has been a long standing, you know, sponsor for whatever it’s been on, you know, 90 years or whatever. Or yeah, when did they start like 30 20, basically 20 as almost 100 years? So in that context, what are companies trying to accomplish by being associated with the Olympics? And how has that evolved over time? Is it purely kind of a marketing play to your point, something that just has continued to be amplified? Because obviously, the mass media and the global market that we live in? Or from your kind of diplomacy perspective, are there other, less obvious sort of objectives that the businesses are trying to achieve through the international platform of the Olympics?

 

Dr. Lindsay. Sarah Krasnoff  23:31

Well, so certainly, the platform of the Olympic and Paralympic Games promotes buying into the ideals and the values of that movement, bringing the world together to foster greater understanding and friendships, of celebrating performances and all the human emotions that come with victory, as well as defeat, and ultimately helping to promote peace. You know, we keep in mind that there is always an Olympic Truce that was announced in the months leading up to the games. Even as certain years that truce can be a little problematic, you know, but these are pretty universal values that regardless of your cultural context, and where in the world you sit, are pretty appealing. So making this a very attractive platform for potential sponsors to plug into, then when you want to multiply it by the type of exposure you would get at such a gigantic sporting tournament. Well, that’s a totally different, you know, set of concerns and desires as well. So there’s a lot of benefits that can come with it. But there’s also a lot of caveats, right, with the games, becoming, as they say, in French, the gigantisme of the games, the gigantism of the games, and How big and at times unwieldy. They become, there are some very real issues involved, notably environmental sustainability, and wild these games are, and the LA games that will follow in four years are very much billed as being some of the most environmentally responsible ones of the recent several Olympiads, you still have to account for it, not just 15,000 athletes jetting in from all over the world, but all of their coaching support teams, all the officials, and then of course, all the tourists. So it’s not exactly the easiest hole on the environment. And when you do that, every four years for the summer, every four years for the Winter Games, it leaves a lot of issues there. There’s also the caveat of some of the political controversies that always always crop up in and around the Olympiads and the Paralympic Games. This year is not an aberration, there’s always something when you look at the different crises that is facing the International Olympic Committee and the brand of the games themselves. This is historically it’s always been the case. On the other hand, it’s usually been these crises that have forced real change and evolution. So further modernizing the games and the tournament’s themselves and bringing them more aligned with prevailing standard standards, norms and values.

 

Jason Dressel  26:36

And, you know, the Olympics, as you kind of applied there, it’s become a big global enterprise unto itself, right? And, you know, so it has its own reputation reputational challenges to your point, whether it be sustainability, environmental issues where, you know, doping with the athletes and the integrity of the sport and the theme of amateurism versus professionalism, which I think is really a storyline or attribute of the Olympics that I think has really become lost on a lot of people. I mean, I think if you’re a younger person kind of growing up in you know, the 21st century and Olympics, I’m not even sure how clear that notion is . It’s such a such a great blind at this point. So as you think about the Olympics, as an organization, and obviously an organization that wants to continue to be vibrant and relevant and attract significant corporate sponsors, what do you see is some of those kinds of key challenges and opportunities for the Olympics, the inner enterprise? You know, what, what do you think is keeping their leadership up at night? And what do you think they are considering to be a success for, for this the Olympics?

 

Dr. Lindsay. Sarah Krasnoff  27:55

Let’s say two things jump out at me immediately. One is the IOC itself, and how one of the key challenges they’ve been facing for many years, this is not a new thing, is lack of transparency and explaining their postures of why they say yes to some things no to others. And I do give them credit and their communications team credit for being far more transparent in recent years than, say, 10 years ago, and explaining as best as they can their context and their stances, even as I do not necessarily always agree with it. And, you know, certainly we have to critically examine those statements, obviously, but they are, they are trying to engage and be as transparent as possible. And, you know, that’s, I think, an important consideration. And that’s part of the diplomacy that goes on, right, continuing to have the conversation, even if you don’t always see eye to eye. So that’s one. The second is the very real rec, boost to the brand of the games of being an aging dying enterprise. That not just the sustainability of the games, but also the demographic of the games, which pretty much across most countries skews older. And that’s in part why you’ve seen the introduction of sporting disciplines in recent years, designed or thought to appeal very much to far younger demographics, skateboard skateboarding, snowboarding, halfpipe and winter games this summer, the new discipline of breakdancing, the breaking, very much designed to target a far younger demographic and try to make the games far more relevant to them than they have been. And you know, that’s actually one of if not the only but one of the competitions. I’m really looking forward to I think it’s going to be a very good I think it’s going to be breaking is going to be a really cool endeavor. And I can’t wait to see the B boys and B girls square off a plastic cord.

