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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and from the Brian Lehrer show sports page. This question today, why is the country of Saudi Arabia now competing with a PGA Tour for the participation of professional golfers, and what are the human rights implications of that? The Professional Golfers Association of America or a PGA Tour has been the standard of golf for over a century in this country and really around the world. It has a new companion now, the LIV, L-I-V Golf International Tour, which was funded by Saudi Arabia. PGA golf players were lured to play for LIV with big salaries. A move which has caused controversy due to the country's headlines of human rights abuses.

The players who left to join the LIV Tour, which includes a list of big stars like Phil Nicholson and Dustin Johnson, we're barred now from returning to the PGA Tour. 17 golfers have resigned so far. The LIV Tour premiered last week, this is why it's in the news and the series will have eight season events in total. More details are still emerging about the LIV Tour, which could potentially drastically, all through the course of professional golf and may have implications for human rights. Here with us to explain and talk about it is, Will Leitch, contributing editor at New York Magazine, colonist@lmlb.com, of course, covers baseball and founding editor of Deadspin.

Well, great to have you on the show. Thanks for coming on.

Will Leitch: Of course. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: I see your article on Deadspin is endless Saudi money throws golf into an existential crisis. Why is Saudi Arabia throwing money at golf of all things? Isn't the country one big sand trap?

Will Leitch: [Laughs] It is that. The New York Magazine piece discussed generally about what-- This has been a big move from the sovereign wealth fund in Saudi Arabia. It's been a goal for the last few years. They're involved in something called sportswashing, is basically the term that's used for. The idea is that you basically launder the reputation of your country through sports because people like sports and people want to watch sports. Oftentimes people have had to jump through, sometimes moral and mental hoops to be able to enjoy some of the athletes in the sports that they want to root for. Therefore sports is an ideal place to do this. Now, in the past, they've done this with horse racing.

The Saudi Cup is actually the most wealthy -- has the highest purse of any horse race in the world. The WWE actually has become a huge place. The famously amoral WWE has become a big place for first sorting money to go into, but now they're going into golf and they've actually directly challenged the PGA Tour, which you could argue was uniquely vulnerable, basically for a couple of reasons. One golf has actually lost a little bit of influence over the last 5 or 10 years. Therefore it's kind of a weakened property. Also these athletes, they're not in a union like in baseball or the NFL or the NBA, they're all independent contractors. They pay their own way to events, a lot of ways.

There's been a lot of golfers frustrated with that. The Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund basically decided what we're going to do is we're going to make our own tour, we're going to make the purses so insane that these independent contractors will not be able to resist. The level of success they've had is up for debate, but they've certainly gotten some big names.

Brian Lehrer: How different are the paydays?

Will Leitch: Massive. [chuckles] There are eight events in the LIV Tour with a total of 225 million in total, in prize money. Now, as a way of comparison, the masters, the PGA's Tour event, the big one had 15 million [chuckles] of a prize itself. That's of course, the biggest event that the PGA has. It's a shocking amount of money. In a lot of ways, someone made the analogy, it was almost like Uber in the early days where like, no, the Saudi government does not think it's going to get its money back, it's just trying to get market share right now. They consider this a long-term investment. That's not really about whether or not they make enough money off of the LIV Tour, they're clearly not.

They had an event this weekend. It was not, it was the PGA Tour. Canadian open was much more covered as a golf event, as a social event. The LIV event was a big deal in London, but as a golf event, the Canadian event had much better golfers, was much more widely discovered. That's their goal there. Their goal is to disrupt, I guess, as you might say, the PGA Tour rather than necessarily make money immediately.

Brian Lehrer: Any golfers or golf-watching fans, want to call on in on this? Andrew Giuliani or, okay, no, we were talking about-

[laughter]

Brian Lehrer: -earlier in the show or anybody else, 212-433, WNYC. Do you care about this one way or another 212-433-9692 for Will Leitch from Deadspin and New York Magazine and mlb.com? Why do the golfers have to choose? Because these are individual events, it's not like the teams in one of the pro sports leagues where obviously you're playing against the designated competitors in that league on a schedule. If you're an independent, why can a golfer play some PGA events, play some LIV events, play some other events? Why do they have to choose?

Will Leitch: This is a reasonable question and something the PGA Tour, which I think people have rallied around to defend because the Saudi government is involved in the LIV tour. It's a legitimate question because their argument is, listen, there are eight events on this tour. Therefore it's not just an exhibition where you go play with Tom Brady or Peyton Manning or bill Murray on the weekend or something. They consider an actual competitor. It is worth noting yes. It's not like if you play for the New York Giants, you can just say, "Oh, I'm playing in the USFL this weekend." It doesn't work that way, but that's different here in golf because they don't have a union. They're not actually paid members of that. That would be certainly what the golfers' arguments are. The PGA Tours argument is, "Listen, this is an obvious, clear competitor that they are trying to stop. They are trying to basically take down what we've put together for 100 years." It's not just the Tour that feels this it's worth noting that Tiger Woods, who would still without question, the most popular golfer on the planet was a reportedly offered, "high nine figures," that's an amazing number to join this Tour. He said, No, he said the PGA Tour. Frankly, most golfers have done so.

Most golfers have stayed on the Tour. They see the Tour as, I mean, they've worked their entire lives to get on the PGA Tour.

A lot of them see the LIV Tour as maybe almost a USFL thing where they pop in and make a big splash, but ultimately don't have the lasting power. Clearly, you can make an argument that banning players for life, from the PGA Tour simply for joining this tour is a pretty strong statement for an organization that again requires that all of its competitors to pay their own way to tournaments. Generally, has always treated them as independent contract.

