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- [00:00]
Laura Williamson
This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel, that's your drive for more. Capella University's Flexpath learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn more at capella. Edu.
- [00:15]
Dave Davies
This is FRESH air. I'm Dave Davies. The FIFA World cup opens this week with soccer matches in the United States, Canada and Mexico. With 48 teams in 104 matches, this will be the biggest World cup ever. Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, the international federation that runs the tournament, has declared that this will be the greatest event that humanity, mankind, has ever seen and ever will see. So, yes, there's plenty of excitement. More than 5 million tickets have been sold to international travelers alone. But this is also a season of some discontent surrounding the cop. Aside from logistical challenges like transportation, there are issues arising from war, politics, infectious disease. And According to many, FIFA's ticketing practices and pricing have outraged many fans and prompted investigations by two state attorneys general. U.S. immigration restrictions and the war with Iran have affected travel from many countries. And the Ebola outbreak has the attention of local and international health officials. And just to keep things interesting, this week, there's the NBA Finals and another one of a kind sports event coming up on Sunday, the Ultimate Fighting Championship on the White House lawn. To talk about all this, we've invited Laura Williamson, editor in chief of the Athletic, to join us. The Athletic is the subscription based sports journalism site of the New York Times. Before joining the Athletic, Laura Williamson was sports news editor and a correspondent at the Daily Mail. She joined us from London, where she is based. We recorded our conversation yesterday. Laura Williamson, welcome to FRESH air.
- [01:56]
Laura Williamson
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
- [01:58]
Dave Davies
You know, we'll be talking about some issues and controversy surrounding the World cup. But to begin with, I just want to take note of the enormous pleasure and joy that this brings to many hundreds of millions of people around the world. Just share with us you know what the World cup can be at its best.
- [02:16]
Laura Williamson
Yeah. I mean, when I think about my experience of World Cups, you know, as a kid and then being lucky enough to be in Qatar four years ago and took over that tournament, you might not remember the score, you might not remember who scored, but you remember where you were and who you watched it with and what it meant to you at that time. And I think it's that power that actually sport can have and football, soccer in particular can have to bring people together, that sort of connective tissue if you like. So that's the hope that that's what this tournament can do without sounding sort of too sentimental about things, but I really do believe that football in particular has the power to do that.
- [02:53]
Dave Davies
Is there a heart stopping play or moment that sticks in your mind when you think about the World Cup?
- [02:58]
Laura Williamson
I do think back to that final three and a half years ago in Qatar, France and Argentina and, you know, going right down to the wire in terms of penalties and watching Lionel Messi lift the World cup trophy was just an incredible moment when you think of his career and it's obviously still going. He'll be there this time around as well. But just the. It's so rare that you get an incredible game to match the occasion and that delivered on all fronts.
- [03:28]
Dave Davies
All right, well, so let's talk about some of the issues here. Ticket prices at this World cup are higher than any World cup ever, in part because FIFA, which runs this thing, is using dynamic pricing, right?
- [03:41]
Laura Williamson
Yes, yes. The first time it's ever been used.
- [03:44]
Dave Davies
Yeah. So what does that mean for fans?
- [03:47]
Laura Williamson
It means ticket prices go, I was going to say up and down, but actually they just go up at the moment, depending on scarcity and depending on the demand for those tickets. So because a certain number of tickets have been kept back or allocated to fans that are going to follow that country throughout the tournament, it's meant prices have gone up and up and up. So for the final, which obviously we don't know who's going to be in that at the moment, they're sort of an average price of around $11,000, which is eye watering to be honest. But then at the other level, an England fan, for example, who wanted to have the opportunity to buy a ticket for every one of their group games and then an opportunity to buy a ticket to follow their team, even all the way onto the final, they were being asked to part with 14,000 pounds ahead of the tournament. I mean, that is just so prohibitive for the average person. It's an incredible amount of money before you've added hotels and travel, etc. Etc. So the dynamic pricing has been. Has been very controversial because it also doesn't distinguish between they're called supporter fans in FIFA language, but between fans who, you know, have been to every game that their team has played for the past 10 years, for example, and somebody who lives in Philadelphia and quite fancies going to a World cup game, you might think, well, that's just tough luck. If the demand's there, that's what happens. But it's a very different approach for football in general and I think that's why it's caused so much upset because you're not being rewarded for loyalty, if you like, or for being an expert about your team. So that's been very, very controversial and has upset a lot of people, you
- [05:32]
Dave Davies
know, and it's not just the prices. It's the way they are being managed and marketed. And I, I didn't understand really how troublingly deceptive this can be until I read a piece in the Athletic of which you are editor in chief by Henry Bushnell, who wrote this story about how typically when you buy a sports ticket, I'm going to go to a game in Baltimore. My daughter lives in Baltimore, so I was going to get a Baltimore Orioles game. And you go to the website and there's a map of the stadium and you can pick the section, the row, the seat that you know exactly what you're getting and what it costs. But he writes in this piece that when people went to the FIFA site to buy tickets for their games, you couldn't choose a seat. You chose a category of seats. There were four categories, and he noted that for category one, the most expensive, which was for most of them, more than $1000, sometimes several thousand, you were shown a map of the stadium, and basically the good seats in the lower half along the sidelines were category one. So that you didn't know what seat you were getting, but you figured you're getting one of those. But in fact, what happens is after you bought it, they changed the lines without your knowledge. And what you might have found is that now your category one price got you a seat somewhere else. And here's a cut from a video that Henry Bushnell said describing about what happened to most of these fans. He said he's talked to a lot of them and they are not getting what they thought.
