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Olympic history author David Goldblatt: IOC 'needs to change'

Author of 'The Games: A Global History of the Olympics', David Goldblatt, joined Yahoo Finance's A Time for Change to discuss why the International Olympic Committee needs to chart a new course, if the return on investment for Olympic host cities is worth the effort, and what the future holds for the Games.

Video transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: Welcome to "A Time for Change." I'm Kristin Myers here with Sibile Marcellus and Alexis Christoforous. Now, over the next half hour, we'll be turning our attention to the Olympic Games in Tokyo, where the United States superstar Simone Biles shocked the world by withdrawing from the team gymnastics finals after struggling with the vault.

Now, Biles has said she is not in, quote, "the right headspace." And it's still unclear whether she is going to compete in the remaining events over the next week.

SIBILE MARCELLUS: The stress of the Olympic Games can challenge even the toughest athletes. They're competing for themselves for country and for ideals espoused by the Games. At last week's opening ceremony, athletes took an oath, as they have for the past century, but this time, it included some very clear language about equity. And that's where we begin today. The athletes promised to take part in the Olympic games, respecting and abiding by the rules-- and here's what's been added, quote, "and in the spirit of fair play, inclusion, and equality."

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: But just how fair, inclusive, and equal are the Olympics? Before we dive into that conversation, I want to get a quick check of the history of where the modern games began.

These are images of the first so-called modern Olympics. The year was 1896 in Athens, Greece-- athletes competing in games inspired by those played thousands of years ago in Olympia, Greece. The Olympic revival was the brainchild of a French aristocrat named Baron Pierre de Coubertin who believed world peace and unity could be fostered through sport.

214 athletes competed in those first Games-- all men, all white-- from 14 countries, including the United States. Women joined the Games four years later in 1900, along with the first Black athlete. Today, the Olympic Games look very different indeed-- more than 11,000 athletes from 206 countries, a near even split of men and women, people of all races, all competing for gold.

I spoke with David Goldblatt, the author of "The Games-- a Global History of the Olympics" about just how fair the games are when it comes to equity and inclusion, and how far they still have to go.

DAVID GOLDBLATT: Pierre de Coubertin I think would struggle with many dimensions of the contemporary Olympics. It's worth remembering, you know, his most pithy description of what the Olympics were all about was a display of manly virtue, for which the reward is the polite applause of women. And I think he would find an Olympics that was pretty much gender balanced in terms of its competitors deeply worrying.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Here we are in 2021, and there's nearly a 50-50 split between men and women when it comes to the competition. Do you think there is more to go? Are we now equal when it comes to men and women competitors in the Olympics?

DAVID GOLDBLATT: No, obviously not. I mean, in numerical terms, of course, we are. But if we look across Olympic sport and sport as a whole, you know, there continue to be very serious imbalances of power and authority. So it's not just who's competing, it's who's in charge, who's on the IOC, who's making all the decisions about how sport is organized, who runs the Olympic committees of national nations, or how many women are on the boards of international sporting federations?

And I can tell you, not very many. We have a very long way to go. I mean, really, Wall Street and-- the NASDAQ index looks better in terms of female representation than much of international sport. I think also that there's a real inequality of perception. I mean, on a number of occasions in these Games, we have had men, essentially, telling women athletes what they can and can't wear.

This is the 21st century. We're beyond a bunch of old white men in positions of power telling women what they can and can't wear. So I think there is a really-- one could go on, but I think there are some really deep, profound cultural inequalities of power beyond formal equality of representation.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Does it get any better, David, when we look at people of color in the Games, and how inclusive and equal are these current Games when it comes to including people of color?

DAVID GOLDBLATT: Well, I mean, I think people of color should be the first port of call, of course, in answering that question, and how they're perceiving it, and how they're feeling. I mean, what I would say from the outside is, again, we have-- I mean, as you know, in the United States, we have it in Britain in many sports, actually an overrepresentation of minority groups where sports offer an avenue of progress and development that is often denied or difficult to find for minority groups.

That's not reflective, once again, in who's running sport, who's running the broadcasters, who are the coaches, even. So I think in those terms, there's still a very long way to go. Thomas Bach was struggling to distinguish between the Japanese and the Chinese people at his speech before the Games began. So I think there are some residual problems there.

