From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeartRadio.
Hello, welcome back to the show.
My name is Matt, my name.
Is no they call me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Dylan to Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Tonight we are exploring the wide world of sports and maybe some other things, though perhaps not in the way you might initially assume, fellow conspiracy realists. First things first, gentlemen, would you guys consider yourself golfers or I know we've all played golf at some point, well, I.
Mean, if you're counting many golf then yes, if we've done it together in fact, but I've never played golf on a proper course, never even been to a top golf y'all talking about doing that sometime together too.
I played golf for the first like actual I guess grown folk golf for the first time in my life, very long life, just a few months ago, and it was entirely due to peer pressure, and I got to tell you, golf fans in the crowd, I get it. I see how. It's a lot of fun plus can definitely be a time and money vampire. But unfortunately, folks, we could assure you being a crackerjack, talent at putt putt and fun mini golf is not the same thing. It doesn't translate to other golf. Now.
He used to work at the club, right, Did you ever get out there on the links in between shifts?
I don't want to go too much into it, but it was a health club and they didn't own a golf course until well into my tenure there. Once they did, I was kind of out of the picture. I have played with my father, my grandfather, my friends several times, not enough, but my grandfather told me I have a natural swing, but your handicap.
I don't know what that means. You want a good one? Hi, Well, I don't know. Do you tell me?
It's terribly fun once you are out there, and it is a nice relaxing I would say sport. If you're going to join a sport that is one of the most relaxing while also having some of the most intense micro moments in any sport. So I don't know it's thrilling, I would say so.
We'll have to check with our producer, Dylan, But for now it's fair to say the three of us here are people who have golfed, but perhaps don't consider ourselves golfers, especially not professional golfers. If you were, like more than one hundred and twenty million Americans, more than a third of the population, you, like us, have played golf, either on a course or off a course, or you f followed it on television or oddline, read about the game.
You may have even listened to a golf related podcast. Some folks love it, some folks hate it. But there's no denying golf is a big business, and you know what happens with big businesses, folks, Golf has become embroiled in what may well be a global conspiracy. Here are the facts, all right. I feel like we're increasingly colliding the world's of ridiculous history and stuff they don't want
you to know. But the history of golf is fascinating, and in my opinion, if you go to the ancient parts of it, it's incredibly endearing.
It really is. It's also one of those parallel thinking type things where it's like people have been hitting rollly things with sticks since time immemorial, and it's just a matter of organizing it in different ways. And why not just hit it a long distance and shoot for a tiny hole that seems like a fun diversion. And this was first kind of envision back in Scotland in the fifteenth century, possibly building on again some older games found in China, one in particularly called chiu Wan, and other
similar predecessors in France, Persia and England. This is yeah again, you find something that's laying around and implement of some sort falling tree branch and then something rolling, figure out where to hit it where it should go, and your brain just kind of fills in the gaps and a game is born.
That's yeah, That's what I like about that, the idea that there's something classic human about finding a cool stick. I don't know about you all, but I am unapologetically a fan of finding cool sticks and walking around with them, especially during a hike.
You know.
I sometimes I don't know, when you pick them up, when you feel like you're gandolf with a nice cool stick. You might find at some point multiple times in history, some and found a cool stick, and they found something like a ball. Probably started off with the rock, if we're being honest, and then later they made up rules about the quote unquote right way to hit it, and as you said, how to hit it, we also want
to shout out the ancient sport of Roman Paganica. Pardon my mispronunciation there, but.
That one had a leather ball that was right stuffed with wool, yes, and you just knock it around with a bent stick.
And we're unclear on exactly the nature of the bent stick. It's it's very odd and check out if you want to learn more about ancient sports, check out our upcoming episode on Weird Sports for ridiculous history. But as you were saying, Noel, the predecessor of the modern version of golf comes to us in Scotland in the fourteen hundreds, in the fifteenth century, and ever since then, golf's popularity has only grown. Golf in North America is older than the United States. In North America.
Well, it's interesting too, because golf is one of these sports too that kind of combines sport with architecture and landscaping. And it's like, sure, you'll have like famous baseball stadiums, but it's all the same baseball diamond. You know, golf course is something to be designed and fussed over, and it's sort of like a demonstration of opulence too, because you know, you can literally terraform the earth and create this labyrinthine golf course.
Well yeah, and it's a way to draw in highly influential people to your neck of the woods, right to hang out, play a little game, maybe have some drinks, a couple of meals and meetings with people who, again are generally highly influential. And I think it's been used that way for centuries.
Yeah, which, well, we'll definitely have to get to there, because you can also say that about many professional sports. There's a reason people fight to have a sports organization in their neck of the global woods, in their I mean, if you look at the US, people have been playing some version of golf in North America since the early sixteen hundreds, likely introduced by the Dutch and the Scottish. As we know the Dutch settlers went on to become
patricians of the United States. To that point earlier made about influence, it was still centuries before the foundation of the first US official golf club Saint Andrew's Golf founded in Yonkers in eighteen eighty eight. And I don't know about you, guys, I don't know too much about Yonkers other than I like the name. There's something Soussian about it. So this is now the one fact I know about Yonkers.
It's like a It's not a borough of New York exactly. It's more of it's like a township or something. It's its own thing, but it is near you know, New York City for sure.
Just weirdly, guys, the Piedmont Driving Club that we mentioned earlier was founded in eighteen eighty seven. Wow, And just thinking about these are organizations of again influential people already getting together and forming another little club thing that they get.
