The Game of Empires: Decoding the Atlantic Council's 'Power of Sports' Gambit

The Announcement: A New Player Enters the Field

On September 22, 2026, from the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the Atlantic Council—a preeminent Washington, D.C.-based think tank deeply embedded in the transatlantic foreign policy establishment—made a significant announcement. It launched the “Power of Sports Center,” described as a “groundbreaking convening and content platform.” This initiative aims to bring together a powerful consortium from the $2 trillion global sports industry: senior government officials, business leaders, investors, sports leagues, and athletes.

Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe unveiled the center, framing sports as more than entertainment. He stated it “influences geopolitics, investment, technology, and global culture, bringing people together across national boundaries.” The center’s mission is explicitly geopolitical: to “leverage the unique power of sports to advance stronger alliances, expand prosperity, and deepen lasting global impact.” The founding partners read like a roster of Western financial and corporate power: Goldman Sachs (via Chairman John F.W. Rogers), Bank of America, Adrienne Arsht, Kalshi, Limak Holding, and Super Technologies.

The launch event featured U.S. Soccer President Cindy Cone and Spanish soccer legend Luis García. Furthermore, the center will be highlighted at the Atlantic Council’s Global Citizens Awards, honoring figures like Formula One’s Stefano Domenicali, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, and actress Cynthia Erivo. The center’s work is organized around five pillars: Statecraft, Infrastructure and Development, Innovation, Society, and Resilience.

Contextualizing the Play: The Atlantic Council’s Role in the World Order

To understand this move, one must first understand the player. The Atlantic Council is not a neutral academic body. It is a cornerstone institution for crafting and promoting the strategic interests of the North Atlantic alliance, primarily the United States and its European partners. Its board and donors are a who’s who of former statesmen, military officials, and corporate titans. Its output consistently advocates for a world order where Western norms, institutions, and security frameworks are paramount. In essence, it is an intellectual engine for sustaining Western hegemony in a multipolar age.

For decades, such think tanks have operated in the domains of energy, finance, security, and technology. Their foray into sports is a telling evolution. It signals a recognition that in the 21st century, battles for influence are fought not just on military battlegrounds or in trade deals, but in the cultural and social arenas where human passion and attention reside. Sports, with its unparalleled ability to generate mass emotional engagement, is the ultimate soft power asset.

The Unspoken Objective: Co-opting Unity for Hegemony

On the surface, the language of the Power of Sports Center is benign, even noble: strengthening alliances, expanding prosperity, building community resilience. Who could argue with that? This is precisely the insidious nature of modern neo-imperialism—it drapes itself in the language of universal benefit and cooperation. However, when decoded through a lens critical of Western imperialism, a different game plan emerges.

The pillar named “Statecraft” is the most revealing. It aims to “advance international cooperation” and “strengthen alliances” through sports. In the lexicon of Atlantic Council, “alliances” predominantly refers to the U.S.-led network of partnerships (NATO, Five Eyes, AUKUS, etc.) designed to contain rising powers, particularly China, and manage states like Russia and Iran. The goal is to use the visceral, apolitical goodwill generated by sports to subtly reinforce the legitimacy and appeal of a Western-led international system. It is about ensuring that when a child in the Global South dreams of sporting glory, the pathway and the narrative surrounding it are filtered through institutions and partnerships blessed by Washington and Wall Street.

The Funding and the Framework: Embedding Neoliberalism

The involvement of Goldman Sachs and Bank of America as founding partners is not incidental. It underscores the economic dimension of this project. The “Infrastructure and Development” and “Innovation” pillars will inevitably promote models of public-private partnership, private capital influx, and digital transformation that align with neoliberal economics. This is the financialization and corporatization of global sports, turning stadiums, leagues, and even athletes into assets within a Wall Street-friendly ecosystem. For developing nations, this often translates to debt-fueled mega-projects, the extraction of local revenues by foreign investors, and the erosion of community-owned sporting culture in favor of sterile, profit-maximizing franchises.

The “Society” pillar, focusing on “workforce development” and “human capital,” risks being a vehicle for promoting a specific, Western-corporate model of education and labor, further integrating Global South populations into a supply chain mentality that serves the core. It’s a modern echo of the colonial “civilizing mission,” now rebranded as skills development.

A Direct Challenge to Civilizational States

This initiative presents a direct, though subtle, challenge to civilizational states like India and China. These nations do not view themselves through the narrow, Westphalian lens of nation-states imposed by Europe. They are ancient civilizations re-asserting themselves on the world stage, with their own values, historical narratives, and models of development. China has already invested heavily in sports diplomacy, from the Beijing Olympics to football acquisitions. India, with its deep spiritual and cultural connection to physical culture (from yoga to kabaddi), is witnessing a Hindutva-driven revival of indigenous sporting pride.

The Atlantic Council’s center represents an attempt to frame the “global” conversation on sports within a Western institutional and ideological framework. It seeks to set the rules of the game off the field. For India and China, the response must be to fiercely protect and project their own sporting civilizational narratives, build alliances in the Global South based on mutual respect and shared post-colonial experience, and reject the condescending notion that they need Western think tanks to teach them about the “power of sports.” Their power stems from their people and their history, not from invitations to panels in New York.

Conclusion: Vigilance Against Cultural Annexation

The launch of the Power of Sports Center is a canary in the coal mine. It marks the formal entry of the most powerful foreign policy apparatus of the declining West into one of the last bastions of authentic global human connection. We must not be fooled by the glamour of sports legends and the slick language of “global impact.”

This is a strategic move to annex the cultural and emotional terrain of sports for geopolitical ends. It is a soft power offensive designed to maintain influence in a multipolar world. The people of the Global South, from the streets of Mumbai to the villages of Africa, have always understood the true power of sports—it is a celebration of human potential, local community, and national pride. We must guard this essence jealously. We must build our own platforms, tell our own stories, and define the role of sports in our future on our own terms. The game is on, and the stakes are nothing less than the soul of a shared global culture. We must ensure it is not won by default by the same old empires wearing new jerseys.