Sports in the City — For Economy or Community?
To Oakland soccer coach Dania Cabello, playing sports is an act of “joyful resistance,” an empowering expression of freedom and agency. And in rooting for a team, strangers can turn into friends. But despite the benefits, the economics of sports can divide communities into winners and losers. At the Roxie theater, SF Urban Film Fest presented a series of short films and a panel discussion about how sports can change cities, for better or worse. The big question of the night: how can local and professional sports level the playing field, and positively impact lower income populations?
White Elephants, by architect Avni Shah (it’s her first film), explores the impact of the 2010 FIFA World Cup on its host country, South Africa. Interviews with locals show how the cup brought pride, unity, and foreign capital to the nation, but left behind failed businesses, economic inequality, and a lot of empty stadiums. Short-term jobs evaporated and opportunistic entrepreneurs went bankrupt after the “week long party” was over. FIFA required expensive infrastructure improvements in Cape Town, which meant that resources were diverted from struggling townships. And the costly new stadiums now lose money at a rate of $7M a year, unable to fill the seats to anywhere near their World Cup capacity (which is demoralizing for the local teams, too).
While White Elephants explored the economic and social impact of sports at the largest scale, the next two films focused on the personal stories of underprivileged youth in the Bay Area. City Surf Project, by Oscar Guerra, documents the work of a local organization to bring surfing to kids who don’t fit the sport’s white, wealthy stereotype. City Surf Project picks kids up from school and takes them to the waves. Beyond teaching respect for nature, a healthy lifestyle, and commitment to growth, “surfing gives you that feeling of being stoked,” says executive director Johnny Irwin. He wants every kid to experience that, not just the ones whose families can afford to live by the beach.
In Futbolistas 4 Life, filmmaker Jun Stinson follows the soccer program at Life Academy in Oakland, where most of the students are on subsidized lunch plans and there are memorials in the hallways for victims of gun violence. Coach Dania Cabello came to the U.S. as a refugee from Chile when she was young and went on to play professionally; a mentor and role-model for the students, she teaches that soccer is about freely expressing yourself. Filmed over several years, Futbolistas shows the high schoolers gaining their footing in their lives off the field. We meet a hardworking boy planning for his future despite being undocumented, and a bright girl battling anxiety and healing her relationships with her parents. The kids teach Dania something when they start raising money for a soccer field for their school, which at first just sounds like a cute idea. Dania ends up humbled and inspired: the team wins a grant and the city government’s support, enabling Life Academy to build the first soccer field in Fruitvale, serving more than 1,000 kids.
For the evening’s panel discussion, the three directors and Dania Cabello took the stage. The moderator was Theo Ellington, who has a master’s in urban planning from USF and was until recently the director of public affairs for the Golden State Warriors. When the discussion touched on the need to hold professional sports accountable for giving back, Ellington recalled their work refurbishing local basketball courts; for their upcoming move to SF, he understood the plan was to invest in education and provide real jobs. From Cabello’s perspective, in Oakland, “[The Warriors and Raiders] were situated here for how many decades…yet there was very little if any trickle into the community in terms of jobs.” There seems to be an opportunity for organizations like the Warriors to learn how to better support their cities (and for what not to do, see White Elephants).
Finally, the panelists discussed storytelling and filmmaking. “I try to listen more than I say. I try to understand the voice of the participants,” said Oscar Guerra, whose students at SF State helped him make City Surf Project. It sounded like a good philosophy, on and off the field.
Dive into the panel discussion:
This event took place on November 14, 2018 at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco, and was co-presented by Women’s Sports Film Festival and Oakland Street Stylers. For more information about SF Urban Film Fest, visit their website.
