PGA and LIV Merger Increases Saudi Influence on Golf (NYTimes)

The partnership is a major victory for Saudi
ambitions in sports, but the announcement
split players. PGA Tour Commissioner Jay
Monahan described his meeting with golfers
late in the afternoon as “heated.”

____ Update

A group of 9/11 relatives called the PGA Tour’s planned merger with LIV a ‘betrayal.’

A group of relatives of people killed on Sept. 11 issued a blistering criticism of the planned merger between the Saudi-backed LIV Golf series and the PGA Tour, calling the tour and its commissioner “paid Saudi shills” for agreeing to it.

Relatives of 9/11 victims have been vocal in their opposition to the Saudi-backed LIV series almost since its inception. Most of the hijackers of the planes used in the 2001 attacks were Saudi. The 9/11 families have saved some of their harshest
criticisms for those who have taken part in LIV events and hosted its tournaments. The latter group includes former President Donald J. Trump and his family, who were urged last year to cancel an event at a Trump golf course in New Jersey.

On Tuesday, one group of relatives, called 9/11 Families United, declared that its members were “shocked and deeply offended” by the merger deal. In a statement, the group called it a “betrayal” by the PGA Tour and its commissioner, Jay Monahan.

“The PGA and Monahan appear to have become just more paid Saudi shills, taking billions of dollars to cleanse the Saudi reputation,” said the 9/11 Families United chairman, Terry Strada.

Critics of Saudi Arabia frequently deride its investments in teams and leagues as “sportswashing” and say it is a thinly veiled effort to rehabilitate the kingdom’s reputation amid accusations that it has financed terrorism and murdered a
Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.

Strada criticized Monahan for “co-opting” the 9/11 community last year in the PGA Tour’s initial and strident opposition to the Saudi-backed golf tour, only to cut a merger deal this week.

“Mr. Monahan talked last summer about knowing people who lost loved ones on 9/11, then wondered aloud on national television whether LIV golfers ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour,” Strade wrote. “They do now — as does he.
PGA Tour leaders should be ashamed of their hypocrisy and greed.”

Members of Congress from both parties weighed in.

“So weird. PGA officials were in my office just months ago talking about how the Saudis’ human rights record should disqualify them from having a stake in a major American sport,” said Representative Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, in a
message posted on Twitter. “I guess maybe their concerns weren’t really about human rights?”

And Representative Chip Roy, a Republican of Texas, added: “In the end, it’s always about the money. Saudi Arabia just bought themselves a one-world golf government.”

During the 2020 presidential campaign, President Biden vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” for human rights abuses, most notably the killing of Mr. Khashoggi, who lived in Virginia and was a columnist for The Washington Post who wrote critically of
the Saudi crown prince and the country’s government.

As one of his first foreign policy actions in office, Mr. Biden authorized the release of a U.S. intelligence report that said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had approved the killing.

Mr. Khashoggi was killed by Saudi agents while visiting Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018 to get documents for his upcoming wedding. He was strangled by Saudi agents and then dismembered.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken happened to be in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for talks this week with Saudi leaders and other Gulf state officials about the possibility of the kingdom normalizing ties with Israel. It wasn’t clear if the PGA-LIV
merger would be a part of discussions.

____ Update

Here is the latest on the PGA-LIV Golf deal.

The PGA Tour and LIV Golf, the insurgent league bankrolled by billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, said on Tuesday that they had agreed to a merger, ending a bitter and costly fight for supremacy of men’s professional golf
that had divided top players, everyday fans and corporate sponsors.

The merger represented the most stunning success to date of Saudi Arabia’s ambition to become a player in global sports. Yet unlike its purchase of a Premier League soccer team or its sponsorship of events as diverse as boxing cards and Formula 1 auto
races, its billion-dollar play for control of golf seemed from the start like nothing less than an attempt to seize control of an entire sport — one that in the United States has occupied a rarefied place in the sports firmament for more than a century.

LIV Golf had sparked a crisis for the PGA Tour, which has scrambled to reinvent its economic model as it has watched some of its biggest stars switch circuits. But LIV itself has also been a target of fierce criticism, immense skepticism and bitter
litigation. Although much about the circuit’s operations remains unclear — many documents that would reveal details are under court seal — some information about its structure and its operations has emerged in legal filings, interviews, business
records and internal documents reviewed by The New York Times. And some LIV critics contend that the sovereign wealth fund is using sports to distract from Saudi Arabia’s record of human rights abuses.

Now, by merging with the PGA Tour, LIV Golf has gained a foothold that guarantees it outsize influence in the game’s future after a long struggle to break through, especially in the United States, where the PGA Tour has long dominated men’s
professional golf. The governor of the Saudi state entity bankrolling LIV, the Public Investment Fund, will become chairman of the new golf organization, which was created so quickly that it was announced before it even had a name.

Here are a few other notable parts of the deal:

- The Public Investment Fund also will have right of first refusal on new investments in the merged tour, according to the statement announcing the merger. That leaves open the possibility for Saudi Arabia to take more ownership of the sport in the
future should the tour need to raise more capital.

- In a joint statement on Tuesday, the wealth fund and the PGA Tour said the former rivals would “implement a plan to grow these combined commercial businesses, drive greater fan engagement and accelerate growth initiatives already underway.”

- Under the terms of the tentative agreement, the Public Investment Fund will at first be the exclusive investor in the blended operation, along with the established tours, which includes the DP World Tour, and LIV. Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner,
is expected to be the new group’s chief executive, with Yasir al-Rumayyan, the wealth fund’s governor, installed as its chairman.

- The Trump family, an early and eager partner of the Saudi-backed series, took a victory lap after the merger was announced.

_______ Update

The PGA Tour commissioner acknowledges secrecy and hurdles on the deal.

Tuesday morning’s announcement from the PGA Tour hailed its deal to merge operations with LIV Golf as a “landmark agreement to unify the game” and end the contentious litigation between the competing golf tours.

But when Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, finally spoke to news reporters eight hours later, the agreement sounded far more tentative. He described his meeting with players about the agreement as “intense” and “certainly heated.” Monahan
also acknowledged that most of the PGA Tour’s policy board — which is made up of five independent directors and five golfers — was kept in the dark about the tour’s negotiations with LIV over the last seven weeks.

He called the deal a “framework agreement” and said there were numerous issues that needed to be worked through before a “definitive agreement” was presented to the policy board to ratify, raising the possibility that it could be rejected and
golf’s cold war could stretch on.

Among the issues that Monahan said were still unsettled included the future of LIV itself as an independent golf tour; the pathway for LIV players to rejoin the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour in Europe; whether PGA Tour players who declined to join LIV
would somehow be financially compensated; and whether LIV players would have to forfeit some of their compensation.

“Ultimately, everything needs to be considered,” Monahan said.

___- Update

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[MORE] https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/06/06/sports/pga-liv-golf-merger

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