To do, which they've been doing for a long time. You know, Europe's aristocrats met it exclusive salons and clubs. I guess the difference there for Saint Andrews then, just so we're clear, is that that was the first one founded just for golf.
Yeah. It's interesting though, because you don't really think about influential people getting together to play a game of touch football and have influential meetings. Yeah, Like there's something about golf where the individual anybody can play it, not anyone can be good at it, but it's kind of this equalizer in a way, and there's an exclusivity to it, and you play in small groups.
It's not a sport, and think about the way the sport works. You have a rotationary period and you don't have a very tight clock often so this naturally generates conversation. But bowling is not the same because in bowling people rotate quickly, so you don't have as much time to speak. But also it's not as physically demanding, and a lot of times when people play golf, part of the game involves hanging out before or after grabbing some snacks, nashin
and then talking about business deals. That's I would argue, that's part of the reason golf is so popular. It's a major economic draw. Just to finish that part. Most people don't want to compete professionally necessarily. They say, you play for about three years and you get a rough idea your skill level or your potential. But it's incredibly
popular because it helps in business. It is not uncommon to hear professionals from across industries say a good game of golf or playing golf is a pivotal moment in their careers or their negotiations or their promotions.
Absolutely, well, that's exactly what you said, Ben. It's the walk from one hole to the next hole, right from the place where the previous hole finishes to where the next win begins.
It's a pretty text for a walk and talk you know, constantly for eighteen of them.
Yes, I cannot I think we cannot stress that enough, like how impactful that has been through the years and just the things that have occurred in history because of a maybe a single game of golf or a series of games of golf.
And also it's at the same time, it functions as an extended version of you know, the lunch meeting or the firm handshake, because a lot of people pride themselves on getting a good read on folks, especially and you know, in the world of private business. So they'll I've heard things like, you know, show me a guy how how a guy plays golf, and I'll tell you how he
works in the boardroom. Well, it's why one of my favorite old Cadrey insults from business tycoons is that guy cheats at golf because what they're really saying is they think he's also a shark at business and not ethical.
Wait, so that's a compliment.
Sounds like a winner to me. Why are you kidding me?
But then there's also so many business terms that spring from golf, like the idea of having a big swing, you know what I mean, like take like a big grand efforts, or like some sort of like big forward thinking risky move is like a big swing, you know.
And golf and business are inextricably linked in a way that is somewhat unique. Right, every major sport has this huge business link to it. We talked oh links haha. We mentioned some startling stats about people playing golf in the US, but to get our heads around tonight's episode, I think we need to consider financial stats as well.
The economic impact of golf in twenty twenty two was one hundred billion dollars, and that's an increase from the last time they ran the numbers in twenty sixteen, when it was only eighty four billion dollars. Because this is another unique thing about golf, Unlike a lot of other sports, it flourish during the pandemic. It's perfect if you have to worry about social distancing.
And Ben, I mean, I'm assuming this number is referring to the economics of golf courses, of the money golfing generates, perhaps also on professional level.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's you nailed at NOL because it's things like not just the fees people pay to go to a course, but things like there were sometimes risdiculous money you can you can spend on clubs, both you know, golf clubs and golf club Hey, I got myself in a pickle there, both golf clubs as the implement and golf clubs as the location medium.
But it also just it occurred to me though that this number, if you think about all the business deals that golf generates, would be way higher in the trillions, probably an immeasurable.
Number, right, Like the endorsements, no, no, but even just the deals.
People are making whilst playing golf, you could ye as another economic impact of golf. Right, it's on.
Think.
I think it's no accident that mar A Lago is such an important function within Donald Trump's career and world, right, because it is where you can have those conversations, and he's an avid golfer, and it just occurs that.
Way, and business tycoons have on several occasions accused former President Trump of cheating Nikola.
I have heard that golf, you pick up your you drop your ball illegally, or you maybe not get some strokes back basically, right, Yeah.
I guess. I mean. Also, if you're playing golf with your buddies, did I'm sure it's a very different game, kind of the honor.
System, right, because you're keeping score for yourself. There's no like referee or official watching over you.
And I didn't want to I don't want to be labor is pulling up the quotes even though they are funny. But I have to say, in the interest of fairness and being very apolitical here, it is also possible that the business tycoons accusing each other of cheating at golf might just be sore losers. M you know. So anyway, golf is not without controversy. No sport is. There's all the drama between players. You know, We've got this almost Shakespearean tragedies of the of the great athletes who find
themselves fallen on hard time. Shout out Tiger Woods. He did disagreements, but that's not what we're here for tonight, because to really get into this. We have to go past the US and Scotland guys all the way out to the Middle East. This might finally be the episode that gets us jammed up at customs. But the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia never been.
No, right, no. Many of you listening will probably be aware that this is an incredibly rish nation, incredibly wealthy. It's located in the Middle East, home of the most important holy sites to the Muslim faith, and also home to incredibly dense and rich fossil fuel reserves or fossil fuel deposits.
Yeah, oil has been very important for ye old KSA, and I think one of the main things that we're going to be looking at today is what do you do as a giant, wealthy country when you know that your primary resource that has built all the wealth is beginning to fade away from popular opinion right or to be soured amongst popular opinion of the world.
What do you do.
Well? And if you join us for past episodes, you know that this is something the kingdom has been wrestling with for quite some time, for decades now, because people in the petroleum industry had the predictive science about the decline of fossil fuels far before the public did so.