 

Jason Dressel  30:12

Yeah, that’s a really interesting point, right? Like the emergence of these new sports and using those to try to appeal, attract and appeal to a younger, a younger demographic, and I did not know about some of those new sports you refer to. So that’s really interesting. So back back to back to Paris, and back to, you know, the Olympics there coming up next week, you know, for the longest time that I think there’s been this sort of long stated conventional wisdom that hosting the Olympics is this huge economic windfall for a country. And maybe it’s a once in a generation opportunity for hosting city to invest in infrastructure and experience this, you know, huge economic windfall. And there’s been some data, I think, in the last dailies data, at least some data, at least in the last decade or so that is beginning to sort of challenge that perspective. Right, and is arguing, you know, sort of a counterpoint that maybe hosting an Olympics is actually bad public policy, and that those resources should be invested differently. What’s your take on that? And what are some of the storylines there in France with respect to whether hosting this Olympics is expected to somehow strengthen the French economy in Paris infrastructure? Obviously, French is not a it’s not an emerging nation. You know, Paris is already a pretty, pretty well visited destination in the world. So what’s the business case for why France and Paris specifically should be hosting this Olympics?

 

Dr. Lindsay. Sarah Krasnoff  31:52

See, that’s what makes this whole endeavor super fascinating from where I sit, because you’re right. France is the number one most visited country in the world touristically speaking, they don’t need the tourists per se. And they’ve been number one for many years running. And, you know, there’s been recent statements both from Air France as well as their partner Delta, saying that they’re going to miss their third quarter earnings revenues, because travel is down around the Olympics, because people have been put off for any variety of different reasons. Right. So yeah, you know, there’s not necessarily a business case for hosting the Olympics and the Paralympics, just the enormity of it. However, what they, what they can do for the host are a few things first, that can help to cultivate soft power, and the ability to lead and persuade and in through the attractiveness of your cultural endeavors, in this case, sport and hosting, and you seen very much the French government, that diplomatic apparatus, you know, this kind of Made in France brand, the iconic brand, that they are very much operating under this year. You know, it helps to bolster that for sure, especially when you see storylines, such as the this particular edition of the US Dream Team, coming all in for Paris, not necessarily only as a redeem team, but you know, many of those players coming out of retirement from national team service, because they want to go and play in Paris, right. So that attractiveness very much bolsters the case. There’s also the issue for Paris 24, in that they have used hosting the Games as a tool to leverage political and financial buy-in for several major infrastructure projects, one of the biggest ones is creating and improving the transportation infrastructure to create greater Paris grandpappy. Trying to unite the inner city center with its suburban outlying areas, and no longer kind of coordinating off the wealthiest areas from the rest. And we’ve already seen some of that play out in real time. They’ve been launching new extensions of existing metro lines and commuter rails, the vast majority of new public transportation stops, whether they’re commuter rail, Metro bus, are all in the suburban areas. So you no longer have to travel all the way into the center of Paris and then out to get to one of the surrounding region areas. They’re now interconnected themselves. So that is one legacy. They’ve been updating the metro and commuter trains with new equipment. And so this is very much in handy as the weather gets warmer here in Paris because the news Trains have air conditioning that works, as the vast majority of the older train cars do not have it at all. And believe me, that makes a difference when you’re in a heatwave. So things like that the infrastructure is a huge thing also as part of the infrastructure, building more dedicated bike lanes, making the city far more bikeable. As well as a time to convert the city and more into a network of small villages. Right, the Parisian mayor and Otago are very much campaigned on trying to ensure that most neighborhoods have the major things that residents would need within a five minute or 10 minute walk. And according to some of my friends who live in different parts of the city, and where I am staying at some of this has already come to pass. Yes, there is the grievances  that you’re no longer able to drive your cars everywhere. However, on the flip side, there’s more bike lanes, they have planted more trees to try to green up some of the concrete urban space that was creating heat deserts during the heat waves. So, you know, those are sort of the little things that might not be talked about as much in the media, but improve the everyday quality of life. For some residents. We note that that’s not the case, in the blanket sense across the entire metropolitan region. And perhaps the infrastructure project that has gotten the most attention in the US pets over the past several months, is cleaning up the Sand River, which has not been swimmable for over 100 years because of the pollution as well as the current it is a working river. But on Friday, they announced that the water levels are clean enough that you can swim in. And the Minister for sports took a very last minute but very well needed his eyes dipped in the sand early Saturday morning. And definitely while some of the longer term mechanisms for that very large project, including improving the sewage systems, constructing the new water holding tanks to stop some of the overrun and over water and sewage from leaking into the center. Well, those had been kind of planned, it was really the motor of hosting the Games that lent the immediacy to actually get it done. That they’ve been talking about cleaning up the sense since the late 1980s, early 1990s. But this is the motor that helped them achieve that as imperfect, as costly as it is, and as you know, as many of the grievances that there are there. But you can’t argue with the fact that without hosting the Games, it just wouldn’t have happened.

