After LIV-PGA merger, Saudis are just getting started
By Adam Minter / Bloomberg Opinion
Human rights and golf were rarely mentioned in the same breath until the launch last year of LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed tour organized to challenge the PGA. Fans, sponsors, players and PGA executives claimed to be appalled at the involvement of a country connected to 9/11 and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, among other long-standing human rights concerns. Predictably, then, the news on Tuesday that the PGA Tour and LIV Golf have agreed to a merger largely backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has come as a shock.
It shouldn’t. Ownership of a professional sports franchise is a key means for wealth to project status and soft power in the 21st century. It was just a matter of time before Saudi Arabia and other authoritarian governments decided to join the market. For the PGA, which has always been about generating revenue, acceptance was inevitable. Other professional U.S. sports organizations will inevitably follow its lead when presented with the opportunity.
Historically, U.S. sports haven’t lacked for scandals that could and should be seen as human rights issues. Correct or not, those scandals tend to be viewed as criminal matters while human rights as an issue tend to be applied to authoritarian countries, especially during Olympic years. That choice has created some awkward and uncomfortable situations in recent years. For example, despite loud calls by human rights groups to boycott the Games in Beijing in 2008, Sochi in 2014 and Beijing again in 2022, the opportunity to compete — and market — on a global stage has simply been too enticing for athletes and corporate sponsors to turn down.
There are also other reasons to embrace the Olympics. Since the 1950s, Russia and China have viewed the Games, in particular, as a premier means to market their national images at home and abroad. Athletic success at the Games — say, a top spot on the medal table — is openly celebrated as a proxy for national standing. How bad can a government be if it goes from Olympic nonparticipant to the top of the medal table in a generation, as China has?
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