Global Sport Lab

Nothing captures the range of global human experience like sport. Every game, goal, over, inning, point and match happens in a historical, environmental, political, cultural and economic context.

Global Sport Lab

In anticipation of the world’s largest sporting event arriving in Seattle in 2026 – The Men’s FIFA World Cup, The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies and our partners have created the Global Sport Lab.

The Global Sport Lab aims to provide students and the public opportunities to learn about global sport and global connections through the expertise of our faculty, staff, guest speakers and community engagements. The Lab uses the lens of sport to explore the big challenges of our global world, such as inequity, politics, injustice, human rights, popular culture, democracy and the economy.

For UW students, the Lab will work to support and highlight courses covering a range of regional and disciplinary perspectives on global sport. For Jackson School majors, that course of study can culminate in a global sport centered capstone – a policy oriented Task Force, Advanced Reading or Public Writing seminar. Public audiences are invited to join us in our Global Sport lecture series.  At the Jackson School, opportunities and events are open to all eligible persons regardless of race, sex or other identity. We will feature scholars, policymakers and public figures from the sporting world able to put Seattle’s World Cup moment in global perspective.

Latest news

Explore the 2026 UW Summer Institute for Arts & Humanities via this Q&A: UW Bothell professor Ron Krabill combines soccer and scholarship. (UW News, June 9, 2026)

Listen to a Football Scholars Forum podcast about the World Cup: The Syllabus, a free digital resource to help people learn about the history, politics, and culture of both the men’s and women’s competitions. The conversation features Ron Krabill, Pavandeep Singh Josan, and Emilia Flores of the University of Washington’s Global Sport Lab in discussion with the organizer of the Football Scholars Forum, a group of authors, professors, graduate students, journalists, players, coaches, and fans who come together on a regular basis to discuss soccer scholarship in a friendly online setting. (Podcast recorded June 4, 2026)

Ron Krabill and the Global Sport Lab are featured in an article titled, “More than a game: How Soccer Became a Seattle Research Project.” (Seattle Magazine, June 3, 2026)

A World Affairs Council-Seattle online event featuring Ron Krabill, Director of the Global Sport Lab, in a June 2 panel discussion on Global Stage: Sport, Influence, and the Politics of Mega-Events.

Interested in learning more about the politics and history of the World Cup? Learn about the Global Sport Lab’s World Cup: The Syllabus initiative and more in “New UW resource explores the politics and culture behind the World Cup.” (UW News, May 22, 2026)

Watch or listen to a recording of “Five Ways to Watch the World Cup,” an event featuring UW Global Sport Lab Director Ron Krabill. (Town Hall Seattle, May 19, 2026)

The World (Cup) Comes to Seattle: Spring Speaker Series

World Cup: The Syllabus

  • A free digital resource to help people learn about the history, politics, and culture of the men’s and women’s tournaments organized by FIFA since 1930

HomeFields

  • Stories of grassroots soccer – individuals, clubs and neighborhoods – in the Puget Sound region through the lens of political, social, cultural, and intersectional perspectives on sport

UW Global Sport Lab Podcast on SoundCloud

(ep.13) We are Zoorkhaneh: Building Community through Ancient Persian Sport

Farnoush Djavaheripour is one of the only women who teaches the ancient Persian sport and practice of Zoorkhaneh (also known as Pahlavāni). Restricted to men within Iran, Djavaheripour is extending the practice to both diasporic and women and gender expansive communities alongside UW graduate student Sara Modjib Shirazi, who has founded a new non-profit called “We are Zoorkhaneh.” They share both their vision and the obstacles they face in conversation with Ron Krabill, Director of the Global Sport Lab.

(ep.12): The FIFA Men’s World Cups: A Political History

Three pre-eminent historians of global football in the francophone world – Paul Dietschy, professor of contemporary history at the University of Marie and Louis Pasteur and editor of the French journal Football(s): History, Culture, Economy, Society; Stéphane Mourlane, lecturer in modern history and deputy director of the Mediterranean Institute of Social and Human Sciences at Aix-Marseille University; and Yvan Gastaut, lecturer in contemporary history at the University of Côte d’Azur – join Ron Krabill, Director, Global Sport Lab, to discuss why the World Cup has always been political, and how those politics have played out across nearly a century of men’s world cups.

Listen to more episodes

Global Sport Lab Email: globalsportlab@uw.edu

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Summer 2026

  • Seattle’s World Cup: Storytelling Through Community Mapping

Summer Institute in the Arts & Humanities (SIAH) World Cup Project is co-sponsored by the Office of Undergraduate Research and the Simpson Center for the Humanities. More information at the webpage HERE.   Application CLOSED 

Autumn 2026 course offerings

Give now

  • The Global Sport Lab is an initiative of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, but it is a collective effort with units across all three UW campuses. The initiative is comprised of four areas of focus: teaching, research, community engagement and public programming in recognition that sports is an entry point for asking the most important political, social, and economic questions facing

Forthcoming Public Lectures