The biggest lesson from the merger of LIV Golf and the PGA Tour is a simple one, and it’s something every sports league and athlete in America should be watching closely. That lesson is this: billions can be spent to wash away shame; it can remove decency; it can bury the stench of corruption and criminality; it can eradicate morals; money can even sportwash an alleged murder.
You may say: We already knew this. But no, you didn’t. Not like this. There’s never been anything this morally bankrupt, this disgraceful, in the recent history of American sports.
And you know what? It will happen again. If golf did this, other American sports and athletes are not far behind. That’s a lock. That’s as big a lock as that exists in sports right now.
It’s scary and horrible and ugly but we didn’t just enter a new golf reality, we have entered a new sports reality. Because the Saudis will not stop with golf. They will buy their way into every aspect of American sports. It may not be tomorrow but it will be soon.
After the impact of this merger subsides, maybe the Saudis try to buy their way into the NFL or Major League Baseball. And please don’t tell me league rules would prevent this or morals will stop it. Rules don’t mean anything when it comes to this level of cash, and as golf showed, morality doesn’t mean anything, either.
What the Saudis have done is both ingenious and diabolical. They have moved the line, several feet, diving into American sports, and they will keep moving that line. Inch by inch. Eventually moving it even more and faster.
A Saudi-owned NFL team? No freaking way.
Yeah freaking way. Are you paying attention? This is what money does. It makes the one-time unthinkable a reality. Bylaws don’t matter. Laws don’t, either. They can be changed.
The Saudis are worth trillions. What if they put together an American group, essentially a front, and offered $10 billion to the NFL to own a team? What about $20 billion? How do you think the NFL would react? Any current rules that exist preventing such a move would be removed.
In fact, the NBA’s Board of Governors last year approved a rule change that, as Sportico reported, allows sovereign wealth funds to buy stakes in teams.
They could get involved in the WNBA. The reason Brittney Griner played in Russia in the first place was to earn more money.
Or, hell, what’s to prevent the Saudis from buying the whole damn NHL? The Saudis can turn American athletes and franchises into reputation-laundering machines for them.
There is nothing, no rule, that can stop the Saudis if they decide to spend, and they have shown they are willing to spend.
This doesn’t just apply to established leagues. The Saudis might try to start their own leagues, and recruit college and pro players. They have enough money to start their own NCAA. They could create their own ESPN.
They could start a basketball league and make Bronny James the first billion-dollar player. A billion to the Saudis is like $100.
This may sound absurd but it’s not. Everything just changed across all of sports. Every aspect of it.
Nothing is crazy. Nothing is out of bounds because the Saudis have shown they are willing to pay, and pay big, to shape their image.
Not every athlete or league will do business with the Saudis but in general, money always wins.
The PGA Tour was never going to merge with LIV and now it is. The line was moved by billions in cash. The Tour went soft and has gone into business with the Saudis. The U.S. intelligence community says the Crown Prince approved of the operation to kill and dismember Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey, to capture or kill” Khashoggi, said the report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
“Since 2017, the crown prince has had absolute control of the kingdom’s security and intelligence organizations,” the report added, “making it highly unlikely that Saudi officials would have carried out an operation of this nature without the crown prince’s authorization.”
The PGA Tour is now in business with Saudi Arabia. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 were Saudi nationals. The kingdom has denied any role in the attacks.
But golf won’t be alone for long. We didn’t just see the golf world’s seismic shift. We likely just witnessed the beginning of a massive move in all of American sports.
And not a good one. At all.