Thanks to You, Investigative Journalism Lives On

Sports Politika's paid subscribers helped fund a long list of investigations, audio series and guest posts during a time when journalism is struggling to stay afloat.

Sports Politika is now read in 120 countries and 49 US states!

Welcome to Sports Politika, a media venture founded by investigative journalist and researcher Karim Zidan that strives to help you understand how sports and politics shape the world around us. Our mission is to offer an independent platform for accessible journalism that raises awareness and empowers understanding.

If you share this vision, please consider supporting us by joining o ur community and becoming a paid subscriber.

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In 2012, back when I used to DJ instead of write for a living, I fell in love with a sport called mixed martial arts. It began with the occasional UFC show at the local bar I frequented with university friends. Then, with each sudden KO or creative submission, an obsession began to grow. I became so engrossed with the sport that I stopped taking club gigs and instead took a decision that would shape the course of my life: I launched a blog.

I knew nothing about journalism (I was studying political science and economics) and even less about running a website. I had no experience writing articles and had never trained in mixed martial arts. Nevertheless, I learned how to use WordPress and started to mimic the layouts and editorial patterns of my favourite websites. I recruited several volunteer writers to cover various topics and issues, including an ER doctor who wrote a monthly column answering reader questions. And I embarked on what continues to be an ongoing journey of discovering my voice as a writer. People took notice and within a couple of years, I had moved onto bigger and better things.

It has been a decade since I shut down my blog. In that time, I traveled the world and discovered the niche that would become the defining characteristic of my investigative journalism: the intersection of sports and politics. As time went on, I achieved all the goals I had set out for myself when I first launched my blog: I became a columnist for The Guardian; I made the front page of The New York Times; I was featured in documentaries for the BBC and HBO, and spoke at Princeton and at a United Nations conference. Yet despite those achievements, the two years I spent running my own blog remain some of the fondest of my career.

I have now been in the journalism field long enough to experience both the incredible highs (play on words intended) and the disappointing lows that have become a hallmark of the last few years in the space. I’ve lost more gigs than I can count and have seen once-viable websites shutter their digital doors. Each new day seems to bring news of additional job cuts in the journalism industry. I was one of those cuts, which led me to launch Sports Politika and resume the once familiar role of running my own independent platform.

Life has a funny way of coming full circle. I began my journey as an independent writer, and here I am once again, back where I started, albeit with the dogged cynicism that comes with time and experience. And though that experience helped shape the site’s editorial choices, it is you who helped make that work possible.

Sports Politika is completely reader-supported. Hundreds of you have contributed to funding the important work published on the site, without which much of that reporting would never have seen the light of day, especially in this current media landscape.

I’ve published more than 100 pieces in 2024, including investigative reports, unique features, essays, and even commissioned two guest posts on Gaza. This is the kind of work your generous support makes possible.

Thanks to you, my investigative reporting lives on.

Investigations:

How a UFC star was banned from entering the United States

Blood, Sweat, Hate: MMA's festering neo-Nazi problem

Israel’s Olympic Soldiers

The Kremlin-backed boxing federation fuelling the Imane Khelif scandal

The Rise and Fall of Khabib Nurmagomedov

How Andrew Tate Profits off MMA and Islam

Features

The Fall of the Golden Knight

Fear and football in Saudi Arabia

Norway’s lonely fight to save football's soul

Steven Seagal and the art of the grift

The politics of yoga

What it costs to bow to Saudi Arabia

Abu Dhabi is betting big on surfing

Essays

When years of journalism disappear in minutes

Moscow terrorist attack rekindles personal reflections from my time in Russia

The story that changed me

On Palestine

The systematic destruction of Gaza's football stadiums

Defying war, Gaza’s footballers play on

The Game of Dispossession

The unbearable silence in women’s football

Naming the athlete victims of Israel's war on Gaza

Football continues to ignite the flames of war

When Will it Be Enough?

In The Red Corner:

In the weeks leading up to the 2024 US presidential election, my talented friend and producer Elie Bleier and I launched In The Red Corner, an audio original series that delved into the strange alliance between Donald Trump and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). The three-part series, which was featured in NPR, The Guardian, and Chapo Trap House, was well received, with thousands of you tuning in to learn about the bizarre relationship that has helped reshape American politics.

The entire series is available below, as well as on all your favourite podcast platforms.

Episode 1: 'Do You Wanna Be a F***ing Fighter?'

Episode 2: Combatant-in-Chief

Episode 3: Fight! Fight! Fight!

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Thanks to your support, dear subscribers, my investigative reporting lives on. But I still need your help to take it to the next level.

Sports Politika not yet financially sustainable. With more paying subscribers, I could hire an editor, commission freelance work from some of the most talented writers in the field, and bring on a producer to expand our audio series. Most importantly, it would allow me to dedicate more time to pursuing impactful investigative stories.

If you value the work I do and haven’t yet taken the leap, I encourage you to become a paid subscriber and help take Sports Politika to the next level in 2025.