Friday, December 14, 2007
The Mitchell Report and Global Governance
Obviously, the Mitchell Report is all the big news in the world of sports, culture, and politics this morning, and is receiving saturation coverage. Rather than try to add my 2 cents as a baseball fan, I thought I might try to tease out an interesting IR angle to the whole thing.
As I was driving home yesterday, I heard Selig in his press conference assert that Baseball had one of the most stringent testing drug policies (now) of any major sport. The radio commentators were discussing this and said, well, if by major sport you mean NFL, NBA, and MLB, then yes. But, compared to the testing at the Olympic level, it has a long way to go.
Earlier this morning, on my way into work, I heard Sen. McCain on ESPN, and they were asking him what, if anything, the government could do about this (and recall that most of the good stuff in the Mitchell Report is the result of government work--the hearing and several drug busts and plea agreements). McCain said (paraphrasing): Not much, except to fund the USADA to improve testing practices and perhaps work more with the World Anti-Doping Agency.
From an IR perspective, I think this raises a rather interesting question--given that there is a robust international organization with a well developed regime of anti-doping rules and norms that apply to international sport, why is it that the major US sports feel that they are somehow exempt or above or beyond these global norms? Past attempts to apply Olympic-level testing to US pro athletes (NHL hockey and NBA basketball players) by the USOC met with resistance from the leagues and players associations of those sports.
So, why is it that the US and US-based organizations place themselves above this global anti-doping norm? Many major international sports have an Olympic-caliber anti-doping regime, which requires tough random testing, and a number of their most significant events have been hit by drug scandals (Tour de France...). As US pro sports go global in an every increasing way (particularly baseball and basketball), how can they make global inroads and yet flout a global norm on drug testing?
I suspect the answer has something to do with Hegemony (free preview of my Spring class!) in two ways. First, I think the sheer market size of the US and the dominance of the US professional sports leagues in their respective sports means that they don't need to comply. The best basketball in the world is in the NBA, and its become a very international league, with the best players from everywhere. The NBA doesn't need anyone else. Same with MLB--you now see the best Japanese players coming over, wanting to play in the Majors in a way that they didn't even 5 or 10 years ago.
Second, I think there's an identity component to it--why we call it the World Series or the Superbowl winner World Champions. They aren't world champs, they just won a league. But, the US doesn't recognize any other league as being on par with the US leagues. Interestingly enough, the major sports are starting to recognize the impact of globalization and playing US vs. the World all star games or stating up such things as a World Cup for baseball. But, the World Baseball Classic is largely an MLB dominated activity, not an international event like The World Cup.
Hegemony. When your champion is the world's champion.
So, why then doesn't the hegemon follow the world norm on anti-doping?
As I was driving home yesterday, I heard Selig in his press conference assert that Baseball had one of the most stringent testing drug policies (now) of any major sport. The radio commentators were discussing this and said, well, if by major sport you mean NFL, NBA, and MLB, then yes. But, compared to the testing at the Olympic level, it has a long way to go.
Earlier this morning, on my way into work, I heard Sen. McCain on ESPN, and they were asking him what, if anything, the government could do about this (and recall that most of the good stuff in the Mitchell Report is the result of government work--the hearing and several drug busts and plea agreements). McCain said (paraphrasing): Not much, except to fund the USADA to improve testing practices and perhaps work more with the World Anti-Doping Agency.
From an IR perspective, I think this raises a rather interesting question--given that there is a robust international organization with a well developed regime of anti-doping rules and norms that apply to international sport, why is it that the major US sports feel that they are somehow exempt or above or beyond these global norms? Past attempts to apply Olympic-level testing to US pro athletes (NHL hockey and NBA basketball players) by the USOC met with resistance from the leagues and players associations of those sports.
So, why is it that the US and US-based organizations place themselves above this global anti-doping norm? Many major international sports have an Olympic-caliber anti-doping regime, which requires tough random testing, and a number of their most significant events have been hit by drug scandals (Tour de France...). As US pro sports go global in an every increasing way (particularly baseball and basketball), how can they make global inroads and yet flout a global norm on drug testing?
I suspect the answer has something to do with Hegemony (free preview of my Spring class!) in two ways. First, I think the sheer market size of the US and the dominance of the US professional sports leagues in their respective sports means that they don't need to comply. The best basketball in the world is in the NBA, and its become a very international league, with the best players from everywhere. The NBA doesn't need anyone else. Same with MLB--you now see the best Japanese players coming over, wanting to play in the Majors in a way that they didn't even 5 or 10 years ago.
Second, I think there's an identity component to it--why we call it the World Series or the Superbowl winner World Champions. They aren't world champs, they just won a league. But, the US doesn't recognize any other league as being on par with the US leagues. Interestingly enough, the major sports are starting to recognize the impact of globalization and playing US vs. the World all star games or stating up such things as a World Cup for baseball. But, the World Baseball Classic is largely an MLB dominated activity, not an international event like The World Cup.
Hegemony. When your champion is the world's champion.
So, why then doesn't the hegemon follow the world norm on anti-doping?
Labels: baseball, global governance, hegemony
