Uganda, April 23 -- Picture the scene. Sapporo, Japan. August 7, 2021. The summer heat is punishing, the roads lined with faces Joshua Cheptegei has never seen before. He runs anyway, 10,000 metres of it and crosses the line with an Olympic gold medal around his neck. Back home, Uganda erupts. Boda bodas honk through Kampala. People who have never watched athletics in their lives know his name by nightfall.

What nobody talks about, amid the celebration, is where the money goes. The shoes on Cheptegei's feet that day were engineered in Oregon under a Nike patent. The broadcast beamed into Ugandan living rooms was licensed by rights holders who had nothing to do with Kampala. The replica merchandise that fans would later buy, the digital h...