 

Jason Dressel  37:56

Yeah, right. It just becomes that motivating deadline? Just Just in time, right. Just yeah, right. So I’m bringing our conversation sort of full circle. What’s, you know, what’s your kind of take on? What’s, what’s the vibe been there in terms of, you know, has hosting the Olympics been a controversial issue for the French people? Or is it, you know, broadly is your perspective, you know, kind of broadly that it’s been a unifying point of pride, whereas maybe the jury’s out on that. And we’ll know more after the Olympics are over.

 

Dr. Lindsay. Sarah Krasnoff  38:33

Jury’s still out on that we’ll know more after the Olympics and Paralympics are over, I think, I think it’s the opening ceremony, which is unique. It is the first time that an opening ceremony is planned outside of a stadium. So it is planned, where the creative nations float down the Sun River, which is an amazing concept, but a huge security and logistics nightmare. If that goes off, as planned without a major hiccup, then I think this is a laissez le bon ton rouler, you know, let the good times roll. So I think that will really help to make a dent in things. I think also, once the competition starts, once it’s fully here, and especially once French Olympians start to bring metals to the forefront. I think that also helps to uplift things. You know, you could argue that there’s been several real costs for hosting you could argue that perhaps some of that is the political fallout, which pressed President Emmanuel Macron to call snap legislative elections. And I mean, they’re still not really a functioning. There’s a government but there is no one fully leaving it in terms of within the National Assembly, the legislative body as a result of the recent elections, the precedent is still there. The country’s was safe and fine. But, you know, the actual getting the people’s business done is kind of about hope right now. And with it some of the cabinets and ministers. So, you know, we’re still not 100% Sure which ministers will be at the opening ceremony. So, you know, there’s, there’s things like that, but we’ll see.

 

 

Jason Dressel  40:24

And what are you most looking forward to? Over the next next few weeks

 

Dr. Lindsay. Sarah Krasnoff  40:29

I am looking forward to the breakdancing competition, but also all of the basketball. We’ve talked before, we’ve talked a lot about basketball. And you know, particularly France has built a brand in basketball over the past few decades. The recent NBA Draft, half of the top six players are French from this recent draft. They’re also super strong on the women’s side as well. And interestingly enough, the only two countries in the world that have sent men’s and women’s teams for the five by five basketball tournaments and the three by three basketball tournaments, so had all four of their basketball teams qualified were the United States and France. So I’m really keen in on the basketball tournaments, not just for these two countries, but the globalization of the game has meant that all of the competitions are super competitive for this discipline. And it’s going to make for great competition. Breakdancing, of course, and there’s a few others that I’m kind of excited for and might try to see if I can get a last minute ticket for it in terms of being classic fencing, which is kind of one of the longtime Olympic sports, fencing. The other one I wanted to try to get tickets for was horse water polo. You know, there’s the example of the rapper Flavor Flav being the main sponsor, or the only key sponsor of the US women’s water polo team, which is an interesting story in terms of rebooting his brand in terms of a champion of women’s sports and an investor in women’s sports. I think that will be an interesting story to follow. And I’m kicking it all off actually, with women’s football, women’s soccer and going to watch world champions Spain take on Japan, when the opening matches. 

 

Jason Dressel  42:29

Amazing. We’ll have an amazing time is great to catch up. We will have to talk again once maybe we’ll talk again when the basketball NBA season gets underway. But in the meantime, enjoy watching all those incredible amateur basketball players you know so. But great to talk to you as always I hope the weather doesn’t, doesn’t get too hot for you over there and hope you have an amazing time and stay safe.

 

Dr. Lindsay. Sarah Krasnoff 42:56

Thanks so much. It’s been a pleasure.

 

Jason Dressel  43:04

There we go. That makes this episode of the history factory podcast a wrap. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed the Olympics over the next couple of weeks. Thanks again, Lindsey for joining. Thank you so much for listening. I’m Jason Dressel. Be well