Yesterday, Saudi Arabia’s LIV Golf and America’s PGA Tour shocked the world. They announced plans to merge into one worldwide golfing operation.
Many are condemning this as the Saudis’ most brazen case of sportswashing. I condemn it as the Americans’ most shameful case of selling out.
The sportswashing phenomenon
Interest in sports reflects the ties that bind our shared humanity. That’s why wealthy autocrats are investing in Western sports. They hope to buy the goodwill of sports-mad fans in Western nations. And they expect that goodwill to cause Westerners to overlook their autocratic abuses.
Sportswashing describes this cynical ploy to burnish their reputation. And it’s what the Saudis are doing by footing the bill for this merger between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour.
This merger indicts American greed and hypocrisy
This merger says far more about Americans selling out than Saudis sportswashing. It’s an indictment of American greed and hypocrisy. Never mind that those have long dictated American politics and business. But, if you think this merger is about Golf, you think the war in Ukraine is about Nazis.
The Saudis are exploiting the inconvenient truth about American venality. They know Americans will let them get away with anything for political gain or financial profit. And everyone – from American presidents to CEOs and sports stars – keeps proving them right.
Then, of course, there was Trump’s kleptocratic, transactional presidency. That reinforced all presumptions about venal Americans in spades. Indeed, Trump has been LIV Golf’s biggest backer.
For example, PGA director Jay Monahan spent much of the past year hurling moral daggers at the Saudis. But Trump spent all that time consorting with them to use his resorts to stage LIV Golf tournaments.
Now Trump stands to benefit most of all from this merger. And the Saudis are keen to reward and exploit him – as their “useful idiot” – in this respect.
As paymasters, they will no doubt prevail upon the PGA to stage tournaments at Trump’s resorts. They will aim to sportswash their autocratic abuses and direct America’s situational ethics.
Indeed, the US House impeached Trump for committing many high crimes and misdemeanors. His alleged offenses made those most autocrats commit look tame. And everyone knew Trump was as guilty as sin.
Yet the US Senate acquitted him. That gave cover to autocrats everywhere. Now they can scoff at any American preaching to them about democratic values and the rule of law.
The Chinese have nothing on the Saudis
The Chinese are bullying the Americans in the skies above the South China Sea and even on the high seas. And the whole world knows why the Americans are letting them. The Americans are desperate to maintain access to China’s lucrative markets.
You’d think the American government would make the Chinese pay for this bullying. Instead, this desperation has American officials begging their Chinese counterparts for meetings. The Americans are the ones seeking to reduce tensions.
Whereas the Chinese have been willfully compounding their bullying by snubbing the Americans. They are still snubbing America’s Black Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. But they’ve begun meeting America’s White secretary of state and CIA director. Not that there’s anything racist about that.
Meanwhile, the Saudis have been exploiting American greed and hypocrisy for decades. Their co-opting of the Bush administration is most damning. It helped the Saudis weather alleged complicity in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. And it did so to protect and preserve US access to Saudi oil and money.
But President Biden’s interactions with Saudi Crown Prince MBS speak volumes. Recall the big show Biden made of calling MBS a murdering thug. He said everyone should shun Saudi Arabia as a pariah state. Because the CIA said MBS had Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi killed.
Yet this purported leader of the free world flew, hat in hand, to the autocratic kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He fist-bumped the bloody hand of MBS and begged for increased oil production. But MBS made a big show of humiliating Biden by cutting oil production instead of increasing it. Think of what that conveyed to people all over the world.
(As I write this, Saudi Arabia is announcing its intent to cut oil production even further. It seems timed to humiliate visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. That’s the kind of contempt Saudi Arabia is routinely showing America these days. No doubt it’s emboldened by Chinese President Xi Jinping visiting recently to sign a long-term partnership agreement. And MBS must see perverse justice in gouging Americans at the gas pump to pay for Saudi Arabia’s takeover of America’s PGA.)
Biden has warned about the looming clash between US-led democracies and China-led autocracies. But many developing countries, like South Africa, are siding with China-led autocracies.
Is there any wonder why? At least they know there will be no moral judgment or hypocrisy in their dealings with China.
In contrast, America is always preaching about moral values and human rights. And developing countries have had it up to their gills with all that. After all, they have always been able to cite American action that makes a mockery of that preaching.
Given that, who can blame the PGA Tour? Yes, it’s doing business with MBS after accusing him of seducing golfers with blood money. But is that any worse than the US government doing business with him after calling him a thug?
LIV Golf & PGA Tour: the fallout
Jay Monahan is PGA Tour Commissioner.
Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?
That is the question he famously asked Phil Mickelson and other defectors to LIV Golf.
- Given its hypocrisy, aren’t you ashamed to be a member of the PGA Tour?
That is the question MBS can now ask Tiger Woods and other loyalists on the PGA Tour.
Of course, Woods led PGA players in shunning hundreds of millions to join LIV Golf. For example, Woods shunned $750 million and Rory McIlroy shunned $300 million. They all took pride in saying they were doing so to stand on moral principles with the PGA Tour.
Now McIlroy is bemoaning that the PGA Tour used them like sacrificial lambs. Others would say the PGA Tour played them for suckers.
In any event, this merger gives friends and foes cause to roll their eyes at any mention of American values. After all, it’s clear that Americans will let anyone get away with anything – if there’s enough money on the table.
Yet breaking news about soccer superstar Lionel Messi might serve as an antidote in this regard. He announced that he’s shunning hundreds of millions from MBS to play in Saudi Arabia. He said he’s signing with an American team in Miami for much less. And he cited Western lifestyle and values as deciding factors.
This stands in commendable contrast to what his nemesis Cristiano Ronaldo did. Ronaldo took the money to play in Saudi Arabia.
That said, this merger has evoked anti-American gloating that portends doom. Americans may seem terminally polarized. But they are bound to resent the world mocking them as venal hypocrites. Not to mention everyone treating them like international laughingstocks.
I fear they might react with “derisking” fury that looks like a nation preparing for all-out war.