Loving sports in an age of authoritarians: A conversation with Dave Zirin and Jules Boykoff
For many around the US and around the world, the World Cup was a welcome distraction from the dismal state of the world and the daily overwhelm of relentless war, corruption, fascism, and disaster. But the games were also an uncomfortable reminder that, no matter how much we love sports and want them to be an escape from politics and the pain of living in a broken society, there is no way to truly escape those things, and the manufactured illusion that sports are an escape from political reality is just that: an illusion.
At a live event hosted on July 16, 2026, at Chilo’s bar in New York City, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez spoke with legendary sportswriters Dave Zirin and Jules Boykoff about what it means to love sports in an age of authoritarians.
Additional links/info:
Chilo’s bar website and Instagram
Jules Boykoff, OR Books, Red Card: The 2026 World Cup, Sportswashing, and the FIFA Greed Machine
Dave Zirin, Penguin Randomhouse, The People’s Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn
Credits:
Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Welcome back to the Real News Network. I’m Maximillian Alvarez. The 2026 World Cup is now officially over after Spain defeated Argentina in the final match on Sunday. And for many of us around the US and around the world, the World Cup was a very welcome distraction from the ambient awfulness and doom and the daily delugion overwhelm of relentless war, corruption, fascism and disaster. But the games were also an uncomfortable reminder that no matter how much we love sports and the global spectacle of the