- [06:57]
Laura Williamson
I haven't been able to find a single fan who got those desirable seats. Everyone says they're in corners or behind the goals or even in the second deck. And in some cases, even if they paid a category one price, they're actually in sections that were colored red for Category 2 at one point because FIFA has been quietly altering these maps throughout the past several months. So the fans are furious. They feel misled, taken advantage of, scammed. Those are a few words they've used. One even told me he's considering a class action lawsuit.
- [07:24]
Dave Davies
FIFA's response?
- [07:25]
Laura Williamson
The maps were indicative and designed to provide guidance rather than the exact seat layout.
- [07:32]
Dave Davies
So, Laura Williamson, what's the fallout from this?
- [07:38]
Laura Williamson
Yeah, Henry has been incredible in terms of the rigorous ways reported this process, and another point that he's made in an article on Monday on the Athletic is a lot of this has come because the process has been so opaque. So FIFA can do what they like. Ostensibly, they are the World cup organisers. So as you referenced there, we've heard examples of people thinking that they're buying VIP hospitality tickets, and then actually when the ticket seat and row number comes through, it's category one, which is a very, very different experience. And I think even going back to sort of September, that was the first time that information about ticketing for this tournament was released, and that was only in September, you know, less than a year to go before kickoff. And then there was the sort of right to buy fiasco, if you like, which was where you paid an additional fee to have the right to buy a ticket because FIFA were banking on there being such high demand, which there was. Then the dynamic pricing kicked in and the sort of initial prices shot up by an average of 35% for, I think, 95 of the 104 games. And then people have realized what tickets they've got, and as you say, they're not in the area they thought they were. Then there's also the resale market. So previously you would buy a ticket maybe through FIFA or through the event organisers, and then some people choose to put it on a secondary resale site and make money that way. FIFA have really leaned into the resale market, which is meant. So they're operating an official one, but there's a 15% fee for both the buyer and the seller, which goes to FIFA on any resale. So funds are being hit again and they still don't have that full knowledge of, if I'm buying a ticket for this game at this stadium, I know where I'm going to sit, because it could all change again.
- [09:34]
Dave Davies
So FIFA has its own proprietary resale platform in which they earn essentially 30% commission on it.
- [09:41]
Laura Williamson
Yep. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
- [09:43]
Dave Davies
Well, we know that the attorneys general of New York and New Jersey have announced investigations into this and have issued subpoenas for FIFA. I don't know where that stands. Do you have any sense of what redress there might be for disappointed fans?
- [09:58]
Laura Williamson
Sadly, I think the answer is you just have to take your chance on the dynamic pricing market going down, which I really. I really can't see happening now. It's this close to it. I think this is what we've signed up for, if you like. And it's quite sad for the. The ordinary fan. I mean, there's been. There's been some very sort of small concessions in terms of $1,060 tickets for sort of true fans, if you like, or followers of each team at each game, and then some concessions for games at MetLife in terms of New York City residents or New Jersey residents. But like we're talking a thousand tickets out of 60 odd thousand or more. So they're very, very small inroads. You know, FIFA and Gianni Infantino have said lots of times that, you know, this is the American ticketing model. You know, Americans, they want entertainment and they're happy to pay research. And from the people we've been speaking to, both sort of casual sports fans and die hard football soccer fans, that's just not the case. That's, you know, when you're talking about four figures to see a World cup game, that is just prohibitive for so many people.