The ruling powers, not just in Saudi Arabia, but in other oil rich nations, especially in the Middle East, they knew about this, and if you are running a long term sustainable economy, you never wanted reliant upon a single export or product or type of product. Right, So they have made a pivot. Maybe there will be a future episode about some of their other things, but from now, let's leave that right there and introduce you to the other piece. We all we have to say, we have
to acknowledge the issue in the room. Look Saudi Arabia is a huge deal, not just for fossil fuel. The most important holy sites of the Muslim faith are located there. You've also likely heard of the huge problems the nation has historically had with their human rights abuses, their treatment of women, LGBTQ, foreign workers essentially being enslaved, they vivisected Kashaki, They're terrible with journalists. They're known for very harsh enforcement
and interpretation of Islam. The list goes on. It's not a democracy. It's a very powerful place. If you've met folks from Saudi Arabia, you know they're awesome because people are pretty much people wherever you go, but people are not the country. No, And.
Gosh, can I just attempt this full name Ben?
Yes, yes, we just call him, but his full name is Salomon, Ben Abdullah Ziz, Ben Abdul Raman, Ben Faisal, Ben Turkey, Ben Abdullah, Ben Mohammad Ben Saud.
Great work, Nolan, Yeah, and everybody wondering Ben there is spelled b I n like of yeah, like son of yea of that family or of that lineage. You nailed that. You you nailed that. We can see why people don't always say his full name. Uh So that is the person uh nol Us named is the king of Saudi Arabia. But the guy we hear about most in the West is the current Crown Prince and Prime Minister, Mohammed ben Salman. And that's the guy much younger. You'll hear a lot
of quotes from him in the news. Will have some for you this evening. He is definitely the policymaker of the land, and he's done controversial, frankly brutal things. But he's also known for instituting a series of sweeping reforms that are in theory downright revolutionary for a country that is this conservative. It's called Vision twenty thirty.
So in addition to kind of pulling back on some of the historical restrictions and minor law changes, it also aims to do what could be referred to kind of as a rebrand, sort of a pr refresh of Saudi Arabia's as you mentioned Ben, patently pretty negative image to visitors, to outsiders, tourists and invest abroad. There was a particularly snarky journalist that you found a quote from Ben who put it this way, Saudi Arabia really wants.
You to think it's cool, which is, you know, I don't know how they would react to that title. While it may sound cavalier. Stephen A. Cook, writing for Foreign Policy is correct Vision twenty thirty. A lot of people are still pretty skeptical about the scope of it and the timeline. As you can imagine, they want to do a lot of stuff by twenty thirty, but right now oil is still seventy five percent of Saudi Arabia's fiscal revenue easily and forty percent of its GDP. It's it's the right move.
Well, yeah, but I'm a big part of American policy when whatever side of the aisle you know, people fall politically, is to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. Like, that's a pretty bipartisan issue, right.
Which is weird because the US is also in the grand scheme of things and a fossil fuel rich.
Country, but nowhere near as much so as Saudi Arabia.
Right, no, no, no, But US crude oil exports reached a record high just last year. So when you hear people say the US is fighting to not be reliant on foreign fuel, it's important to look at the current numbers too. I know for sure this is exciting to some people, even though it's deeply imperfect. They can be seen as steps in the right direction human rights that people have always deserved that are maybe slowly coming to
pass in this nation. But to others, granted, this is an insincere performative dance for approval on the international stage. This leads us to one of the weirdest controversies. Shout out to our buddy Brian Towey, a type of conspiracy called sports washing. What is it? I'll tell you after a word from our sponsors, here's where it gets crazy, all right, what is sports washing?
Well, according to Britannica money Sportswashing is the use of an athletic event by an individual or government, or a corporation or another group to promote or burnish the individuals or group's reputation, especially amid controversy or scandal. What so they use sports to make themselves look good.
Whilst now I'm gonna see you here, guys, let's we just let's have a good old friendly game of sports.
We're Russia, we love the Olympics.
Don't worry about the fifteen of nineteen terrorists that were from Saudi Arabia that allegedly caused the nine to eleven attacks. Don't worry about Jamal ka Shogi, who was a journalist who got exiled because he said some stuff about the King's son Wen Golff.
You guys get that right. You guys know what golf's about.
If you don't like golf, I've got other stuff. Yeah. This is similar. It's a portmanteau similar to greenwashing or which wash when yeah, which is when companies try to distract from their environmental damage by appearing to do like recycling programs are often accused of being greenwashing, and my favorite part of this definition is that list of things that might do it where they say individual, corporation, government, or other group. I kept thinking what falls into miscellaneous?
Is it like your local improv group does sports washing?
Like?
How small can a group be? How big do you have to be to participate in sports washing? I guess you have to be big enough to have a pro sports team.
Improv can be pretty controversial. Ben say some pretty inflammatory stuff in these sketches, But also I retract pink washing. That's different, though it sounds similar. Pink washing is more the sort of sale of like stuff geared towards you know, women in a kind of offensive pandory way.
Huh Okay, Okay, yeah, I bet, I bet there aren't tons of portmanteaus with washing right other than brainwashing that will we'll run into. It's weird, though, because sportsa washing is a pretty new term. It was printed in first in print in twenty fifteen and was not referring to Russia nor to Saudi Arabia. It was referring to Azerbaijan.
