Iran’s World Cup Team Divides Diaspora in LA’s ‘Tehrangeles’

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1:20Now we're helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business. IBM. Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio. I want to shift gears a little bit. We're talking about sports gambling. A lot of it happening when it comes to World Cup or sports betting. There are some parts of Los Angeles that are sometimes dubbed Tehrangelis because the region is home to the world's largest Iranian diaspora community. While almost everyone in this expatriate enclave opposes the current Iranian government, many retain a loyalty to their national soccer squad.

2:06It's known as Team Melly. Yeah, that squad's first game in the 2026 World Cup ended in a draw yesterday in L.A. That was against New Zealand. Then it was 2-2. John Giddleston's been following all of this. He's Bloomberg News, Los Angeles bureau chief. He spent some time during the game in a cafe. He was also in a hookah bar, getting an idea of how members of the Iranian diaspora community came together and put politics aside for about 90 minutes. He joins us from L.A. I love this story, John. It's a little bit of a departure from like, you know, the traditional stuff that we're seeing you cover.

2:41But you get to cover a lot as L.A. bureau chief. What did you find happened during this game? And actually, you know what? Scratch that. I'm going to I'm going to call an audible here. as Tom Keene says. Before you do that, just tell us why LA is home to so many Iranians. Yeah. Hi, Tim. Hi, Carol. It started more than 50 years ago before the Iranian revolution. A lot of people came here from Iran to study engineering in Southern California at USC and UCLA. And then when the revolution hit, they were like, where can we go in LA? Well, We know people in L.A. I mean, where can we go to escape the, you know, revolutionaries and keep our money?

3:25And they knew a lot of people in L.A. and so they joined, created this community here. And especially around UCLA is where it's really concentrated. And there's a lot in Beverly Hills. A few years ago, there was a reality TV show called The Shaws of Beverly Hills that was like about these princeling princesses who were the second generation of, you know, the Persian exile community, as they refer to themselves. I may have watched an episode or two. Just, you know, kind of homework to try and understand, you know, reality TV as it continues to spread its wings. All right. So tell us what you found out, because are most people, you know, in terms of the community, agree on what's going on in the country and their opposition to the government?

4:14I mean, the people came here as refugees, as asylum seekers, as just exiles. And I have never run across somebody who's like, I really like what the regime in Iran is doing. um the people who are here so they turned out in by the thousands and danced in the streets when the u.s and israel first attacked iran they've been really disappointed with the way the war has gone and several people i talked to are you know really unhappy that there's a truce right now and they feel like maybe they're getting sold out like the big losers are the people in iran Um, but when it comes to football, there are people who like, my heart is still in Iran and the team is still Iranian.

5:07And so I cheer them on and, uh, you know, it's my people. We are all one on the football field. And was it like that yesterday at the, at the coffee shop, at the hookah bar? Yeah, at the hookah bar at the coffee shop. And people I talked to who are in the stadium said it was, you know, like that. They were like, it's electrifying. It's Iran's game. You know, people were cheering. They were wearing like red, white and green fright wigs. There was a lot of debate over the flag. There are people who are pro-Shah, pre-revolutionary government and pro-democracy who don't like the current Iranian flag.

5:51And they smuggled in replicas of the old flag or they wore T-shirts underneath their shirts that they exposed or various ways to try and get the symbols to show that they were not supporting the government. But at the same time, they were screaming and cheering every time there was an attack on the goal by Iran or, you know, putting their hands over their ears and shrieking posture when there was a, you know, threat by New Zealand to score. You got to love what sports does, right, in terms of communities and bringing people together. I mean, we've certainly seen that with the Knicks, right? We've all talked about it's New York's team and everybody has come together, certainly here in New York City.

6:34John Gittleson, what a cool story. What an interesting story on some of the biggest topics in the world when it comes to geopolitics and certainly the World Cup. John Gittleson, he's Bloomberg News LA Bureau Chief. Love catching up with him always. These days, it seems like AI agents are just about everywhere you turn, every field and every function. But without identity, you can't trust they'll serve your business instead of jeopardizing it. Fortunately, Okta helps you get identity right by securing your AI agent's identities, giving you a single layer of control, a single standard of trust. So whether an AI agent supports a single user or your entire enterprise, with Okta, you'll turn risk into opportunity.

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