Sport has become the board where states and corporations play for power.
I'm Tales: I study International Relations at FGV and read sport with the method the discipline gave me. Soft power, sanctions, diaspora, and the money (state and corporate) behind the game. From football to Formula 1, from tennis to whatever comes next.
Three ways to follow
The email column
Weekly columns using sport as a window into international politics, economics and culture. You just saw the what; the why lands in your inbox, free.
The Map of power in sport
Who owns, who hosts, who pays, who naturalizes. A map of verified facts about state and corporate capital in sport, every line with a source and a figure, open data to download.
The Radar
The system scanning hundreds of sources a day for tomorrow's story. Today it feeds everything I publish; in 2027 it becomes a subscription, waitlist open.
How it works, in three steps
The radar scans
Hundreds of sources a day, hunting stories where sport and power share a sentence.
I read through IR lenses
Soft power, sanctions, diaspora, rivalry: classroom theory applied to today's case.
You get the why
In the newsletter, on social and on the Map: you saw the play, here's what was at stake.
Data you get at a glance
Everyone comments on state money in sport. Nobody has organized the facts.
The Map gathers the observable power in sport (ownership, hosting, sponsorship, naturalization), case by case, with a declared source and a figure per line: the Saudi fund at Newcastle, Qatar at PSG, Abu Dhabi at City, the 2034 World Cup. We don't measure "attraction" or soft power: that's interpretation, and it lives in the analysis. Only verifiable fact enters here, and the data is open to download.
Get the why every week
The column lands in your inbox, free. The game behind the game, no algorithm required.