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The PGA Tour on Tuesday defended its controversial agreement with the Saudi-backed LIV golf league before its senators, as scrutiny of the agreement intensifies.
Representatives of the LIV Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund were not present at the hearing because CEO Greg Norman is out of the country, according to a spokesperson. PGA Tour Chief Operating Officer Ron Price and Independent Director of the Policy Council Jimmy Dunn testified before the Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee on the investigations.
Dunn and Price said they believed the PGA Tour would benefit most from the proposed deal. If a deal is struck, Dunn said, the tour “will remain unchanged and become more robust,” and added that he hopes PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan will have a “more productive role in golf” in more than one constructive way.
Price also said the tour was not looking for the Saudis.
“We’re in a situation where we’re facing a real threat… You could go somewhere else for $1 billion, $3 billion, maybe $50 billion,” he said. “We can do it but if we go down that road, we end up giving up complete control.”
A Senate committee is investigating the agreement, which would merge the business operations of golf tournaments. The proposed deal with LIV has raised questions regarding the tour’s future and sponsorship of its players.
The tour is raking in billions of dollars in sponsorship deals and televised media rights deals. The PGA Tour has a nine-year deal, which begins in 2022, with Comcast, Paramount Global and Disney that brings in $700 million in annual fees, according to Previous reports. The PGA Tour has also signed on for 12 years A $2 billion deal With Warner Bros. Discovery in 2018 to acquire international TV rights, despite being restructured earlier this year.
The merger announcement in June shocked the sports world, with many critics on Capitol Hill accusing LIV, which is funded by the Public Investment Fund, of “sportswashing” or spreading government influence through sports.
“Today’s session is about more than just golf… it is about how a brutal and oppressive regime can buy influence—and indeed take over—a cherished American institution simply to cleanse its public image,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., in a statement. “The regime has killed journalists, imprisoned and tortured opponents, promoted the war in Yemen, and supported other terrorist activities, including 9/11. This is called sportswashing.”
A spokesperson for Blumenthal said the committee is preparing to hear testimony from Norman as well as the golfers at some point in the future.
And while the subcommittee’s chairman, Blumenthal, was critical of the deal, ranking member Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, took a softer tone.
“It is my hope that the hearing will give the PGA the opportunity to describe the challenge of operating and managing professional golf,” Johnson said in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday. “The PGA faced an existential threat and this is what they are trying to do to keep golf and the purity of competition at the highest level.”
In a framework agreement, the proposed deal shows that it will create a for-profit subsidiary of the PGA Tour, and the new entity will manage the commercial assets of all tours. The PGA Tour will run the competitions, and has said it is leading negotiations for a final agreement.
Johnson said on Tuesday the focus should be on negotiations leading to a deal to preserve golf, adding that the tour faced an “existential threat” before reaching this early deal with the PIF.
Fears of Saudi influence
Critics also pointed to the Saudi government’s relationship with the September 11 attacks, which the Saudis denied, and the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, accusing the Saudis of “sportswashing.” Since its inception, LIV has faced such criticism, and its events have been targeted by protesters, especially family members of those who died in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Fifteen of the 19 hijackers that day were from Saudi Arabia, and Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the attacks, was born in the country. US officials concluded that Saudi nationals helped fund the terrorist group Al Qaeda, although investigations did not find that Saudi officials were complicit in the attacks.
“Listen, I have the deepest sympathy for the 9/11 families. I understand the ‘sportswashing’ issue. I don’t think there are enough billions of dollars for the Saudis to remove the stain of Khashoggi’s brutal murder.”
“But the truth is, we all buy oil. We drive the cars. We fill the coffers of the (public) investment fund. I’d rather have the Saudis invest their oil fortunes in the US, than in China or Russia, and that’s just the reality of the world,” Johnson added. .
Earlier on Tuesday, Blumenthal called out the Saudi ties and how the announcement was made a year before the deal was made by PGA Tour commissioner Guy Monahan. Disclosed in such disagreements.
Blumenthal, like the 9/11 Families United group, referred to Monahan’s comments during an earlier interview with CBS Sports, when he said he had discussed these disagreements with the tour players.
“I think you have to live under a rock not to know that there are significant ramifications,” Monahan said during the interview. “I would ask any player who left or any player who might be considering leaving, ‘Have you ever apologized for being a member of the PGA Tour?'”
After the deal was announced, Monahan said he expected to be called a hypocrite and that he accepted the criticism, especially after PGA Tour players expressed their shock and anger. Monahan has been on leave for an unspecified medical condition, but is expected to return on July 17.
While the Tour has defended the proposed deal as golf’s best foot forward, especially given the costly litigation and stiff competition LIV has presented, it had not yet acknowledged contentious relations with Saudi Arabia until Tuesday’s hearing.
“Of course, we expect many questions about who we’re dealing with,” Dunn told the subcommittee on Tuesday. He went on to say that he lost 66 of his friends and colleagues in his company during the September 11 attacks.
Dan then added that if the deal went through, nothing would gain him but the sense of pride that helped us unite the game we love.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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