Since its start three years ago, LIV Golf has taken courses by storm. Backed by Saudi Arabian oil money, the league has poached various PGA stars including Phil Mickelson, Bubba Watson, and Bryson DeChambeau with irrefutable contract offers. Similar to Happy Gilmore 2’s MAXI Golf League, LIV Golf portrays itself as a more exciting brand of golf with shorter view times, no cuts to eliminate players throughout tournaments, teams, and shotgun starts. Specifically, LIV is targeting the people who had previously succumb to the stereotype that golf is boring. As characterized by Monica Fee, Global Head of Partnerships at LIV Golf, “When you look outside [at a tournament] and you see 20-somethings coming out to experience golf for the very first time, 30% of our fans have never come out to a golf event before. And they’re coming out to experience it through LIV. That’s good for the sport of golf.”
While LIV Golf officials argue that what they are doing is helping to globalize golf, funding streams are questionable. The primary investor of LIV is the Saudi’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), a state sponsored financial conglomerate whose web spans the globe. PIF is invested in a plethora of industries, including major U.S. companies like Uber and Blackstone. Historically PIF has been the target of non-profit and congressional pressure regarding their connection to Saudi human rights violations and 9/11 funding.
PIF recently acquired the American videogame company Electronic Arts (EA), who’s known for popular games including Madden NFL, NCAA Football, and Battlefield. Alongside PIF, investment firms Silver Lake and Affinity Partners backed the deal. These firms have interesting portfolios and ownership themselves; Silver Lake is a major player in the U.S. purchase of Tik Tok, and Affinity Partners was founded by President Trump’s son in law, Jared Kushner. Affinity’s ties to Trump have raised congressional concern regarding whether Kushner was involved solely to grease the palm of the federal government. However, Trump did much of the legwork, building a strong and personal relationship with Saudi Arabia; therefore, disarming the American public to national security issues created by the proliferation of Saudi investment in U.S. markets.
President Trump dances alongside Saudis at welcome ceremony, Washington Post 2017.
The decision to start LIV Golf and purchase EA is the product of Saudi Arabia’s “Vision 2030,” which aims to diversify its portfolio away from oil toward centers of culture like sports, entertainment, and technology. Strategically speaking, these investments utilize Saudi financial might to generate soft power; therefore, pushing American consumers to reformulate their beliefs about Riyadh. Importantly, PIF is playing the long game, targeting sectors skewed toward younger Americans, who consume videogames and exciting adaptations of traditional sports at a much higher rate than older generations.
While cultural influence is a major concern, the Saudi purchase of EA is an extremely dangerous overstep into American privacy and national security. EA has a massive network, which is now easily accessible to the Saudi government. Therefore, leaving consumers vulnerable to surveillance, theft of personal or behavioral data, and propaganda. Artificial intelligence complicates the issue further, as EA has various machine learning research projects underway. While the AI race intensifies, motivations to secure U.S. intellectual property (IP) are certainly underpinning PIF’s impetus to purchase EA.
Despite the fact domestic concerns have taken precedence, EA maintains a massive international market. Furthermore, EA mirror’s major U.S. sports leagues in their mission to increase international engagement. In partnership with the NFL, EA orchestrated a Madden tournament in Spain dubbed “The Madrid Challenge,” which hosted major names in the E-Sports community. Considering EA’s existing international market share and signals to grow the player-base abroad, U.S. allies are likely to begin asking the same questions about security that are circling Washington.
EA SPORTS, NFL Madrid promotion.
Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) voiced these concerns in a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. However, the EA conversation has since been overshadowed by partisan government shutdown bickering over healthcare subsidies. PIF’s direct access to swaths of consumer data and AI research must not be ignored following reopening of the government. While congressional Democrats face nepotism turned executive protection, a push to bring the components of the EA deal to Washington to answer important questions about consumer vulnerability and IP protections is necessary.
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