- [11:12]
Dave Davies
Jennifer Davenport, who is the attorney general for the state of New Jersey, said being honest about ticket sales is not complicated. But FIFA has turned buying a ticket to the World cup into a gauntlet of confusion, fake scarcity and impossibly high prices. Well, we'll see where her investigation goes. I mean, I assume that at the pace these things usually work, nothing's gonna happen over the course of the tournament itself.
- [11:36]
Laura Williamson
No, no, I wouldn't have thought so. And then the way football works will be, will be on to the next one. But there is very likely to be a Women's World cup in the, in the United States, along with a couple of other countries in 2031. So I think it's going to be fascinating to keep an eye on the lessons that have been this time to see what happens. Then we should say that FIFA's argument is always, well, this tournament is going to make $11 billion, which is going to be invested back into the global game. But again, that's where the opaque nature of this comes into play in that the 211 FIFA member federations can expect to get about $8 million each from this tournament or during this World cup cycle. But we don't know where that's going. How does that translate to kids playing soccer in Senegal or Ivory coast or wherever? We don't know. We don't know where that money goes. So I think that also adds to the confusion and the feeling of, well, who is this tournament for? Is it for fans? Is it for the member federations? Is it for growing the global game? A lot of questions swirling around.
- [12:48]
Dave Davies
When you make it enough of an elite event, are you going to lose the ground level fanatics if you will, who bring all the color to the game.
- [12:57]
Laura Williamson
Yeah. And without being sort of oversensitive about it, but what about the local kids who so many of my colleagues in North America Talk about 94 and being a kid and being at a game and actually getting this bug for this, this beautiful game, which at its best, it is simple and beautiful. And if the ticket prices are as prohibitive as we've been discussing, how do you get a family of four into a game? It's impossible. So I guess that would be my main concern going into it, that talking about an opportunity to really grow soccer in the US in particular. Are we missing an opportunity here?
- [13:46]
Dave Davies
I think, I guess we should know that Johnny Infantino, the president of FIFA, took over after this horrific scandal 2015, when they raided the headquarters. And I think 27 FIFA officials pled guilty to fraud charges. And he has aggressively expanded the game. Right. Operates far more tournaments now than it used to and generates a whole lot more money.
- [14:10]
Laura Williamson
Yes. Yeah. I mean, Gianni Infantino was elected in 2016 on a ticket of two things, really. It was a. I'm going to clean up this game. I mean, you can't overstate how damaging that 2015 scandal was. I mean, I remember it vividly. I was working at the Daily Mail and the FBI and Swiss authorities raided a luxury hotel on a lake in Zurich. And, you know, you had. You had FIFA executives being taken out, you know, with their head under bed sheets and things. It was extraordinary. You know, rampant, systemic and deep rooted corruption. So out comes Gianni Infantino. He was at UEFA, which is the European governing body of football. And he says, I'm going to clean up this game. And he also very cleverly said, and I am going to give the 211 member federations, they're the people who vote for him to be in power. I'm going to give you more money. And he quickly raised the sort of annual bounty, if you like, from $3 million to 5. And now it's. And the way he's done that.
- [15:20]
Dave Davies
The bounty, meaning what those federations pay to participate?
- [15:23]
Laura Williamson
No, the money that they receive as a member of FIFA. So this is ostensibly where all the ticket money, all the revenue from mainly Men's World cup, but lots of other events as well, is filtering down. So he's raised more money for the people that, you know, to be blunt, are voting to keep him in power. Very clever. And the way he's done that is by basically creating more football tournaments. So we've seen the Club World cup for Men which was hosted by the US last summer, was won by Chelsea eventually. But that was a huge event that had come. Like the Club World cup used to be sort of eight teams in the winter, somewhere in the Middle East. Very low key. Very low key.
- [16:09]
Dave Davies
When you say clubs, that means these soccer teams that are in, you know, mostly in Europe, I guess. Right. In South America. Right. But they're. They're private teams, they're not national teams.
- [16:18]
Laura Williamson
Right, exactly, exactly. So you'd have the European champions against the South American champions, etc. Etc. So he's created this huge new tournament, to be honest, with huge prize money involved to get and to generate more revenue. And this is why we find ourselves with 48 teams in the World cup and talk that that may go to 64 for next time, which people are always eager to talk down, but it's not going away. So his answer for creating this incredible amount of cash has been just more football. What that means for what we'll see on the pitch this summer, I'm not quite sure because players are definitely tired. But he has delivered on the two things that he said he would do in 2016. He's cleaned up FIFA, the sort of. The scandals and know awful stories of bribery and corruption are gone. They feel like they belong to a previous era. And he is giving more money to the federations. So in a way, he's done what he said he would do and he
- [17:25]
Dave Davies
has been had a very close relationship with President Trump. He recently gave him FIFA's first ever peace Prize. Right.
