Sports used to unite us. We can rethink them so they do it again

As the World Cup arrives in the U.S. at a moment of peak division, people who still believe in the civic potential of sports have a narrow window to act to reclaim their purpose.

[Images: Adobe Stock]

BY Sebastian Buck and Mike Geddes

Every institution was once a design decision. Pierre de Coubertin didn’t stumble into the creation of the modern Olympic Games, he painstakingly designed them around a clear civic purpose: that sports could model fair play, international respect, and the ethics of effort over victory.

Within two years of proposing a reestablishment of the ancient games, he convened leaders from around the world to codesign the International Olympic Committee; that first Olympic Congress led to the first modern games in Athens in 1896. Eight........

© Fast Company