The Justice Department has also signaled it will investigate the deal, bringing forward the possibility that the merger may not happen after all.Įven if it falls through, however, the merger demands attention in how it has invoked political and strategic concerns that extend far beyond the game of golf. Congressional scrutiny has followed, as the merger raises antitrust issues. They frame the move as an upstart effort by Saudi Arabia to control global sporting by essentially buying out Western golf to conceal its poor human rights record, one pockmarked by the fact that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals and the families of the victims from those terrorist attacks allege that those hijackers received Saudi government assistance. Many Western observers have reacted with hostility.
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The battle ended recently with the shocking news that the two had agreed to instead merge their forces-alongside the smaller DP World Tour (formerly known as the PGA European Tour, now sponsored by the UAE’s state-owned DP World cargo and port company )-to “ unify ” the professional game under one organizational umbrella. The PGA and LIV embarked upon an ugly feud fought out in the Western media and American courts. Against the LIV stood the PGA Tour, the $1.5 billion sanctioning body based in the United States that traditionally organizes competitions, signs sponsors, licenses media, and pays cash purses at events. It was financed to the tune of $2 billion by Saudi Arabia’s $700 billion sovereign wealth fund (the Public Investment Fund, or PIF), and created exhibition-style golfing events featuring players lured away from the PGA Tour by lucrative cash payouts. Sportswashing refers to sponsorship by authoritarian regimes over major sporting teams and events in order to elevate their image. When the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Tour commenced in 2022, most observers dismissed the spectacle as sportswashing.
The deal has resolved a year-long legal dispute between the two organizations, but questions will be raised about the PGA Tour’s nonprofit status as well as monopoly issues that are being investigated by the US Congress.
The merger opens up serious commercial leverage for Saudi Arabia, including control over the PGA Tour’s lucrative licensing operation.The alliance between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (which is chaired by Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman and includes the LIV Golf league) is a strategic victory for Saudi Arabia, which has sought a more integrated presence in global and Western institutions.
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