- [17:33]
Laura Williamson
Yeah, that was. I was at the World cup draw in Washington, D.C. before Christmas, and it really was an extraordinary moment. And, yeah, handing over the first FIFA Peace Prize to President Trump and then in the next breath saying that politics and soccer don't mix. You can't equate the two. So FIFA are very hot, for example, on what flags you can bring into a World cup stadium. So they're saying that because politics and soccer don't mix, you couldn't bring in an Iranian flag that reflected the old regime, but at the same time, they can give a Peace Prize to the President of the United States. It's again, that sort of lack of transparency and clear, clear rules. It does feel like it's one rule for one person and one for another.
- [18:31]
Dave Davies
So I suppose those controversies and as well as the high ticket prices are contributing to the fact that hotel reservations are right.
- [18:40]
Laura Williamson
Yes. Yeah. I think another factor as well is travel transport to the games itself. We've covered this extensively because, again, from a sort of British perspective, if you like, of being able to get a five pound ticket to get a bus or a train to a stadium, etc. The idea of being charged, I think it's $80 to get from Boston to Foxborough, actually Scotland, have a game, have a game there. Or it's now down in inverted commas from $150 to $98 to get from Penn Station to MetLife. And you have to pre book as well. That's again, another cost that people are just not prepared to pay. And I think when you package all of that together, visas, tickets, hotel prices, sort of the image of America geopolitically and globally, the cost of actually getting to the games, then we haven't even talked about water. We've had the Watergate scandal this week. I think it is off putting for a lot of people.
- [19:45]
Dave Davies
Yeah, the Watergate thing was it's not water. The FIFA originally said people could bring empty bottles, transparent water bottles in to get them filled at coolers. Then they reversed themselves and then they reversed the reversal. Right. So now you can bring a water
- [19:59]
Laura Williamson
bottle, you can not to the stadiums in Mexico, but you can into the US and Canada up to I think 20 ounces, sort of soft plastic bottles, which I think has been a relief for lots of people because another thing we haven't mentioned is the heat, the games, especially in the latter stages, you know, the final kicks off at 3pm local time, which it will either storm or it will be, you know, burning hot. So absolutely, fans need need to have water, as do the players, of course.
- [20:33]
Dave Davies
We're going to take another break here. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with Laura Williamson. She is editor in chief at the Athletic. She'll be back to talk more after this short break. I'm Dave Davies and this is FRESH air.
- [20:46]
NPR Sponsor/Announcer
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- [21:35]
Dave Davies
The United States under the Trump administration has required bonds from $500 up to $15,000 for travelers from some countries to post when entering the United States to ensure that they won't remain there illegally. And the administration has waived those bonds for those coming to the World cup, provided they bought their ticket by April 15 and entered the FIFA pass system. So not just anybody, right?
- [22:01]
Laura Williamson
That's it. That's it. And I think some of the reporting around that change in, in the rules was confusing as well, because it was like, oh, you know, with their wit, they've waived all the bonds. No, no, they haven't. Like you had to sign up for the FIFA pass scheme, which was supposed to basically enable you to book embassy appointments, etc. And help with the visa scheduling process. You had to have done that and have bought a match ticket by April 15th. Now, some countries didn't qualify until three weeks earlier, three weeks before that. So there will be lots and lots of people who have been affected by this.
- [22:41]
Dave Davies
You know, we've talked about some of the difficulties with ticket prices, with immigration issues. There's also just getting to the game when if you're in the right city and you have a hotel booked. And in the past World Cups, host countries have invested a lot in getting fans to and from matches. I mean, I read that In Russia in 2018, there were long distance trains to get people from one Russian city to another that were no charge. What was it like when you were in Qatar for the last World Cup?
- [23:11]
Laura Williamson
It was, it was totally and utterly different because all those games really were within one city. You wouldn't be able to see all of it. But in theory, if you wanted to, you could go to four games in a day by getting the air conditioned. Very clean, very efficient, very free train system between the two, their version of a subway. Whereas here, because it is so spread out over 16 host cities and three countries, all of which are almost like their own little kingdoms, if you like, they've all signed individual contracts with FIFA. So there's all different rules all over the place. It's going to be completely different. And also I think because of the. One of FIFA's things is about the naming of stadiums. So you can't have commercial names in stadium titles. So MetLife is MetLife to so many people. But it will be New York, NJ Stadium for the duration of this World Cup.
