Category: Politics

Los Angeles leaders are spending billions to make the 2028 Olympics a story of climate and environmental policy progress, reports Alex Nieves.

Transit and community groups want to know whether the investment will be part of the region’s Olympic legacy or just a flash in the pan.

The question of just how enduring their efforts will be was a throughline Tuesday and Wednesday at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator’s Road to 2028 summit — an event focused on leveraging the Olympic Games to accelerate clean energy and transportation development in the state’s most populous region.

The overall vibe of the conference was an optimistic one, as Los Angeles County and dozens of cities are hustling to secure hundreds of buses, plant trees and clean waterways before millions of people descend on the region in two years for the Games. But some attendees were already wondering what comes after the two-week mega event is over.

“When we look to the future, if once the games leave and we have not left communities better than the way we found them, then we have all lost,” said Cynthia Mitchell-Heard, CEO of the Los Angeles Urban League, speaking on a panel of grant recipients who’ve received funding from the LA Olympics organizing committee for environmental projects. (The Urban League received $100,000 to create a workforce development program for people affected by last year’s Altadena fire.)

Catherine Baltazar, associate director of advocacy and organizing at Climate Resolve, argued that throwing dollars at infrastructure projects won’t guarantee long-term progress in communities that have historically lacked resources and disproportionately borne the brunt of climate change.

“Investment should not end when the Games end,” Baltazar said. “We know that these communities will continue long after the Games, and so for me, that’s the legacy that I want.”

The focus on the post-2028 future comes in part because of what was seen as a successful test run during this summer’s World Cup. The region hosted eight matches at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, avoiding any major snafus while seeing a significant spike in public transit use.

While the Olympics will be far larger than the World Cup, the region has structural advantages over many past Olympic host cities, including enough existing venues to house every sporting event. Much of the preparation now is centered on buying and leasing roughly 1,700 buses — including 500 electric school buses — to shuttle fans to and from venues that will be transit-only.

Transit advocates argue that those investments, including recent expansions of Los Angeles’ light-rail system, don’t solve for structural budget deficits that could threaten service cuts — as bus and rail operators have already warned about farther north in the Bay Area.

Los Angeles’ legislative delegation has failed the last two years to secure a boost in the state budget for systems like LA Metro, which faces a $2.3 billion deficit through 2030. Metrolink, a commuter rail line that serves six counties across Southern California, has indefinitely extended a 20 percent reduction in weekday service amid a $30 million deficit.

Matt Petersen, CEO of the Cleantech Incubator, told POLITICO the budget challenge has only intensified under a Trump administration hostile toward clean transportation.

“Local governments are struggling, states are struggling on how to put the resources where they’re needed,” he said. “I think the bottom line is: Without the feds, it’s super hard.”

But he said he still believes that Los Angeles is “well on the way to being ready” for the Games and to leave a lasting benefit for the community.

“That’s really what we’re here to do,” he said. “Ten years after the Games, what will we have seen manifest because of this moment?”

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CHICAGO — The United States’ third-largest city felt confident passing on this year’s World Cup in part because the city’s sports loyalty was well-scripted. The Bears owned Sundays. The Cubs and White Sox divided baseball fans. And the Bulls still carry the glow of the Jordan dynasty.

But a whole new generation of sports teams is betting Chicago’s appetite for sports is bigger than its traditional loyalties — and that fans are ready for something different.

The WNBA’s Chicago Sky is preparing to host the league’s All-Star weekend July 23-26. The Chicago Stars are trying to build a women’s soccer franchise in a city with deep youth participation and a growing appetite for the sport. And the Chicago Fire are planning a new privately financed stadium in the South Loop and are investing heavily in youth development and facilities.

The timing is notable.

The city’s newest teams are making their pitch at the same moment two of Chicago’s oldest franchises are asking for help building new homes.

The McCaskey family continues to pursue public assistance for a new Bears stadium, whether in Illinois or Indiana. White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf has sought public support for a proposed South Loop ballpark. Those requests have triggered a familiar debate: whether taxpayers should help finance stadium projects for billion-dollar sports franchises while governments struggle with schools, transit and other basic services.

