Russians in the sports world are doing PR for Putin’s war machine

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After decades spent analogizing sport to war, it’s difficult to avoid turning the formula around when confronted by the real thing.

If war is like sport, the first thing you should do is get some comment at intermission from someone in the game. So everyone rushed over to hear what Alex Ovechkin had to say. Of all the Russians who’ve been integrated into the western sports system over the past 30 years, he is both the most famous and the most Russian.

“Hard situation,” Ovechkin said of the invasion of Ukraine. “It’s tough to see the war. I hope soon it’s going to be over and there’s gonna be peace in the whole world.”

This sounds a lot like Ovechkin circa 2017. Shortly after he declared himself “PutinTeam” on Instagram, the same sort of questions were put to him.

“I don’t know what’s happening out there,” Ovechkin said back then. “I know it’s a hard situation, but it is what it is.”

Because people bit on it at the time, who could blame him for trying the same head fake again? Ovechkin the politician is a lot like Ovechkin the player – a well-drilled, dispassionate professional.

However, he was very briefly caught out this time around. When asked if he still supports Vladimir Putin, Ovechkin began, “Well, he’s my president …”

Not “the” president. “My” president. You wouldn’t find too many people in this country who’d drop a reference to “my” prime minister. Which may be in part why we’re not given to casual invasions.

But that’s too complicated an idea for a story on the sports wire, so instead the interaction was sold with a simpler headline.

“Alex Ovechkin calls for peace: ‘No more war’” was what ran on ESPN and just about everywhere else.

No, that’s definitely not what he did. He did say those words. But he wasn’t calling on anyone to do anything. He was speaking of war the way one might the weather – as something that just sort of happens and, hopefully, blows over in a few days.

This type of mealy-mouthed nonsense (”I am for Comrade X, though I can’t say I know anything about what he does”) wouldn’t work in most arenas of life. But it does in sports. Based on social-media reaction, the majority opinion of fans was, “Leave the poor guy alone. He’s just a hockey player.”

Now we’re beginning to see why Russia prioritizes sports. The combination of a supine press, a highly invested customer base and the collective historical intelligence of a box of hammers make it the perfect place to do agit-prop.

When the Cold War was running hot, there were no Russians inside the western sports infrastructure. If you heard the term “Russian athlete”, you thought of gymnasts or weightlifters. You didn’t know anything about them. You didn’t hear them speak. You couldn’t care less what they thought.

Now Russians are fully absorbed in the sports end of the cultural hive mind. They are fun (Ovechkin), kooky (Daniil Medvedev), glamorous (Maria Sharapova) and ass-kickers of the highest order (Khabib Nurmagomedov). Russians may not be hosting the biggest events any time soon, but they still play in the biggest leagues and own the biggest teams.

Faced with widespread disgust, Russian sports interests have entered a phase of retrenchment. Everyone is pulling from the Ovechkin playbook – look sad; speak in weasel words; when in doubt, John Lennon lyrics are your best bet.

When tennis star Andrey Rublev wrote “No war please” on a postmatch camera lens instead of putting the usual signature, it was greeted in the west like a revolutionary act. It wasn’t. It was smart PR.

In his comments on the war, Rublev sounds a lot like Ovechkin: “We should take care of our earth and each other. That is the most important thing.”

The world’s most famous Russian-owned asset – Chelsea Football Club – tried a similar tack.

Referencing the “situation” in Ukraine, the club put out a 24-word statement, which read in part: “Everyone in the club is praying for peace.” No mention was made of Russia or invasions.

This one didn’t go over as well. Maybe it’s because people feel no loyalty to LLCs or the fact that the club is owned by a notorious oligarch who famously lives in Putin’s pocket.

So further measures were required. The oligarch – Roman Abramovich – announced a day later that he is transferring “stewardship” of the club to his own charitable foundation.

What does that change? Nothing. Instead of owning a thing (the soccer club), Abramovich now owns a thing that owns that thing. It’s still ownership.

But once again, that’s too complex an idea for the sports ticker. ESPN, again: “Abramovich gives trustees Chelsea stewardship.”

Second time’s the charm.

In recent years, we have discussed the idea of sports washing as a function of big events. You want to seem cuddly to the rest of the world? Buy an Olympics.

But that overlooked the more obvious way of laundering a national image through sports – buy and sell wholesale. Trust the market to absorb your top players, and then trust those players to protect your image by protecting their own. Encourage the billionaires you created to buy influence not by taking over banks, but by assuming control of struggling sports franchises.

The beauty of this system – it doesn’t cost the state a nickel, and it requires no oversight. Human nature does that for you.

What’s Ovechkin’s goal in all this? Making sure he is still paid millions to play hockey in the United States. How does he do that? By being as boring as possible. How do you bore in this instance? Talk about world peace.

Whether you believe him, you are hard-coded to empathize with Ovechkin. This athlete is being asked to wrangle with issues of life, death and human cruelty – ideas that are well above his pay grade. As long as he doesn’t come out waving a hammer and sickle, people will give him a sympathetic hearing. They’ve known him for years. He always seemed like a good guy.

That’s how the investment pays off. Every Russian in the sports world currently being asked to account for him or herself is, wittingly or not, doing PR for Putin’s war machine.

It took 30 years to integrate that system. You can cancel all the Formula 1 races you want. Short of a purge, disintegrating it is no longer possible.