- [24:10]
Dave Davies
This World cup comes at a time when there is an Ebola outbreak in at least two African countries. There are travel restrictions in the United States from some of those countries, including Congo, which is sending a team to the tournament and I think has a base in Houston. How much of a concern, how much of disruption might this cause to World cup matches?
- [24:33]
Laura Williamson
The answer is we don't know. Again, so it's a huge unknown in terms of. I mean, fans. You would think fans actually coming from Congo will be very, very, very limited because of the reasons we've discussed, and the health measures around the team itself will be incredibly tight. But it's another factor that, of course, is very concerning and another thing for people to think about.
- [25:05]
Dave Davies
Security is always a challenge at these things. And, you know, it's interesting that two years ago at the Copa America cup final in Florida, some fans actually stormed the stadium. It was quite a chaotic scene. Do you have any sense of what special security measures might be undertaken in these World cup matches?
- [25:28]
Laura Williamson
I was at that final and actually my children and my dad were there as well. It was very, very scary in terms of it happened, I think, because fans left it as they're allowed to. They left it late to get into the stadium and then a crush developed and the reaction was to shut the gates, which just meant people had nowhere to go. And the kickoff was delayed and it was very scary. Very scary. I think FIFA would say that, well, that wasn't our tournament. We didn't run that operation. It will be very different at the World cup, and I do think it will be in terms of the perimeter, sort of the outside boundary of the stadiums is quite a long way away from the actual bowl, which will sort of help the flow of people, which is often where problems occur. We've seen it here, for example, at the Stade de France with the Champions League final, the European Championship a couple of years ago, with crush is developing as people get there late, but I think the wider surface area will definitely help there. I think there's going to be security issues about what people are bringing into stadiums, in terms of flags and political banners and slogans and things like that. That was a huge issue in Qatar with people wanting to bring flags, protesting about human rights, etcetera, into stadiums and getting them taken off them or denied entry. I think we'll see that on a different level at this tournament. And then in terms of general public safety. I've been reading about some action on drones and the use of drones above stadiums, and that's, again, a bit of an unknown. We don't know what's going to happen there, but I do think the sort of flow of people, if you like, in terms of their physical safety, that we'll be as well prepared as we possibly can be because of the large distance outside the stadiums and then trying to communicate to people to get there early, et cetera, too.
- [27:40]
Dave Davies
The United States is at war with Iran. The Iranian team is being allowed to come, right?
- [27:47]
Laura Williamson
Yes, yes. We actually sent a reporter to Turkey to see them off, if you like. They had a pre tournament training camp there. They flew to Mexico just over the border from the U.S. they landed there in the early hours of Sunday morning and then they're still waiting on visas to get into the US to play their games. There have been reports that they will ostensibly only be allowed day passes, so they have to go into the US and then leave again. So it's very, very fraught. And also we're hearing, I mean, we would hear this because there's a travel ban, but a lot of dissident fans who are anti the regime and have lived outside of Iran for a long time have been denied their visas to get into the United States. So it will be very much reliant on the Iranian diasporas, particularly in Los Angeles, to support their team however they see fit.
- [28:48]
Dave Davies
I want to get this straight. You and I are speaking on Monday. Are you saying that the Iranian team is not actually in the United States yet?
- [28:55]
Laura Williamson
No, no, they're still in Mexico and they're still awaiting visa clearance to travel into the United States to play their games.
- [29:03]
Dave Davies
And I understand the State Department refused entry to certain members of the staff for the team, letting the players in, but not all of the staff, is that right?
- [29:12]
Laura Williamson
Yes, that's right. This goes back to a women's tournament, actually, which was in Australia a few months ago. And we did a lot of reporting around the fact that security personnel attached to the regime had travelled with the team to make sure they didn't abscond. And in fact, Australia ended up offering refuge, but the vast majority returned to Iran with the team. So that's the explanation for certain members of the backroom staff being denied entry because it's unclear whether they are there for performance reasons or whether they are representative of the regime.
- [29:52]
Dave Davies
We're going to take another break here. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with Laura Williamson. She is editor in chief at the Athletic. We will continue our conversation in just a moment. This is FRESH air.
- [30:02]
NPR Sponsor/Announcer
This message comes from Cachava. It can be tough to stick to your wellness routine, especially when you're on the go. Cachava's new travel packs make it easier. Just one packet provides nutrition ready for wherever life takes you with protein, fiber, greens, probiotics, electrolytes and more. Take your daily ritual with you. Go to cachava.com, and use code NPR. New customers get 15% off their first order. That's K-A C-H-A-V-A.com code NPR.