They had taken these actions with the European Games, and a lot of critics said this is entirely a cynical attempt to take focus off some of the horrible human rights abuses you are committing.
Yeah, and groups like Amnesty International have used this term as well to criticize other countries with similar controversies, trying to kind of cover up their, you know, sins with rollicking sporting events, including Russia's hosting of the twenty four teen Olympic Games like you were mentioning or alluding to a little while ago, ben and the twenty eighteen World Cup, because again, these are just kind of these events are we use them in America in a similar way sometimes right.
To cover up well, national anthem is at the top of every ball game.
Sure, but like sporting events, there is this kind of unifying quality to them that can be used propagandistically. And I think, you know, I'm maybe I'm overstating the case, but it feels like America can be guilty of this too, just in terms of the fervor around sports, where it's like, oh, look at this this. I mean, it's like bread and circuses, right, It's a way of distracting from a fed up stuff.
Yeah, but it is weird. So I'm thinking about Olympic Games in the United States, right. Two thousand and two is when Salt Lake City happened. That was just before we entered Iraq, right after nine to eleven and all of that stuff. That's when one of the main places where the United States has been accused of, you know, some human rights stuff, right, Not that the United States isn't accused of human rights stuff in places across the world pretty much at all times with military actions and
like stuff that isn't quite a military action. But I don't know that it's the same necessarily.
Oh no, I don't think it's the same. But I'm just saying I can see the value. How sports are clearly kind of like an obvious, you know, choice for doing this kind of thing. Yeah, we don't do it in the same way that these countries are doing it because our reputation is kind of our reputation.
It seems like they's a little fluid. I'll tell you. I'll tell you why they're too. No, because the the thing that we have to remember in this context is that the US already has huge cultural exports of soft power that other countries may not possess at that same level. So if you're the home of Hollywood and you have one of the biggest entertainment industries in the world. Then you're already getting a lot of that washing to distract from things. Check out our previous episode on the Cozy
relationship and the sweetheart deals. The US military industrial complex will make with you as a director or a production studio so long as the army looks good in your movie. Yep, they'll just let you drive the tanks. Yeah.
Which, by the way, Saudi Arabia has a big old hand in Hollywood with its Vision twenty to thirty plan that we were talking about.
So basically we wrote the playbook for a lot of this stuff, is what I think the takeaway is here.
Well, when the case of sports washing, it's strange because, like so many other things, the term itself, the language for it, is new, but the strategy is old. Beans. One of the most famous early examples of sports washing before we all collectively learned the term, is the nineteen
thirty six Nazi Olympics. The Nazi already hosted the Olympics, both because they wanted to look like the good guys are a legitimate part of the international order, and then also to them just as importantly, they wanted to prove their disturbing pseudo scientific beliefs.
About race, and uh it blew up in their face because yes, Jesse Owens right, they were wrong, kicked ass he like absolutely blew away all of their aryan entries in track and field.
And it was like a hugely embarrassing kind of pr debacle for.
Old Hiller right, because their beliefs were and beat me here at c Palin Tryers their beliefs were bullshit and easily disprove it. So this this question is what all right sportswa washing? What does this have to do to
South with Saudi Arabia. Even if you don't know much about golf, and we're not the golf encyclopedias that some people are, you've probably heard of the PGA Tour, right, even if you've just been at David Busters and played one of the golf games with the little rollie ball, it's the big one.
I actually really like playing golf video games, whether they be kind of goofy, you know, Mario type golf video games or some of the PGA Tour ones.
I find it a little bit relaxing and I find it meditative.
I enjoy it. Yeah, it's fun. It's a good chill type of game to play that does involve some precision, and it's sort of like a languid kind of pace to it, and I can see why it's appealing to some people. However, watching it on television, I do not understand entirely. It just blows my mind to the people will sit and watch golf on TV.
It's a professional golfers association. These are pros guys.
The PGA. Yeah, yeah.
Near where we live in Atlanta, we have a pg where I live. In particular, in East Lake area of Atlanta, there is the East Lake Golf Course which hosts a PGA tour and it clogs stuff up real bad, you know when it's happening because it's hard to get around.
But PGA is the big dog too. By the way, PGA is the the organizer of professional golf tours in North America. Back in twenty nineteen, there was a would be rival that I guess smelled the money. So back in twenty nineteen, a would be upstart must have smelled the money. Entered the proverbial chat. They wanted to usurp the role of the PGA, and in a burst of creativity, they called themselves the Premiere Golf League, the pg L.
It's one letter different.
It's cool, yeah, but that sounds like Vanilla Ice saying that he didn't rip off that drum track.
It is funny though, because they definitely intentionally left the P and the G in there because p stands are something different. It's premiere, which is a little more vague than professional. I would argue, you know, yeah, we're the best, We're the one of the matters.
Which is like, what those kind of the strategy for those sort of people, you know, like, can't it, will steal it. That's a common strategy, right, because if you think about the brass tacks they're saying, all right, what
if someone's buying and I guarantee this conversation happened. What if someone's buying PGA tickets for a loved one and they don't know much about golf at all, They can't get PGA, but they see PGL and they're like, oh, that's mostly the same, right, you know, like when your grandma buys you a video game for the wrong console, that's kind of the that's kind of the idea. But they also, you know, this happens all the time in sports.
So this group a Premier Golf League. They're in talks with Saudi investors early on and they say, let's get some kind of financial partnership going. Yes, they're probably playing golf when they added these conversations too. Yeah, it's true. But in twenty twenty something something went awry. Because Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund is known as the Public Investment Fund.
