DASH I – Sportswashing Risk
DASH I is Cinderpoint’s way of looking at sportswashing as a structural phenomenon, not a label. It focuses on how powerful states, corporations, or individuals use sport to buy legitimacy they could not obtain elsewhere.
What DASH I actually interrogates
- Dependence. How quickly and how deeply a league, club, or federation becomes reliant on a single actor for money, infrastructure, or political cover.
- Narrative control. Who sets the story of what the competition is “for”, and whose interests that story serves over time.
- Market closure. How alternatives – different sponsors, owners, hosts, or formats – are pushed out so that “there is no alternative”.
- Entry pathways. The mechanisms – sponsorships, hosting rights, minority stakes, advisory roles – used to move from the edge of a sport into its core.
When DASH I is used
- Before major ownership or investment approvals.
- When awarding tournament hosting or race locations with obvious political implications.
- During renegotiation of high-exposure sponsorship, broadcast, or data deals.
- Whenever decision-makers can feel that money and geopolitics are outpacing the sport’s existing governance tools.
What comes out of a DASH I run
- A clear statement of what kind of legitimacy the counterparty is trying to buy.
- Honest scenarios for how dependence could form and what would be lost if the relationship had to be unwound later.
- A set of conditions and non-negotiables that could make the deal survivable – or a grounded basis for walking away.
DASH I does not pretend that sport can be kept pure. It is a way of defending the structure of a competition when powerful actors are trying to bend it to other purposes.