- [30:34]
Laura Williamson
Each story you hear on Planet Money starts with a what happens if we refund tariffs? Why are groceries so expensive? At NPR we stand for your right to be curious because the forces shaping our world can be hard to see. Follow NPR's Planet Money wherever you get your podcasts and start seeing how the economy really works.
- [30:57]
Dave Davies
Laura Williamson, I don't know if you follow mixed martial arts much, but not closely. But we'll go this is going to be quite an event here. I mean, this structure has been built on the lawn of the White House. And President Trump, it's going to be his birthday, it's going to be Flag Day, and there's going to be this Ultimate Fighting Championship. You know, American presidents have traditionally met to congratulate, you know, championship sports teams at the college level, the pro level, occasionally attend big games. Is there any precedent for something like this?
- [31:30]
Laura Williamson
I mean, what is it, 600 ton steel arch on the south lawn? It feels a little bit different to Obama. President Obama going to watch an NBA game, doesn't it?
- [31:42]
Ken Tucker
Yeah.
- [31:43]
Laura Williamson
I mean, it's, yeah, quite a weekend. I think we're expecting President Trump at the US Opening game on Friday as well and then this shindig on the White House lawn on Sunday.
- [31:54]
Dave Davies
Donald Trump has a history with mixed martial arts, doesn't he?
- [31:58]
Laura Williamson
He does. Also, I think has recently invested in UFC's parent company as well, which brings an added dimension to hosting an event with such premium ticket prices as well, I think.
- [32:12]
Dave Davies
Well, yeah, let's talk about that directly. You the Athletic reported on this. A few weeks after this Ultimate Fighting Championship on the White House lawn was announced, Donald Trump bought a substantial amount of stock. He was required to report this. So we don't know the exact amount, but it was between 15,000 and 50,000 stock into TKO holdings, which is the parent company of the Ultimate Fighting Championships. What's the significance of this?
- [32:40]
Laura Williamson
I think when you look at this event, and again, we've been talking about ticket prices, I think premium ticket tickets for this UFC event are sort of a million dollars a pop at the very highest level. So who is profiting from that would be my question. And is it the holding group in which Mr. Trump has recently invested? I think that it sort of invites further questions about why this event is being held and where the money's going.
- [33:10]
Dave Davies
So a potential conflict of interest if there's an event on a public space that he's profiting from. Now, a lawsuit was filed just over the weekend asking a judge to halt this event. What do we know about that?
- [33:26]
Laura Williamson
The suit is ostensibly saying, as. As we've just mentioned, that it's this a conflict of interest. It's saying that it's giving the chief executive of ufc, Dana White unfettered access to the White House and the Lincoln Memorial where the. The weigh ins are going to be held before the event to stage for profit sports event. Yeah, obviously it's in such a public and prestigious area. So that's the main tenement of the lawsuit.
- [33:57]
Dave Davies
You know, before I let you go, you know, at the Athletic you have all these veteran sports journalists, huge staff who do great work. I mean, a lot of good analytical stuff. And I imagine a lot of these sports journalists got into the field because they were either athletes themselves or just loved sports. And they liked to write about the players and the teams and the competition. But you know, sports is such a big business now and the drive for profits affects competition. I wonder if you wrestle at times with how to, you know, apportion your reporting resources to covering the athletic competition or the business of sports.
- [34:36]
Laura Williamson
Yeah, we do. I think, I think about that a lot actually, because I think ultimately I want our reporters to tell people things they don't know about whatever it is they care about. And sport and culture and business and politics are so entwined now, so interspersed. So I do feel we have our duty really to explore all avenues of that football. Soccer is not just now about what happens in 90 minutes on the pitch. Some of our most popular pieces might be about player salaries, for example, or trades or transfers, and who's going where and the intrigue around that. I sort of think back to the last World cup as well. One of our most successful pieces was about Lionel Messi, the Argentina and Inter Miami Strikers relationship with Saudi Arabia. And of course it helped that Saudi Arabia had a shock win against Argentina. So people were interested around that. But the piece wasn't about the sport at all. It was about his sponsorship deals and how he danced this dance with a Middle Eastern state, ostensibly. And it was hugely popular because people want to know about the whole player in the round, not just what they can do with a football at their feet. So I often think back to that and that's been a real tenement of our planning for this tournament in that we we do want to deliver comprehensive coverage. And that doesn't just mean every game live and the focus on the bigger players. It means rigorous reporting around the biggest stories. And those sort of those topics that take us away from the pitch are just as important really. But then the other thing is that sport is supposed to be fun. I'm often telling reporters that, that it can be a release as well. So I think we have to remember that. Going back to my answer right at the beginning about the D that a World cup tournament can bring, we have to remember that. And we have to remember that because of the reasons we've discussed today, so many people won't be able to go. They'll be viewing this through their television screens, through their radios, etc. So we have to take them there. We have to tell them what it's like, good and bad, really.