They said, hey, we'll make our own I'm not going to quote Bender from Futurama, but they said, we'll make our own golf league.
Oh. I thought the PGL was that thing. I got it. So the PGL was like another American interest that Saudi's were investing in, and they're like, you know, let's take this a step further. We'll launch something called the l I V or LIV Golf Investments under the Golf Saudi Moniker.
Right, we're usurping the usurpers.
Yeah, it's wild. What a power move.
And the Public Investment Fund is a story, it's all its own. That's where you see multi billions of dollars worth of investments and all sorts of things that you probably don't recognize as influenced by this money.
This is something where I guess there's some sort of committee behind making these decisions, and the decisions are pretty shadowy in terms of how things get done or where the money goes.
Yeah. Yeah, just to be clear, the citizens in Saudi Arabia do not get devoted.
But it's public.
Yeah, well, there's public information because of some lawsuits specifically that we're involved between the PGA and LIV that we're going to talk about. We know some of those investments. Now you guys might if we just go over a couple of them, just so we have some context of what they invest in. So this PIF has holdings as of oh gosh, this is from April twenty twenty three, so this is probably changed. It's in a giant investment fund, so they move money around and shares around a lot.
But as of April twenty twenty three, they owned eight point nine billion dollars worth of Lucid stock, which is that car manufacturer, three point two billion dollars worth of Activision Blizzard, two point nine billion in Electronic Arts, two point three billion in Uber, eight hundred and eighty million dollars in Live Nation. They own a ton like hundreds of millions of dollars in Meta Starbucks PayPal, Microsoft, Carnival as in like Cruises, Costco, JP, Morgan Chase, and Blackrock,
and there's so many more. Black Rock will by the way, the real estate investment firm thing. They also own a ton of Nintendo. They own eight point five eight percent of Nintendo right now, that's a lot.
Yeah, and that's not a controlling stake, but it is an influential stake. And yes, black Rock not to be confused with the black Stone. The Rock set into the eastern corner of the Kabba, the Public Investment Fund before we before we go back to the golf stuff. It has an estimated total asset of nine hundred and twenty five billion dollars nine hundred and twenty five billion.
Let's just make it a cool trillion man, you know.
I know, right, They're so so close, right, And the purpose of this investment is to diversify the economy, to bring Saudi Arabia further into the international order and sports in specific. For this episode, it became a great way to accomplish that. In October twenty twenty one, Golf Saudi division of the Public Investment Fund. Because it's that big, they have a bunch of divisions who just work on
specific ideas golf. Saudi launched Live Golf Investments LIV. You know, like how the cool apps don't put the E at the end of their stuff sometimes.
I always found this silent letters to be a bit obnoxious.
Anyway, So yeah, you think they're presumptuous a little bit.
They really insisted on them.
So you must hate French.
I enjoy the French.
Yeah. Okay, So there's a legendary golfer named Greg Norman. I got excited about this, but it's not a guy, I know, it's just a very common name, Greg.
Yeah, I did.
For a second, I thought, oh snap, Greg. He is named the CEO PIF Fund and live as billions bot billions of profits from fossil fuels. So they go around to all of the biggest names in the world of golf and they say, hey, how much money.
Well, they need a face, they need a recognizable face for their operations, somebody who's beloved, you know, by followers of the game of golf. And they you know, went to the top names, starting with folks like Tiger Woods who did turn it down, whether it be for philosophical reasons, ethical reasons, or they just didn't hit his rate.
His quote, he said it was as a matter of loyalty because good for TIGERSGA had done so much for him and for the game of golf, and they offered him more than seven hundred million dollars. Dude.
ABC News said eight hundred million dollars, which, again, those kinds of numbers. What's the difference between seven hundred million and eight hundred million. I don't know that I could really tell you.
Yeah, we don't have a nine hundred billion and a trillion, you know, I mean, it's like, might as well be infinity money.
We Yeah, we don't have the specifics obviously of the deal, but most news sources are going to estimate it as saying between more than seven hundred up to eight hundred million. And then so Tiger Woods and other people said no, and then other golfers like Greg Norman.
I do not know.
It's crazy. I feel like I know three people named Greg Norman.
I just know him from growing up around golf and Augusta, Georgia.
Other people like him and Phil Mickelson. Then, just to show this up, they didn't say yes, they did play ball.
Yeah, I understand, Like, the only reason I have any association with names like this is because growing up in my hometown, which is the home of the Augusta National where the Master's golf tournament is played, and it is a big deal in the city of Augusta.
Yeah, guys like Bubba Watson, which was a big deal. I remember there were news stories when he went over to live as well, and he was just like, hey, sorry, guys, this is about my family a money.
By Yeah, golf clubs are expensive, which I was just learning to.
By the way, Yaviar's expensive.
Just to bring in this ABC News article because I think it speaks to why this is such a weird situation. ABC News is talking about this, right, They posted an article in March of this year called Live Golf's controversial growth raises questions over Saudi sportswashing, right, the very thing we're talking about here, and ABC News the person who wrote this had to write this in the article.
Guys.
Quote the PIF we're talking about here, the Public Investment Fund, which also owns a minority stake in Disney, the parent company of ABC News and Hulu. Again, like all of these companies together, the person writing this has to make this concession because Saudi Arabia is investing so much money across entertainment and sports and all these things that literally to even talk about it often as a journalist, you have to be aware that you are probably being touched by this Saudi money.
