They reveal two essential things: the ever-increasing importance of spectacle to sport and the manner in which the geographical power of sport is shifting.

To start first with the cricket. India was supposed to win the World Cup Final against Australia. Their brilliant team had swept all before it across the first six weeks of the tournament. And then they got well-beaten by Australia in the final.

It was, however, an extraordinary sporting occasion. Some 92,000 supporters filed into the Narendra Modi stadium. Modi is currently the prime minister of India – and has been now for a decade.

It says much for the epic popularity cult (mixed with a heavy dose of Hindu nationalism) that drives his political power that the stadium in which the World Cup Final was played was renamed after Modi in 2021. It was expanded – apparently to hold 132,000 people – for the World Cup.

When Modi presented the winning trophy for the World Cup after the game, it was meant to be to the Indian captain, Rohit Sharma. The sight of Modi presenting the trophy to the Australian captain, Pat Cummins, was not at all what he wished for. He was not expecting to be associated with failure – after all, the greatness of Indian cricket is undeniable and was being projected as the greatness of India as a whole.

After the game, Modi tweeted (or do you have to say now that he Xed?): “Dear Team India, Your talent and determination through the World Cup was noteworthy. You've played with great spirit and brought immense pride to the nation. We stand with you today and always.” He went to the Indian dressingroom where the team stood uncomfortably in a circle to meet him. One of those players, Ravindrasinh Jadeja, later wrote: “We had a great tournament but we ended up short yesterday. We are all heartbroken but the support of our people is keeping us going. PM Narendra Modi’s visit to the dressing room yesterday was special and very motivating.” 

The thing is that, regardless of the defeat, India dominates world cricket. Modi’s party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has extremely close ties with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the most powerful body in global cricket. It has remade the world through the Indian Premier League (IPL) – created in 2007. The league generates billions of euros on an annual basis, primarily to the Indian economy. It also added new ancillary businesses (online gambling and fantasy leagues), in a mass way, to the traditional revenue streams of gate receipts, sponsorship, merchandising and media rights.

The short-form of cricket that is played in the league, the manner in which it is organised with player auctions, and other innovations has provided content that is perfect to attract and hold the interest of the public.

The scale of the entertainment is perfectly pitched as a product for a new Internet age – a traditional game remade for a digital world, drawing at ease from both aspects of past and present. And in so doing it has taken control of cricket away from its old imperial heart in London.

The second aspect of sport made plain on Sunday is the growing importance of spectacle. The sight of Formula One cars flying past the iconic sites of Las Vegas is emblematic of the ongoing move to immerse sport in the cult of celebrity.

The winner of the race – the greatest driver in the world, Max Verstappen – stood on the victory podium in an Elvis-themed race suit. He has sung “Viva Las Vegas” through the microphone on his helmet while still in the cockpit in the minutes after his victory.

Earlier in the weekend, Verstappen had been really critical of the decision to race in Las Vegas. It was, he said: “99% show and 1% sporting event”.

The people who own Formula One and control its races had invested more than €500 million to make the race happen. They needed it to work.

So, too, did the city of Las Vegas. It is on a mission to become a vital international sporting centre. It now has the Las Vegas Raiders NFL team and will host the Super Bowl in February. It has a National Hockey League team and it has also persuaded the Oakland As baseball franchise to uproot and move to Las Vegas in 2028.

In its own way, the Las Vegas Grand Prix was a reminder of the power of American sport and the brilliance of its entrepreneurship.

But this is now very much a contested space.

In the background, the shifting nature of geopolitical power on the planet is impacting on the organisation of sport. There is growing evidence that American political power is waning, and the Gulf States (notably Saudi Arabia, Qatar and United Arab Emirates) wish to position themselves to profit from that.

You can see it, for example, in Qatari involvement in making a deal to free Israeli hostages in Gaza.

In terms of sport, the fact the last FIFA World Cup was held in Qatar and that the 2030 one is promised to Saudi Arabia is just part of the story – it also includes the purchase or anticipated purchase, in part or in whole, of the running of entire sports.

There is the ongoing negotiations of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (a sovereign wealth fund with more than $650 billion at its disposal) of golf. As Rory McIlroy put it: “Money talks.” There is now talk of talks to buy control of global tennis. Indeed, from the traditional sport of boxing to the new world of esports, Saudi Arabia is also now front and centre.

In Formula 1 racing, a Saudi takeover bid is the subject of speculation. They have already invested in the McLaren team and of course in a Grand Prix at Jeddah at a newly-built track.

Having been upstaged by Abu Dhabi winning the Champions League as Manchester City, Saudi Arabia is seeking to make up lost ground through the purchase of Newcastle United and, more particularly, the dramatic expansion of the Saudi Arabian league.

That league is not just a retirement pay-check for ageing players, it also holds stars such as Ruben Neves– he is just 26, a brilliant player in his prime.

It is mistakenly presumed that all of this engagement is sportswashing (the attempt to use sports as a form of propaganda to direct attention away from a country’s human rights abuses or other scandals).

It is much more than that: it is about diversification of the Saudi economy through growing the sports events industry and tourism as the Age of Oil comes to an end.

It will be fascinating to watch what happens next. The way sport is organised is never static. It might rightly be pointed out that China tried to become a serious player in soccer a decade ago, before abandoned the plan in failure. It is a reminder that nothing is inevitable – it is true that in professional sports, everything would seem to have a price. Ultimately, though, there is also a point where a price simply stops being worth paying.

Paul Rouse is professor of history at University College Dublin