The Saudi Golf League Will Be A Spectacular Failure

Phil Mickelson blocked me on Twitter because I said he was a selfish, entitled jerk for taking Saudi blood money.

He can block me. But he knows I’m right.

Vince McMahon and WWE are in the process of their own sportswashing with Saudi Arabia, as it clears $50 million twice a year for a “WrestleMania-level” spectacle in the country. It’s disgusting propaganda. While I gave up on WWE long before they started running shows in Saudi Arabia, it’s a big reason why I haven’t given WWE a dime of money in years, and don’t plan on doing so any time soon.

We’ve seen Americans reject sportswashing en masse this year with the Winter Olympics, as the games being played in China has been a huge reason for the massive decline in ratings. While some have pointed to the time difference, the Olympic Games had the same TV issues with time zones in 2018, and those games didn’t suffer.

Somehow, the proposed Saudi golf league is even worse than only sportswashing because it has the added benefit of really, really, really rich people trying to make even more money.

We saw this play out in 2021 when the top European soccer clubs tried to form a Super League that died a miserable, tremendous, hilarious death in about 48 hours as supporters of every club took to the streets, and even the pitch, to protest. No one wanted it because the sport was built upon competition and being open to every club. The closed-door league never made sense in soccer. It makes even less sense in golf.

There has been rumblings from a few high-profile golfers over the years, starting with Greg Norman, continued by Phil Mickelson, and now including Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau, that the players weren’t making enough money. Notably absent from this list is Tiger Woods, who is the reason why all these guys make so much money anyway. Tiger changed the math for the entire sport. If anyone should feel slighted that they weren’t making enough, it would be Tiger.

Instead, some members of this golfing generation feel that it’s their birthright to make millions upon millions more than the millions upon millions they are already making. This isn’t a situation like in baseball, where the owners make billions while the players make millions…