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Has the PGA Joined the Sportswashing Conspiracy
Saudi Arabia now owns professional golf. That may sound like tin-foil-hat hyperbole, but if North Korea funded a rival basketball league to the NBA, which the NBA vehemently denounced as a moral pariah, then months later merged with them, giving them full financial control, North Korea would be the dominant power in professional basketball. Kim Jong Un would be the shadow commissioner waving a foam finger.
After months of outraged huffing and puffing about the immorality of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf, the PGA has agreed to merge and proudly wear that immorality like a tailored green jacket (“The Merger of LIV Golf and the PGA Tour: Here’s What to Know”). Who are the winners: Pro golf that wants more money. Saudi Arabia’s public image. Who are the losers: America’s public image. The integrity of sports.
Sportswashing—which is when a country with a dubious human rights reputation sponsors sports in order to scrub clean its image—has been an international tool for decades. Hitler used it with the 1936 Berlin Olympics to promote a kinder, gentler Nazi. China and the Soviet Union did the same thing with their Olympics. Qatar with the World Cup. A spoonful of sports makes the fascism go down—in the most delightful way.
I’ve always looked at sports as a way to bring people together, whether it’s kids on a playground or countries across oceans. The more passions we share, the more we can focus on what we have in common rather than on differences. Sports should promote the ethical ideals of meritocracy, fair play, and leveling the playing field. It shouldn’t be used to sanction and support evil.
I’m aware that there’s a certain amount of Pollyanna-ish naiveté in that attitude, like making a heart with my fingers and saying, “Why can’t we all just get along?” After all, international relations are tricky. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” kind of tricky. We have to make deals with sketchy countries and leaders for the greater good of economics and protection. We import 12% of our petroleum from Persian Gulf countries. The U.S. just made a $3 billion arms deal with the Saudis. Sometimes, we have to hold our noses for the sake of national security. I get it.
But this isn’t that. The Saudis have done some bad things and just keep sailing blithely on like they are above and beyond consequences. They routinely imprison and execute political dissidents, employ mass beheadings (last year they beheaded 81 men at once for crimes ranging from murder to sowing “discord and unrest”), execute LGBTQ+ people, and suppress women and religions. Plus, their tainted ties to the 9/11 massacres. Also heinous was their kidnapping and dismemberment of a Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 for criticizing Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.
They are like the bully who abuse kids at school, but no one does anything because their parents contribute a fortune to the school. The Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF)’s governor, Yasir al-Rumuyyan, confirmed their investment in golf will be in the billions. Perhaps the PGA’s new logo should be a bone saw.
When big money is involved, the first casualty is ethics. To some, America is in a perpetual clearance sale with a sign draped over the Statue of Liberty: Everything for Sale. Our motto isn’t “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death,” it’s “Make Us an Offer!”
Sportswashing is like money laundering in which one takes dirty money traceable to a crime and transforms it into clean cash anyone will take. Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour’s commissioner, who so fiercely criticized the Saudis, admitted, “I recognize that people are going to call me a hypocrite.” Keith Pelley, the DP World Tour’s chief executive, cheerfully announced, “I think it’s an unbelievable, momentous day.” Seeing golf’s gatekeepers, their pockets bulging with metaphoric oil-scented cash, defend their new stance after months of righteous indignation and accusations against the Saudis would make anyone who loves sports bristle. A momentous day? A momentously sad day.
It is nearly impossible to be a completely ethical consumer. Self-righteous finger-pointing can often seem hypocritical when we buy sneakers made by exploited preteens in countries that enslave others. Other sports, including the NBA, have walked a precarious path trying to balance commerce and conscience. Even the average person buys products daily from companies whose practices they may not agree with. But many of us try to get it right as often as we can.
It’s a matter of degree. In this case, the entire professional sport was sold, not to survive, but to make even more money for already wealthy players in a sport played by 8% of the U.S. population, yet is worth $84 billion. It’s a bad look. It’s a bad practice. The debacle can best be summed up by LIV Golf player Bryson DeChambeau who, after explaining why 9/11 is no longer relevant, justified taking Saudi money with, “It’s unfortunate what has happened but that is not something I can speak on because I’m a golfer.”
And with one sentence, he dismisses decades of athletes’ commitment and self-sacrifice to social justice. Can you imagine Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Billie Jean King, or Bill Russell saying that? Me neither.