Right, Saudi Arabia. Also, I would say it's less a concession and more like the ethics of journalism, Like when NPR says short of our funding is here, it's just to just to get in from of disclosure, right, full disclosure maybe. But with this, it also reminds me our parent company, iHeart is associated with Live Nation, and who who has a stake in Live Nation?
Well that's yeah, yeah, exactly this one. But there's according to that article, this Sovereign Wealth Fund has invested thirteen point five billion dollars into sports since it started, Right, So if you've got that much money just going into sports, and then you know that there's like one point three trillion dollars in total that has been invested like since the inception of this twenty thirty thing, and then you
know that all this money is just spreading out. When I'm saying like everybody's being touched by it, it just means you there's a level of full disclosure is one thing, but there's a level of anyone writing about it has to just be a little more careful absolutely when they're doing that.
Well, you know, like you said, the Saudi money touches so much industry, and for a good reason are they investing in sports beyond the whole sports watching of it. It's just good business. It's a way making a.
Crap ton of money, and everybody wants it.
That's a great point to you, Noel, because the PIF, the Public Investment Fund, began in nineteen seventy one, so even the numbers you're getting now about their total financial assets are not counting other things that have grown over time, right because compound interest I think was Mark Twain had a great quote about compound interest, which I will slow
us down with now. But the point you made that really stands out to me there, Noal, is that if your goal is to diversify your economy, right, then of course you want to invest in a whole bunch of other things. It would be cartoonish to say, we're too reliant on fossil fuels, so let's invest everything in corn, you know what I mean? Because now you're just too little corn. It's fine a little. The corn is fine
as a treat. But now otherwise you're taking all your eggs and just putting them in a different basket made of corn husks. Perhaps, so it's not necessarily just on the economic structure and strategy, there is not itself inherently sinister. The problem comes when we consider that in the context of all these other controversies surrounding the kingdom and live golf.
Well, you just have to consider how many corporations out there are wanting an investment from Saudi Arabia because you can. If you can get two billion dollars injected into whatever your company is doing, that's amazing. And everybody's looking for that year over a year, quarter over a quarter increase. And if you've got like two twenty one hundred billion dollars to play with your and he's going to do just fine.
And if you can keep it quiet to avoid controversy, right, if you can get it through a subsidiary of a subsidiary, the money spends the same and you can possibly avoid the bad optics or the.
Great optics of Hey, investors, he just got two more billion dollars to play with. And then stock shoots up, and then everybody makes money because Saudi Arabia has got you know, a minority share.
Now, yeah, my point was that I think a lot of them are getting money through subsidiaries in a way that helps obscure the origin of Saudi Arabia and industries where that might be sensitive and maybe I mean correct.
Oh, I think it's certainly part of it. But I think it's also on a pr level easy to explain the investment away because it's like, duh, we're business people. We are investing in things that make us money. It doesn't have to be some sort of nefarious plot.
You know.
I'm not saying the two things don't coexist, but I think it's easy to explain it away on a public relationship level by just saying this is just good business.
And taking it back to Live Golf for the record, you know, people love golf obviously, obviously, people love sports, people love golf. Live Golf has always claimed that we want to holistically improve the health of professional golf. That's quote from their website and to quote, help unlock the
sports potential. A lot of the old Guard was again pretty miffed about this, and they're some of the most strident critics of Saudi Arabia's moves in this field, and a lot of longtime critics of Saudi Arabia for other stuff on the human rights spectrum. They just said, Saudi Arabia is doing this not because they like golf, not because it's a good investment for them economically, but because
it's a geopolitical conspiracy. This is to improve the soft power of the country, their international reputation and say like, hey, yeah, we're doing evil things to human beings with our left hand. Look at us. We also have the golf at our right hand, so pay attention to that hand.
But ben are they being very publicly forward in branding and the like associating the country with they are Okay, oh yeah, I want to hear more about that.
Yeah, for sure, We're get do great. Great quote Ardi. So there's a news conference ahead of Live Golf's first event, and reporters were to the thing about journalistic ethics and integrity. Reporters were asking questions like Phil Mickelson, who we mentioned just a few moments ago. He was asked directly, quote, isn't there a danger that you're seeing as a tool of sports washing and the sports washing question came up over and over again in these Western press conferences, and
then another human rights group released a great study. They're called Grant Liberty and their report on Saudi Arabian sports washing efforts. They take it as a given. They just say, look, because of all the money the potential in this sports as if you think about it, well it's not on the level of fossil fuel, but it is a multi billion dollar industry. They said, now they're trying to lighten their image. I don't know, that's the thing. This is
the question I have for you guys. We we know people try to start new sports orgs all the time. It's a huge coup to host a global sporting event, from racing to the World Cup in the Olympics. Is it inherently sinister?
Well, that was the question that I think I was our Devil's advocating for earlier. You know, just the idea that it can at very least be explained away, that it is not inherently sinister. This just makes sense. We love this stuff, we love the sport. We want to help, you know, make it better. And I believe that group that you quoted, Ben or that you cited Grant Liberty kind of summed it up exactly that way. Sports has loved,
they said, and played around the world. That is a giant unifying force, and it's also a multi billion dollar industry. By associating themselves with sport, leaders are seeking to position their country in line with that magic. They want to bask in reflected glory and like you said, ben lighten their image.