- [37:05]
Dave Davies
So are you going to be attending any World cup matches yourself?
- [37:09]
Laura Williamson
I am. I fly out on Wednesday for a couple of weeks, based in New York City, so hoping to get some games at MetLife. And I come back to the UK and then out again for the last 10 days or so. So again hoping to get to the final.
- [37:23]
Dave Davies
Are you picking your games based on the competing teams? Just getting a sense of it. I mean, are you there as a journalist or a fan or what?
- [37:30]
Laura Williamson
Oh, very much as a journalist. But sadly, the role of an editor is just to tell other people what to do rather than go experience the joy of World cup matches myself.
- [37:40]
Dave Davies
Well, Laura Williamson, thank you so much for speaking with us.
- [37:44]
Laura Williamson
Absolute pleasure. Thank you.
- [37:46]
Dave Davies
Laura Williamson is editor in chief at the Athletic from the New York Times. We recorded our interview yesterday. Coming up, rock critic Ken Tucker reviews a new album from Casey Musgraves and a recent biography of the 1970s era singer Gary Stewart. This is FRESH AIR.
- [38:03]
NPR Sponsor/Announcer
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- [38:34]
Laura Williamson
Hey, it's Robin Hilton from NPR Music
- [38:36]
NPR Sponsor/Announcer
with some big news for everyone who
- [38:38]
Laura Williamson
loves the Tiny Desk.
- [38:39]
NPR Sponsor/Announcer
We're giving away a trip trip to
- [38:41]
Laura Williamson
D.C. to see a Tiny Desk concert
- [38:43]
Narrator/Reviewer
in person, hotel and flights included.
- [38:46]
NPR Sponsor/Announcer
Learn more and enter for free@NPR.org TinyDeskGiveAway. No purchase or donation required for entry. Must be 18 years or older to enter. Links to the entry page and official
- [38:55]
Laura Williamson
rules can be found at npr.org tinydeskgiveaway
- [38:58]
Dave Davies
Our rock critic Ken Tucker has something new and something old for us. There's the new album from one of country music's biggest stars, Casey Musgrave. Ken thinks the best songs on her new album, Middle of Nowhere, have the dramatic detail of good fiction. He's also here to praise a recently published book, Jimmy McDonough's biography of the 1970s era singer Gary Stewart called I Am from the Honky Tonks. It's a lengthy portrait of a gifted but tragic performer, something old, something new. Let's start with Casey Musgraves.
- [39:34]
Laura Williamson
Out there on the edge of the world Way past Common Sense Fence Pass, the Dairy Queen, the county line where there ain't any fences. Gonna find my own peace I wanna
- [39:58]
Ken Tucker
be somewhere in the middle of no where
- [40:06]
Narrator/Reviewer
the conventional framing of Kacey Musgrave's recent career is that she went pop for a few years on a couple of albums and now is returning to country music with Middle of Nowhere. But the Texas twang in her yearning, searching voice has always remained rooted in country's deep melancholy. One of the best moments on this album occurs on the song Back on the Wagon, whose lyric is upbeat and optimistic. The guy she loves has gotten sober and responsible. The two of them are planning a new, cloudless future, but Musgrave's vocal carries all the feelings the lyric suppresses. You can hear the worry and doubt in her voice. She wants to believe he's changed, but she can't help but wonder, has he really? Can I go through all that pain again? The tension between voice and words creates an entire vivid short story in under four minutes.
- [41:02]
Laura Williamson
He was out of his mind on the 4th of July and I knew that I should let him go Then
- [41:11]
Ken Tucker
he spent all our money and he thought it was funny but he came
- [41:16]
Laura Williamson
home with nothing to show oh my
- [41:20]
Ken Tucker
God it hurt me that time at the derby When I found him passed
- [41:26]
Laura Williamson
out on the floor But I saw him last night he said he's found
- [41:32]
Ken Tucker
the light he's different than he was
- [41:35]
Laura Williamson
before he's back on the wagon
- [41:41]
Ken Tucker
he's
- [41:41]
Narrator/Reviewer
my new Middle of Nowhere is an uneven album, sometimes succumbing to the kind of false hope that Back on the Wagon is too honest to claim. Profound sadness and extravagant schmaltz characterize the music of Gary Stewart, the country cult figure who died in 2003. Stewart's voice was an emotional rumble that rose into a keening high tenor in moments of exquisite pain, as on the title song of his extraordinary 1975 album, out of Hand.