The newer teams are offering a different message. Chicago Fire owner Joe Mansueto, another Chicago billionaire, privately funded the team’s $750 million stadium, though the Chicago City Council earlier this week approved a $425 million tax subsidy to fund the surrounding infrastructure. Their pitch is not built around nostalgia but around investing in communities.

At a sports and business forum at the Obama Presidential Center this week, Fire Chief Marketing Officer Dan Moriarty described a shift in how soccer is being consumed in Chicago. The sport’s audience is younger, more diverse and increasingly global, he said, with fans who already follow international clubs now looking for a local connection. He pointed to a simple sign of change: at Chicago farmers markets, soccer jerseys are increasingly common — even if many of them still carry the names of European clubs.

The challenge, he said, is turning those fans into supporters of Chicago teams.

“Soccer has this lifestyle aspect,” former U.S. women’s national team goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher said during the discussion. “It brings people together.”

That may be soccer’s biggest advantage in Chicago. The city is already a global crossroads, with neighborhoods shaped by generations of immigrants and communities that have long embraced the sport. The Fire are betting that global stars can accelerate that connection. The club recently signed Polish striker Robert Lewandowski, one of the world’s most accomplished players, as part of a broader effort to raise the team’s profile.

Women’s sports are riding a similar wave.

“Women’s sports generally, and particularly soccer, has seen an evolution in this country,” said Laura Ricketts, who is a bridge to the old and new in sports. She’s a co-owner of the Chicago Cubs, an investor in the WNBA’s Chicago Sky and executive director of the Chicago Stars women’s soccer team.

“What we’re now seeing [is] an explosion, especially in the NWSL,” she said of the National Women’s Soccer League. “We’re growing, and the best way [to see it is] our fan base is growing.”

She compares women’s soccer today to the NBA or Major League Baseball of the early 1980s. “There’s just so much opportunity,” said Ricketts. Women’s soccer, she said, has benefited from decades of investment in youth leagues and college programs. That foundation is now translating into a professional audience.

The growth is not just about attendance. It is about loyalty. Women’s sports fans, Ricketts said, tend to be younger and highly engaged, with a strong connection to the brands and communities supporting the teams.
With World Cup interest, “We’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg for soccer in this country.”

She said there’s been similar investment into basketball and she hopes Chicago sees the benefits of that as it hosts the WNBA All-Star weekend, marking three decades of the league.

“The momentum continues right here in Chicago,” Sky co-owner Nadia Rawlinson said, describing the event as a celebration of how far women’s basketball has come — and how much further it can go.

None of this means the Bears, Cubs, White Sox or Bulls are losing their place in Chicago’s sports hierarchy. But newer teams are making a case for a place alongside them.

​Politics

Stories of fans left outside stadiums, duped by “ghost tickets” on resale platforms, were everywhere at this year’s World Cup. But advocates are hopeful the near-endless stream of negative headlines and angry supporters will spur long-sought-after laws to outlaw the practice of speculative ticket selling, when resellers put tickets they don’t yet have on the open market.

At the state level, it would seem they’re right.

Illinois, North Carolina and Washington, D.C. have all passed legislation banning speculative ticket sales since the beginning of the World Cup. Connecticut, Oregon and Vermont have also enacted ghost ticket bans this year. And Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey announced her intention to file a bill prohibiting ghost tickets — among other consumer-friendly initiatives — on Thursday.

“It’s definitely raising eyebrows in the state of politicians and legislators to really ban ghost ticketing, speculative ticketing,” said Scott Friedman, podcast host and co-founder of the Ticket Talk Network. “When you have it happen at this scale, that not just affects the United States, it’s a global tournament for heaven’s sake. Absolutely, change is coming.”

“You see dozens of these bills percolating around the country,” said John Breyault, vice president of public policy, telecommunications and fraud at the National Consumers League. “Most of which have some kind of ban on speculative tickets.”

There’s action at the federal level, too. Though advocacy groups aren’t exactly aligned on a path forward in Congress. Breyault and the NCL have been active in promoting the TICKET Act, which passed the House in April and moved through the Senate Commerce Committee in June.

Proponents say the bill would ban speculative ticket sales and safeguard consumers against fraudulent ticket websites.

“In this environment, where Republicans and Democrats can’t agree that the sky is blue on some days, that’s a rare occurrence,” Breyault said.