Yeah, well, there's also a convenience factor. Maybe I don't think this applies to Saudi Arabia's rulers, to be honest, but if you have the big global event for any particular sport in your country, you get national pride. And also everybody who lives there doesn't have to spend thousands of dollars, you know, on plane flights or traveling by cargo ship or rail, and they don't have to spend thousands of dollars on hotels. I don't know if that
applies to the ruling powers of Saudi Arabia. I don't think they're worried about like getting the cheapest flight on Delta or whatever.
No, probably not.
I want to point one thing out, guys, because I think I think it has exactly to do with this. There's this group called nine to Eleven Families United, and it's shared by someone named Terry Strata, whose husband was
killed in the nine to eleven attacks. And when Live Golf was first announced back in twenty twenty one, this group came forward and began protesting and writing and speaking publicly about it because of the at the time in twenty twenty one, more and more information that was coming out right before that about how Saudi Arabia's intelligence arms or at least government officials likely had something to do with the September eleventh attacks. And we're talking actual intelligence,
not like just people writing conspiracy theories online. This was a real news story that was starting to happen. If you look at pro Publica, they put out a story this year on September eleventh titled at least two Saudi officials may have deliberately assisted nine to eleven hijackers. New evidence suggests this is one of the primary stories that exist in the Western world and especially in the United States, when it comes to when you think about Saudi Arabia,
what do you think about? And if this stuff is in the news cycle pretty consistently, then live Golf is one way as we're saying here, So just shift what people are thinking about. The first couple of things they think about. When they hear Saudi Arabia, right, or the kingdom or the prince or the king or something like that, you think, oh, yeah, so that's a live golf guys, right, not this.
Yeah yeah, that's definitely one of the criticism or that's the fundamental piece of sportswa washing, you know, going into the timing of something just like soachy and just like the Nazi Olympics. But we also have to ask, you know, with something in the magnitude of nine to eleven, how much could golf move the needle or is it more
death by a thousand paper cuts? Because we know, you know, it reminds me of the pr moves on a much smaller level that different agencies will do where they want something to get off the first page of search results, so they figure out something else to happen, right, like a new news story to be manufactured and appear to go viral.
Yeah yeah.
But the PGA Commissioner J Monahan, when live golf was announced, basically jumped on with the exact talking points the nine to eleven families United was saying, saying, this is basically a moral issue, more so than even a money issue or appearance issue. It's just crazy to think that that is where it existed, at least in the minds of the people behind the PGA, when they were looking at a competitor like Live showing up.
I'm glad that points brought up there, because yes, the international public renown is a huge factor. But we have to ask, in all fairness, all the evil corruption and conspiracy vivisection of journalists aside, what makes Saudi Arabia different. This is a question I have, and I think it's a very important question to that note about the PGA. How much of the criticism is valid spoiler a lot? And how much is being propagated by older forces in
those organizations like the PGA. How much are they acting out of self preservation versus out of noble aspirations for human rights. As sticky as it is to say, I will posit that both things can be true at once agreed, So in our notes we have this as the part that might get us banned from Saudi Arabia, the one that might get us jammed up at Saudi Arabian customs. Saudi Arabia is not just getting into golf. They're going
into sports overall in a big, big way. Some controlling stakes were in various other industries were mentioned earlier, and we tease that there was more than just golf of foots here. But you can look at the links. The Public Investment Fund owns controlling stakes, not just minority stakes, controlling stakes in Newcastle United, for Saudi domestic football or soccer teams. It had a stake in Formula One's parent company,
McLaren Group. And then they're they're getting big into esports too, Right, what's the difference between esports? Guys, this is such a dumb question, but I'm not afraid of dumb questions. What's the difference to esports and sports video games?
Isn't esports like professional league like leagues? Oh that's okay, Yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right.
Esport is any game first version, shooters, you know, like those Dota games, any of that stuff.
On a competitive, like professional level.
Right, you can have sports games esports.
That makes sense. And they also got a some of us in the crowdle like this. They also have a mind already stake in a rival to the UFC, the US Professional Fighters League. So yet again we see the letters play. There's the PFL and the UFC their ideas. They're going to launch an MMA league and a super fight division, all located in Saudi Arabia. Oh. Also, pro
wrestling is big. We know some folks who work for WWE and have traveled to Saudi Arabia to stage events there were It's pretty much everything boxing, horse racing, sailing, tennis. You know what I'm excited about, Saudi Arabian sumo wrestling. Maybe you finally get a ticket that's not I don't know if that's happen.
Isn't that cool? I mean, so that's the thing that's interesting to me too. It's like sports aren't considered cultural appropriation because it's like, even if a sport was invented in a certain country, after a certain point, it becomes kind of this universal thing. But like sumo wrestling, I mean like that, I know you're sort of joking, but where where did the line get drawn in terms of like, but culture is associated with a particular type of event.
That's a good question, man, because we know that there are non Japanese national folks who have become professional sumo wrestlers. I'm now I'm becoming the problem because I'm wondering if it would just be easier to get a ticket to a sumo event Saudi Arabia took over.
Oh yeah, I mean, answer if it was like a bicultural sort of exchange and it was like we agree that we want to proliferate the sport beyond Japan and include you know, I mean, I don't know. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get into the weeds there. It's just that is interesting because for certain things like you know, baseball or basketball or football, you know, really he certainly
it's American, I guess. But it's also like soccer is huge in Europe and it's a huge in South America, and only just recently has it become a more of a phenomenon here in the States.