- [42:12]
Ken Tucker
I never intended Even know your name except for the woman waiting at home They've all been the same I've always been true except for you not even a one night stand and I never intended for it to get so out of hand out of hand, out of hand I'm a hard living kind of man need more to keep me going than this gold.
- [43:07]
Narrator/Reviewer
Gary Stewart's life was out of hand, to put it mildly. The new biography by Jimmy McDonough called called I Am from the Honky Tonks spends more than 500 pages chronicling Stewart's wild life and times. Born poor into a large Kentucky family in 1944, Stewart idolized Hank Williams, had quit school and was playing in bands by his mid teens. Pretty soon, his distinctive voice and the cleverly precise details in his songwriting caught the attention of Nashville stars like Mel Tillet, who provided an entree into the industry early on. In the book, McDonough sets up what would be the detail that sets Gary Stewart's life apart from so many performers. Time and again, writes McDonough, Gary would stress to me he never went looking for stardom, never went knocking on doors, never begged anyone to listen to his demos. McDonough's book then chronicles the way others pushed Stewart to record the wonderfully agonized ballads he wrote and insisted that he submit to the Nashville star maker machinery. For a short while, it worked.
- [44:15]
Ken Tucker
I've seen men look at her before and they think I don't see I'd like to think it makes me proud but I'm always fooling I know she be looking bad the minute I'm not there While she pours herself on some stranger I pour myself a drink Somewhere she's acting Single I'm drinking double I hide my pain I drown my troubles My heart is breaking
- [45:13]
Narrator/Reviewer
that's she's actin Single I'm drinkin Doubles, Stewart's only number one hit. Stewart liked to play music, but the smaller the crowd, he thought, the better he'd be able to connect to an audience. As the years went by, his ambivalence towards celebrity became a dark resentment. He shunned interviews, lost record contracts. Lots of drugs were consumed to numb it all. Stewart died by suicide at age 59. Here's Bob Dylan's favorite Gary Stewart song
- [45:45]
Ken Tucker
you'd never know by looking. We were ever more than strangers, but we're celebrating 10 years of wedding bliss. She made the rounds as usual while I set heads down as usual. Lord, I can't believe we survived 10 years of this. Ten years together, a million nights alone,
- [46:38]
Narrator/Reviewer
A half century in the making. I Am from the Honky Tonks is a lot more than the biography of a cult artist. It's a vast, tumultuous portrait of 20th century Southern working class life. I think a history minded artist like Casey Musgraves would really like this book. I hope she and you read it.
- [46:58]
Dave Davies
Kentucker reviewed new music by Casey Musgraves and a biography of Gary Stewart called I Am from the Honky Tonks. On tomorrow's show we speak with actor Josh o'. Connor. He won an Emmy playing a young Prince Charles in the Crown. Now he's the lead in Steven Spielberg's new film Disclosure Day. We'll talk about his approach in this new blockbuster and Spielberg's decades long exploration of the idea that aliens are among us. I hope you can join us.
- [47:37]
Ken Tucker
The Banjis stop playing this sweep and the floor.
- [47:45]
Dave Davies
Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krentzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly CV Ness. Roberta Shorrock directs the show for Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley. I'm Dave Davies.
- [48:13]
NPR Sponsor/Announcer
This message comes from Cachava. It can be tough to stick to your wellness routine, especially when you're on the go. Cachava's new travel packs make it easier. Just one packet provides nutrition ready for wherever life takes you with protein, fiber, grains, probiotics, electrolytes and more. Take your daily ritual with you. Go to kachava.com and use code NPR. New customers get 15% off their first order. That's K A C H-A V A.com, code NPR.
- [48:45]
Laura Williamson
This week on sources and methods.
- [48:47]
NPR Sponsor/Announcer
President Trump says he told Benjamin Netanyahu, you're effing crazy.
- [48:51]
Laura Williamson
Is the president running out of patience with Israel?
- [48:53]
NPR Sponsor/Announcer
I mean, I do think Trump and
- [48:55]
Dave Davies
the White House need Netanyahu.
- [48:57]
NPR Sponsor/Announcer
They need Israel to have a lasting deal with Iran. We understand impact the week's biggest national security news on sources and methods. Listen on the NPR app or wherever
- [49:06]
Laura Williamson
you get your podcasts.