Brian Lehrer: That's just for competitive reasons. The PGA Tour doesn't lose all its big players to this big Saudi money. This has nothing to do with human rights or sports washing, right?

Will Leitch: No. Certainly, when the PGA Tour defends its view on this, it does not often-- Occasionally you'll see players point out some of the Saudi government stuff, but generally speaking, you don't hear the Tour leaders doing that. In fact, ironically enough, the one person who's actually been most outspoken, at least accidentally about what the Saudi government is doing is Phil Nicholson, who is the actual front-facing player from the LIV Tour. He gave an interview to his biographer, Alan Schickmick, who basically is saying, "Listen, I know what they did with Khashoggi. I know what their history of human rights are, but it's a lot of money." [chuckles]

Therefore he's basically -- But you don't generally hear the argument, generally, that comes from journalists and outsiders, you don't often hear players themselves really getting into this just because of their general hesitation to get into politics for better in--

Brian Lehrer: The sportswashing work, do you have an opinion just because there's a Saudi-sponsored golf tour that a lot of people might watch, does that let them off the hook? Does that create conditions that actually do let them off the hook for human rights violations? Is there a history of that with any country and any sport?

Will Leitch: Yes, this is a relatively new initiative that the government has put together, but their goal is certainly in the long-term, the idea is ultimately, to be honest, what they would really love to have is have a similar to what's happening in China with say the NBA and a lot of those sports league where like, listen, the NBA has come under quite -- like NBA has avoided Saudi money in the past. They've tried to get into the NBA, but the NBA's gotten, I think, quite understandable criticism for all of their connections to China. They're so in-- You could not take China out of the NBA right now if you wanted to. I think that's the ultimate Saudi goal, is to get so ingrained in the world of sports.

People get so used to them and financially dependent on them that you couldn't get them out if you wanted to. Certainly short-term, I don't think people are looking at this and be like, well, if they're involved in golf, I guess I don't care what they do. I don't think it's that so much as long-term, you will overlook some of the things that they do and they stand for because these leagues and these players, and really are sports and ultimately television contracts are connected to them.

Brian Lehrer: We've left at least one letter out of our discussion of the PGA so far. That's the letter L. K and Brockport is going to bring it up. Hi, Kay, you're on WNYC.

Kay: You read my mind. That's exactly what I was wondering about. The ladies pro golf association don't know where they stand, I'd be very interested. I can take the answer offline.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Is there L-L-I-V? I don't know what they would call it in Saudi Arabia, but are they going to find a women's golf tour too?

Will Leitch: They're not. However, there have been top-level LPGA players who actually have been involved in Saudi tournaments and in fact, in a not dissimilar way that you've seen this as such [unintelligible 00:10:31] to the very tragic Britney Griner situation involving the WNBA where in the [unintelligible 00:10:36] a lot of WNBA players go and play in Russia in the off-season, you've seen that a lot in the LPGA. Now, the primary difference there is the same difference that's happening with the WNBA. There's just not as much money in the LPGA and the WNBA as there is in the NBA and the PGA, and there's not such exposure.

There is no LIV Tour, so if there were that more of a direct challenge, it might be a higher profile, but certainly, LPGA players have been involved. We saw in the past it had decidedly, but some PGA Tour players have brought this up, the idea that-- There's been less criticism to LPGA Tour players because there's just been less general attention on it.

Brian Lehrer: It might be a market opportunity if they care to try to elevate the visibility of women's sports. There are great women golfers out there but they're not as known as a Phil Mickelson or a Tiger Woods as somebody there. There are great, great WNBA players and games that take place in that league but they don't get the visibility. I would think there would be an opportunity there, but I guess, they don't see it that.

Will Leitch: Certainly, I think you saw with the WNBA, in a lot of ways, the top players like Brittney Griner would go to play in Russia but it is not because suddenly, the Russian government and the country of Russia has a huge overarching interest in women's basketball. In a lot of ways, there was a lot of oligarchs laundering money and pouring money into-- Also trying to do their own sportswashing there. The idea, a lot of times, this comes down like, "Well, if the WNBA would pay more money, they wouldn't have to do that." That's true, but also, I think it's worth knowing the sources of some of that funding and some of these Russian, and obviously now in the Saudi leagues.

Brian Lehrer: Snarky remark from a listener on Twitter, "The Masters is a good name for a golf tournament in this country." Craig in Riverdale, you're on WNYC. Hi, Craig.

Craig: Hey, guys. How are you doing? I love what you guys are talking about, but when you hear reporters or other people talking about with human rights violations like you guys just brought up with the NBA in China, how about with the World Cup with Qatar? That place was built on slave labor, people dying over there. If you think that country is not violating human rights, you guys are smoking something. How about even regular tv reality shows, they have now The Real Housewives of Dubai. You think that country is with human rights? If you're going to call out somebody, you better call out everybody. We all know that it's the PGA is doing it because of competition and we get that.

When these outsiders are calling about human rights and everything, they're going to call out these guys, but to call out everybody else.

Brian Lehrer: Fair enough, Craig. Last thought, we've got about 30 seconds left, Will.

Will Leitch: First off, I will continue to not watch The Real Housewives of Dubai to be as clear as possible, but I think this is true. I think the NBA actually, again, they've gotten very high in mind about this. Forget China, they're playing games in the United Arab Emirates next year, which homosexuality there is a crime. The scary part about this to me is eventually people in sports, one thing you can count on, they will always follow the money, and sometimes that money is coming from a pretty shitty place. I think it's smart to call this out on every opportunity.

Brian Lehrer: Will Leitch, contributing editor at New York Magazine, columnist at MLB.com, and founding editor of Deadspin. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it.

Will Leitch: Of course, thanks for having me.

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