So the cultural side of it is interesting to me. Yeah, yeah, that's I think that's a deep question too. I mean, we know, all in all Saudi Arabia's eighty five major separate events, and at every turn in all of these events, you'll hear people accusing athletes, managers, and coaches of being functionally complacent, right of essentially taking the thirty pieces of silver to betray humanity right and distract from these serious, very real human rights abuses. So what's the motivation really?
It depends on who you ask why all this recent massive investment Before we get to monopolization that we wanted to mention, I think we go directly to the Crown Prince Mohamed Salman to ask about this. He is pretty blunt about it in interviews, and he makes no secret of the massive financial motivations of play. He was speaking to Fox News and said he didn't care about the debate around sports washing. He was interviewed by Brett Bahar,
the same guy who earlier interviewed VP Harris. Quite recently, as we record, and this is in September twentieth of twenty twenty three, the Crown print says, Look, I don't care if sports washing is going to increase my GDP by one percent, will continue doing sports washing. I don't care. I have one percent growth in GDP from sport and I'm aiming to get another one point five percent. Call it what you want, we are going to get that one point five percent.
Well, and while that's like mega blunt and I think that's interesting in and of itself. It is exactly that kind of diversionary explaining away of like the no, duh, we're gonna do this. It's like really good for our gross domestic product and whatever you want to call it. You call it that, but that's not why we're doing it.
We're just making money over here.
Well, I think it was even more so that he's just not going to even countenance the conversation, right, dignify it with a response? Right, would the old media training thing answer the question you wish you were asked? And the Kingdom is still an extremely dangerous place for those seen as violating its laws. We can't forget that eighty one people were executed there on a single day just back in twenty twenty two. These are very recent events.
So what happens next in golf specifically? I think we wanted to talk about some more mergers and acquisitions.
Well, yeah, for since Live Golf was established and they got Phil Mickelson and several other high profile people, they were investing billions and billions of dollars starting this new thing. PGA, the PGA Group or the PGA Tour and Live Golf have been embroiled in a legal battle, and it's been ongoing and ongoing, and all of a sudden, and by the way, there are clear sides that were taken, especially amongst the professional golfers. We talked about that a little bit.
There are clear sides for supporters who are just of golf, some people going over to live golf and totally fine with it in its new version of what golf is, or could be other people who want that old who want that old golf feeling and hanging out with PGA.
Right, like Tiger and right he stayed behind. Yeah, is just a big name that like went over. Let's see that became CEO Greg Norman.
Right, So that you've got these and they were there were like fighting sides, right, mean things are being said, bad things are being said about each other basically. Then all of a sudden in June there's a huge announcement made by the same guy that I mentioned a quote from earlier, Jay Monahan, who's the PGA Tour commissioner. He came out and basically said, okay, guys, we've come to a deal Live Golf, the PGA Tour as well as this thing called the dp World Tour. We're all coming
together and we're going to function as one thing. We're going to unify golf across the world as one thing, basically by merger efforts and money, which was crazy to everybody, for everybody, because well especially people on the PGA side, because it was a battle that was being fought to prevent this very thing from happening, right from either live golf overtaking the PGA Tour or from merging with a bunch of Saudi Arabian money to turn the pg Tour
into something else. And now the commissioner, who was publicly fighting back and fighting legal battles, just said, now it's cool, guys, we're all going we're all coming together. Here's a quote from Jay. What we're talking about today is coming together to unify the game of golf, and to do so under one umbrella. We've recognized that together we can have a far greater impact on this game than we can working apart. The game of golf is better for what
we've done here today. Very reverent, Well, you know, it sounds like to me, it sounds like somebody who skied.
Absolutely, he's spouting a line. For sure, I'm saying the tone of that though, is so self congratulatory it kind of makes you throw up in your mouth a little bit. Yeah, it's a little weird.
And for now, the story continues. We didn't say much about the human rights abuses other than to refer to them, but we have mentioned notable moments. You can learn more about that in past episodes of our show, as well as your own searches. The specific initiative for sports overall and Saudi Arabia acquisition thereof continues at a rapid pace.
Saudi Arabia has recently won the rights to stage the finals of the Asian Champions League football tournament, then the twenty thirty four Asian Games, the twenty twenty seven Asian Cup, the twenty twenty nine Winter Olympics, and is going to host the twenty thirty four World Cup, by far, one of the biggest sports events on the planet. So a lot of people believe more Olympic bids are only a
matter of time. To put it simply, Saudi Arabia's riches are transforming the landscape of sporting and there's a controversial, profound shift and influence taking place. While people are going to raise concerns continually, I think it is highly unlikely that the sporting world is gonna somehow unanimously turn away from billions upon billions of dollars.
That's just not how.
Sports or business works, right, Nope, it's not really the m O. And so with this we'll keep an eye on the story. We hope you do. Two folks, we would love to hear your thoughts. We don't always do sports episodes, but we try to make them special when we get to it. Is this on the up and up? Or is something else afoot on the on the global course of golf something they don't want you to know.
Tell us your thoughts. We can't wait to hear your experiences, especially in just to help us out on some other things, especially if you can name your favorite weird sport and maybe tell us what the Saudi government should invest in next. We tried to be easy to find online.
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If you want to call us, call one eight three three STDWYTK. Call us after you've checked out that ABC News article PGA Tour Live Golf DP World Tour unify under one umbrella. What do you think about this as a conclusion? What are you going to keep watching golf now that it's something different?
Do you even like golf?
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