But Stephen Parker, the executive director of the National Independent Venue Association, said the “you could drive a Mack Truck” through the TICKET Act’s ghost ticketing provisions. Music groups, too, have panned the bill, arguing it would still allow speculative ticket sales by permitting sellers to advertise ticket procurement services for tickets they do not yet possess.

For now, Parker said, the most encouraging action is happening in the states.

“This is happening across the country, and ultimately, what we are seeing is state legislators from both parties saying enough is enough. If Congress isn’t going to do something, we are, and we couldn’t be more grateful for their work.”

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New York and New Jersey planned to spend roughly a half billion dollars hosting eight World Cup matches, including today’s final. But once it’s over, lawmakers in both states want to know if they got their money’s worth.

In New York City, Councilmember Virginia Maloney, who leads the chamber’s committee on economic development, is going to lead that examination.

“First I want to make sure we recouped our cost,” she said in an interview on Friday at a coffee shop in her Manhattan district, which includes the Upper East Side. “I’m not confident we can say that.”

She said data seems mixed on how well hotels did because of the World Cup. Bookings initially appeared low, but it seems like hotels recovered closer to the matches. However, it’s not clear if that’s because of the World Cup or the other major events happening this summer in the city, including the July 4th festivities and the Knicks’ championship win — which means an analysis will have to try to untangle what economic activity happened because of the World Cup and what would have happened anyway.

“What is irrefutable is that bars and restaurants were seeing a lot more activity and action in New York, and that translates into real economic benefit for New Yorkers,” Maloney said.

Maloney attributes that to a lot of things, including a law signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul to temporarily extend hours for bars and restaurants.

One report from the Queens Chamber of Commerce found a 30 percent increase in businesses for people going out to drink and eat.

“The economic benefit was not necessarily people who were going to the World Cup, but just people participating in the summer of New York, going to all five boroughs to celebrate or be out together,” she said.

The host committee released a study last summer predicting $3.3 billion in economic impact across New York and New Jersey, including about $432 million in state and local tax revenues.

Maloney worried about rosy projections from FIFA and its boosters compared to the reality on the ground. A preliminary study by the host committee of just the group stage found $1.2 billion in direct economic impact, Bloomberg reported.

Maloney views the experience as a learning opportunity for other big events the city puts on, including future political conventions and the 2042 Olympics, which the state and city are exploring a bid for.

“It should be something that you can make a playbook out of, not where you’re starting from scratch every time there’s a major event,” Maloney said.

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BERLIN — As the World Cup comes to a close, there’s one group of politicians who’ve remained unusually quiet about the fate of their own national teams: Europe’s far-right party leaders.

Top officials from France’s National Rally, the Alternative for Germany, England’s Reform UK and others faced complicated dynamics in deciding how to talk about the World Cup. The broad, socially acceptable form of patriotism inspired by international sporting events like the World Cup seems at first glance like an easy fit for parties whose core message includes a return to strong national pride.

But in many of the countries where these parties are growing, increasingly diverse teams with immigrant backgrounds are at odds with the way these parties think about national identity — making it tougher for them to vocally support the home team without implicitly supporting the individual players who are part of it.

“For the right, for whom national identification and identity has always been more salient than for the center and the left, soccer fandom was a natural conduit to express its passion and commitment,” said Andrei S. Markovits, a professor at the University of Michigan who studies the intersection of sports and nationalism. “This has become a tad more difficult when the players hail from multicultural backgrounds, many of which the right sees as inferior.”

(Former Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy learned the hard way how people react when someone points out those multicultural backgrounds: The center-right pol came under fire for saying ahead of Spain’s semifinal match against France that the French national team was “without Frenchmen,” a not-so-subtle dig at the African origins of many of the team’s star players.)

“It would not be good in terms of their electoral strength for [far-right parties] to be critical of these teams,” said Alan Bairner, a professor at England’s Loughborough University who has researched sports and national identity. “But the fact that they might seem a bit lukewarm is in itself a telling thing.”

That’s perhaps why criticism from far-right leaders has been directed not at their own teams, but at other teams — or at using the tournament to chime in with nationalist narratives that serve their own purposes.

