Photo by Wagner Meier/Getty Images
How sport connects US to the world
Countdown to World Cup 2026
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As the United States prepares to host the FIFA Men’s World Cup in 2026 and the Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2028, the Great Game Lab explores the convergence of global sport, media, and geopolitics. We do so through storytelling, research, teaching, and informed conversations.
Set pieces
How sports connect us… what’s your take? Twenty-ish-minute chats with some of the more compelling protagonists in the great game.
Featured
Olympic Women’s Hockey: Brought to You By the NCAA
How many of the 230 hockey players in the Milano Cortina Olympic women's tournament do you think have spent time developing their world-class skills in American college sports? Shelby Evans brings the stats and the history behind how U.S. college women's hockey became a globalized league and the best place for athletes around the world to advance their game and make their national teams.Explore more
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Is the United States Still Offside?
A quarter-century ago, the renowned political scientist [and now Great Game Lab Fellow] Andrei Markovits co-authored an influential book, Offside: Soccer & American Exceptionalism, that extended the notion of American exceptionalism to the sports Americans play and follow. Now, as the United States is on the verge of co-hosting a FIFA men’s World Cup and America’s homegrown sports are also growing their overseas followings, we have to ask: can we still say the United States is “offside”?
Great Game Lab
Photo by Matthew Ashton - AMA/Getty Images