Toky-no? & Our uncertain Olympic future.

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where this week the Games of the XXXII Olympiad, more commonly referred to as the 2020 (2021?) Summer Olympics are underway, and your hosts are here to break down many of the major themes enveloping the events through a political and social lens. Ed frames the conversation around a terrific piece written on these games that asks a number of questions: what is the world doing in a country wishing they had never bid for these games in the first place? How does the United States leave home a premier sprinter for a positive marijuana test and in turn endorse CBD training supplements? How do we reckon the long-term kleptocracy of the governing bodies overseeing these games and our patronage of said spectacle? And perhaps most importantly, what does the future hold for the Olympic Games going forward and their very existence? But as we do in this space, the rants lead us in; as Andrew examines the Woodstock ’99 music festival with a focus on the machinations that made the festivities the horror-show they were and how little we’ve learned as a country now over two decades later; Zak surveys the pissing contest between a pair of very public billionaire "entrepreneurs” following the culmination of their latest high-profile vanity projects, while asking why exactly we should actually care; and finally Ed puts England’s PM’s feet to the fire in the wake of his half-assed effort to assuage the despicable racial backlash hurled upon black English footballers following Euro 2020’s (2021?) finale.