Here’s What Senators Should Ask PGA Tour Big Shots

A trio of PGA Tour executives will appear before the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on Tuesday to explain the PGA’s seemingly sudden and controversial agreement with LIV, the Saudi-owned golf league.

The subcommittee is a part of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, therefore, its grilling will be of limited scope. However, this could be the beginning of a larger investigation concerning Saudi Arabia’s sporting project, with foreign policy ramifications.

The senators should keep in mind that the agreement is not happening in a vacuum. There are two broader contexts that matter, one sporting, and the other political.

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Earlier this year, one of the greatest soccer superstars in history, Cristiano Ronaldo, signed the most lucrative contract in the sport’s history at that point with Al-Nassr F.C., a club in the Saudi Pro League.

Soon after, and unexpectedly, the most recent Ballon d’Or winner (a prize for the world’s best player during the previous season), Karim Benzema, announced that he was also headed to play in Saudi Arabia. (Leo Messi, another soccer superstar, rejected an even bigger deal than Ronaldo’s from a Saudi team to head over to Inter Miami in the U.S.’ Major League Soccer league.)

And there are plenty of other international soccer players that Saudi clubs are courting with huge sums of money. (Overall, the Saudi sovereign investment fund has set aside $1 billion a year for signing soccer stars.)

But it is not only the players who are going to Saudi Arabia; the Saudis are going to Europe, too. Last year, the Saudi government joined its Arab neighbors in purchasing a European team, Newcastle United in England, so far spending around $200 million in transfers alone. Soccer pundits anticipate more spending this summer.

And then there is the crown jewel of the sport, the World Cup. Earlier this year, the Saudis, together with Greece and Egypt, submitted a bid for the 2030 tournament, offering to cover most of the costs for the other parties. The bid collapsed after Egypt withdrew, but it will likely return in a new form at some point.

Just after the Formula One documentary, Drive To Survive, re-energized interest in the sport, in 2019, Saudi Arabia unveiled its plan to host a grand prix in Jeddah. (The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix kicked off in 2021.)

Why are the Saudis investing in sports? It’s a puzzle, but today’s Senate hearing should be the beginning of solving it.

Jay Nordlinger—a conservative writer, golf fan, and stellar advocate for human rights—wrote for The Dispatch that the Saudis are “sportswashing,” a term that describes a state’s attempt to get foreign nations to ignore its domestic human rights abuses by elevating itself as a sporting capital.

Spain in the early 2010s is a good example (without the human rights abuses). For most of the world, Spain was the country with the best soccer league, the best national soccer team, the best Formula One driver Fernando Alonso, and one of the two best tennis players, Rafael Nadal. It was the sporting country. Perhaps the Saudis have the same objective.

An alternative (and not mutually exclusive) explanation is that the Saudi royal family may believe the oil business will eventually not be as lucrative as it’s been for them, and they are seeking alternative sources of revenue.

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Over the past several years, Saudi Arabia has undertaken a modernization project, Vision 2030, with the goal of entirely changing the country by the end of this decade and transitioning its economy out of oil dependency. It seeks to attract foreign investors and experts. The same sovereign wealth fund is also increasingly investing in the technology sector, banking, and other booming industries. (Hosting the World Cup that year would be the symbolic conclusion of the project—should they succeed in their bid to host the event.)

The investment in sports—including golf—could simply be a diversification of the investment portfolio. Further, traditionally, nations care about prestige, and the attraction of the best of the best is another way for the Saudi government to legitimize itself domestically—through buying such prestige (and making Saudi Arabia a world cultural player).

Today’s interrogators should, therefore, seek to solve this question: What is the purpose of Saudi investment in sports?

To tackle this question, they should begin with the details of the deal offered to the PGA Tour, not to see whether it is profitable for the American side—it is—but whether and how profitable it is to the Saudis. This question will give us some idea about whether this is mere sportswashing or also a shrewd financial investment.

Second, they should investigate whether there have been any written or unwritten assurances about a change of policy for foreign golfers visiting Saudi Arabia. Will these foreign celebrities be allowed to drink alcohol or experience various forms of nightlife that are officially banned in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? The answer to this question will give us a hint about the social direction that the country is taking.

There appears to be a top-down modernization program going on in Saudi Arabia. Within a few years, a few big cities will be hubs for young Saudi workers, foreign technical experts, and celebrities to migrate to. The Saudis are looking to present a steady cultural progress to accommodate foreigners and make the country presentable to the 21st century. And it’s all happening real fast.

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It won’t be the first time a Middle Eastern kingdom tried it.

The Saudis are following the playbook of the Shah of Iran, who in the 1970s succeeded in turning Tehran into an increasingly European-looking city, which was, therefore, alien to the young, religious men coming from small towns and villages in search of work. Lacking a democratic way to express their resentment of the change, they turned to revolution, replacing that regime with Islamist totalitarianism.

This leads us to a third, crucial question the senators should also ask of the PGA executives: Have the Saudis given you a guarantee that the Al-Saud family will not face a similar fate? If yes, is repression of dissent a major part of the regime’s self-survival guarantee?

This hearing won’t be the end of the conversation, but it should be the start of a serious and thorough examination of what the Kingdom is trying to do by throwing around all those billions at famous athletes.