The Olympics remains an extraordinary public theater of racism and sexism, but at the same time, of challenges to those stereotypes. I mean, that in the end is what makes the great elite sporting spectaculars so powerfully socially is that, sure, they can have their fixed stereotypes of who can play and how they're allowed to play, but when women and minorities come along and demand their inclusion and perform in extraordinary fashion, there's no argument. There's no argument. And that's a very powerful message to be sending out.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: David, I want to talk for a minute about the cost of the Olympics. I believe the Tokyo Games are a record. $20 billion is what I've read. I'm wondering if the return on investment is worth it. And should the IOC be coming up with a different way to handle host cities?

DAVID GOLDBLATT: I mean, I think the best evidence that it's not really very good for host cities is actually that there isn't fearsome competition anymore to host the Olympics. When we got to Tokyo, we were down to only two alternatives. And when it came to 2024, there were only two bidders, Los Angeles and Paris. And then they've just given 2032 to Brisbane and there was absolutely no competition or alternative bids at all. So I think that needs to be borne in mind.

Is it a good rate of return? I mean, Andrew Zimbalist in his fabulous book "Circus Maximus" put together all of the data and all of the many, many studies that have been done on, does the Olympics improve economic growth, does it bring more employment, does it raise productivity? And the answer is, no.

Perhaps in the very short-term, you get a small number of badly paid jobs. But the long-term is that it makes absolutely no difference.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Do you split up the host cities? Is there one place where you just come to every four years? It's the same location?

DAVID GOLDBLATT: I mean, I think the first thing that needs to happen really is that the IOC needs to change. I mean, we have an institution that selects itself, that is not transparent, that, despite having a special place at the United Nations, is open to the public scrutiny nor public criticism. And I think that is a huge problem.

I mean, this is like any business. If everybody thinks the same, you're going to start making some really bad decisions. You have to let in the light of some other argument and other criticism. And I think until the IOC actually really reforms its own internal constitution and structure, and who's on it, it's very hard to imagine how it's going to make better decisions or come up with a better process.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: I do want to ask, though, about politics and the Olympics. Because, you know, since the beginning of time, the Olympics has billed itself as sort of this neutral event where politics doesn't take place. There are rules this year prohibiting political demonstrations. Some of those rules, I know, have been loosened a bit. But how free of politics are the Olympics, really? Have things gotten better over the years?

DAVID GOLDBLATT: They've never been free of politics. And I think we have a new generation of athletes as well. I think we're seeing, to my mind, the most educated, autonomous, and socially conscious group of athletes. Now, this is not uniform across sports or countries, but if you think about players in the NBA and Black Lives Matter, or over here in Britain, the role of Marcus Rashford, the England football player, in welfare, and child poverty, and hunger issues, and the enormous impact that they have.

I think this is not going to change. This is not going to change. There's more of this to come. And there's nothing in the end-- I don't think the Olympics or anybody else can stop.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: And I think that's an excellent point-- this generation of athletes, perhaps, are not as patient or tolerant of some of the things the Olympics has stood for in the past, which leads me to my next question and my final question, which is, what is the future of the Olympics? Are the Games as we know them not going to be here in the next 20 to 30 years, David?

DAVID GOLDBLATT: Well, I think the Winter Olympics are really going to struggle, and that's because, as the University of Waterloo's researchers established nearly a decade ago, by 2050, under current climate change projections, the majority of previous Winter Olympic hosts will be unable to host the Olympics because the likelihood of that being insufficient snow due to climate change will be too high.

And I think that's something that all future-- I mean, not just the Olympics, but there's an issue to be thinking about. At the moment, the Summer Olympics are guaranteed to 2032. They are all going-- you know, the deal is done. But I do wonder what the appeal will be 12 years from now.

I note the declining TV figures. Of course, this is a COVID year, there are no crowds, it's all a bit odd. But my sense is that the youth of the world-- and as we know, the Olympics likes to think it's calling the youth of the world-- I'm not sure the youth of the world are buying any of this. I'm not sure they're ready to sit down and watch eight hours of Olympics on telly. They don't do that. And I'm not sure that they're buying the pieties that are being offered to them.