I didn’t write anything about what was perhaps this month’s biggest sports story: the merger between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf. On the one hand, this story likely has far-reaching implications for both the sports world and international politics. On the other hand, it’s about golf.
Not that golf is bad, if that’s your thing. I’m just not sure I have much insight on the subject, especially as the details of the merger are still so murky. Part of the confusion was on display in an open letter Tom Watson wrote to Jay Monahan, head of the PGA Tour. In it, Watson asked some pretty basic questions about the deal; it’s quite remarkable that even a player of Watson’s stature is in the dark about this stuff.
But Watson also addressed the relationship between LIV and the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund which bankrolled LIV. (Watson focused specifically on Saudi connections to 9/11, but there are obviously a whole slew of atrocities that can be more definitively traced to the Saudi family that controls the PIF, from the murder of Jamal Khashoggi to the war in Yemen.)
Usually, when this is brought up, people throw around terms like “sportswashing”: The idea is that Saudi Arabia is trying to sanitize its image by investing in beloved western sports institutions like the PGA Tour. But I don’t think this is really right. After all, the controversies that erupt over things like LIV, or the PIF’s investment in the Premier League, attract almost exclusively negative attention to Saudi Arabia, which otherwise enjoys a pretty cozy relationship with the West.
So I think there’s something much more nefarious going on, which really gets at the nature of private ownership. I will probably write more on it eventually, but I guess I have to pay more attention to golf….
Anyway, here’s a round up of everything from Undrafted this month, which was mostly about The Process:
A History of “The Process”
The first part of this series actually ran in May, but I want to see if I can sum up what the whole thing was about here…
Part I: What were the materialist roots of the pro-front office ideology that led to The Process?
Part II: Why was The Process so anti-labor? How did Philly screw up almost every prospect it drafted?
Part III: Why didn’t The Process work? Are anti-labor strategies doomed to fail?
Part IV: What is Philadelphia left with 10 years later?
An Ode to Jokić
It’s hard to call Nikola Jokić “underrated” at this point, since basically everyone now agrees he is the best basketball player in the world. But being underrated seems fundamental to Jokić’s identity as a player. Even this year, he lost the MVP race to Joel Embiid for a variety of factors that had little to do with his actual play — …
An ode to a working class hero…
The Commissioner Knows Who He Works For
The sad situation in Oakland, where the Athletics are now all-but-officially planning to leave the city that has hosted the team for 55 years, has once again put MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred center stage this month. Earlier this month, Manfred talked to reporters