The Saudi Public Investment Fund is going to pull its funding of LIV Golf, sounding the death knell for the PGA Tour rival – and putting the careers of the top stars that the Saudis lured away with bags of money at question, because the PGA Tour stuffed shirts still have hurt feelings over the whole deal.
Who cares, right – they’re all MAGAs; the ones who took the blood money just have an extra zero on their net worth.
I do wonder about the timing, with the war in Iran that the Saudi royal family continues to support roiling the oil economy.
Indeed, it might appear that the decision was made to not only cut the billions of dollars in losses that the PIF has accrued with this particular sportswashing venture, but, hey, we’re taking the hit here – both literally, in terms of the sporadic attacks from Iran that have hit Saudi targets, but also economically.
Damn shame.
I’ll wonder next here what the PIF has in mind for Wrestlemania 43, which is scheduled to take place in Riyadh next spring.
A key part of the sportswashing is supposedly to try to lure Westerners to want to take a visit, but who out there with money to burn is going to want to sit in an open-air stadium in the desert with 60,000 people, basically the biggest, brightest target for Iranian drones you can possibly imagine?
WWE and its corporate parent, TKO, the latter of which has a massive debt load weighing it down, are like the golfers who signed on when the PIF opened up the checkbook.
Basically, pay to the order of.
We can only hope that there’s more comeuppance in the cards for the blood money-suckers.
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Chris Graham
