I’m in an urban park surrounded by fast-food outlets: Taco Bell, the Golden Arches, KFC, Starbucks. The sound system is blasting out raucous rap music; all the men are in blingy sportswear, baseball caps, Nike shoes. I can see big shiny billboards advertising iPhones, Pepsi Max or the latest Marvel movies.

In short, I could be almost anywhere in the world – Australia, Brazil, Germany – such is the power of American exports: soft and hard, cultural and consumerist, Coke to Tesla to Friends . And yet I know I’m in America, specifically in the SoFi Stadium, Los Angeles, because I’m about to encounter the one thing America has, peculiarly, not been able to export, not with any great success: American sport. And I want to work out why.

Over the years I’ve seen three of the big American pr

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