When you think of a sport, you might think of a country or continent to associate with.  Soccer is European, football is American, and cricket is Indian.  But what if that all changed? 

Saudi Arabia is a great power in the Middle East that has taken a great interest in sports – so much so that it is spending billions of dollars to bring talent to the nation’s sports teams.  One example is LIV Golf, which was a Saudi-made golf league.  The only other significant golf league (the biggest in the world then) was the PGA, which enjoyed a 100-year dominance until 2021 when Saudi Arabia made LIV Golf.  LIV Golf became so wildly popular that LIV Golf and PGA Golf merged in just two years.  The merger of the companies was unexpected, considering PGA was over 90 years old and LIV Golf was only two years old.  While the merger was not complete, the amount of resources that PGA put into LIV Golf was surprising. 

Another example of this happening is in soccer, where Saudi Arabia created a league called the RSL.  For a while, the RSL was a relatively unknown league – until this year,  when they spent over 800 million dollars on famous soccer players such as Karim Benzema, Neymar Jr., Sadio Mané, and (most importantly) Cristiano Ronaldo.  Ronaldo is the most famous soccer player, with over 600 million followers on Instagram. 

Golf and soccer are two examples of Saudi Arabia taking over sports, but the main question is whether this is a positive or negative for the sports world.  The positive argument is that it creates competition with other leagues, stops stagnating and that other countries are spending more on their leagues like the Premier League.  However, the negative side of the argument is that Saudi Arabia is stealing all of the good players and is taking part in “sportswashings,” which are defined as “governments using sports to improve reputations tarnished by wrong they have committed,” which for Saudi Arabia’s case are issues such as human right violations, including discrimination against those in the LGBTQ+ community and problems over women’s rights.  Which side of the argument is correct?  That is for you to decide. 

Michaelson, R. (2023, July 26). Revealed: Saudi Arabia’s $6bn spend on ‘sportswashing’. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/26/revealed-saudi-arabia-6bn-spend-on-sportswashing

Draper, K. (2023, June 7). The Alliance of LIV Golf and the PGA Tour: Here’s What to Know. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/07/sports/golf/pga-liv-golf-merger.html

Frommer, F. (2023, June 7). Sportwashing. Britannica Money. Retrieved October 4, 2023, from https://www.britannica.com/money/sportwashing