Geert Wilders, leader of the Netherlands’ far-right Freedom Party, posted an image of himself in a bright-orange suit to cheer on the Dutch team in the early stages of the World Cup. It was a sharp contrast with his comments a day earlier, when he’d reposted a picture of members of the Moroccan squad praying on the field with an anti-Islam insult as the caption. (Several players of Dutch-Moroccan origin opted to play for Morocco, rather than the Netherlands this year.)

And after the Netherlands lost to Morocco in a penalty shootout late last month and post-game celebrations led to clashes with police in The Hague, Wilders — long a vocal supporter of stricter immigration controls in Europe — used the occasion to call for the deportation of all Moroccans involved in the clashes.

Reform UK’s Nigel Farage, too, used England’s semifinal match against Argentina on Wednesday to hearken back to the two countries’ 1980s-era war over the Falkland Islands: “Let’s do it all over again just like 1982,” he posted on X.

(Farage got in trouble earlier in the tournament for posting a photo of himself celebrating an England win by chugging a pint in a Three Lions jersey … only for observers to note it was a picture from the 2024 Euros.)

But in most cases, far-right leaders have swallowed their criticism of their diverse national teams and offered the basic messages of support expected of them, or in some cases, just stayed quiet.

National Rally leader Jordan Bardella, despite his past jabs at French striker Kylian Mbappé, congratulated the French team on a good run after losing to Spain earlier this week and said they “thrilled an entire nation” with their World Cup performance.

And AfD leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla sought to downplay criticism of the German team’s diversity from within their party: Asked about one AfD state-level politician’s assertion that Germany’s national squad “has lost the quality of an authentic German national team” due to its diverse roster, both Weidel and Chrupalla were dismissive of those comments.

“If a player of an ethnic group whom you deem inferior scores goals for you, what are you going to do? Disavow him as belonging to the nation that you love?” asked Markovits. “No … you may deep down still doubt the genuine essence of his nationality, but you accept his goals and appropriate them as your own.”

​Politics

The Democratic National Committee is betting the world’s biggest sporting event can help build its voter base.

The DNC is launching a nationwide voter registration effort for Sunday’s World Cup final, dispatching organizers, volunteers and campaign staff to FIFA Fan Zones, sports bars and community watch parties with the goal of registering more than 3,000 new Democratic voters.

The effort underscores how both political parties are increasingly viewing major sporting events as opportunities to reach voters — particularly young Americans who may be less likely to attend traditional political events but are gathering in large numbers around the monthlong tournament. In the case of the World Cup final, more than 80,000 people are expected to attend in person.

“From outside FIFA Fan Zones and at World Cup watch parties to bars, restaurants and parks, we’ll spend the weekend registering thousands of new Democrats and having conversations about how we win races up and down the ballot,” DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement.

The weekend push spans nearly two dozen states, with Democratic organizers attending events in battlegrounds including Arizona, Pennsylvania and Florida. In Arizona, Democrats plan registration efforts in Phoenix, Chandler, Tempe, Tucson and Yuma.

The campaign builds on the DNC’s broader “When We Count” initiative focused on young voters ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Unlike traditional registration drives centered on college campuses, the program deliberately targets young Americans who are already in the workforce.

About one-third of the program’s fellows are native Spanish speakers.

The party is pairing the registration effort with a four-part national training series that it says will equip more than 1,500 organizers, campaign staff and volunteers with best practices for partisan voter registration.

Professional sports leagues have increasingly embraced civic engagement around elections, and the NBA and WNBA are some of the most visible examples, using arenas as polling locations and partnering on nonpartisan voter registration drives. And conservatives have previously registered voters at NASCAR events.

“The power in sport is that people gather. It creates a sense of belonging,” said Lee Igel, a professor of global sport at New York University. “If you want to get 3,000 people registered to vote at a watch party for a sports mega-event, you’d be hard-pressed not to get closer to 30,000 people” registered.

Igel said the DNC’s initiative takes that relationship between sports and civic participation a step further.

“There’s some precedent when it comes to voting and sports,” he said. “But this picks up on a more recent trend of politicians, elected officials and the organizations they’re connected to tapping into the power of sport.”

He pointed to leaders across the political spectrum, including President Donald Trump and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, as examples of politicians increasingly recognizing sports’ cultural reach.

“Sport is fun and games,” Igel said, “but the attention it attracts in communities — from eyeballs to people in person — is enormous.”

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