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…
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