LIV long … and prosper?

By BRUCE LOWITT

Now that the LIV Golf Tour has gotten off to a widely ignored  start, the Saudi government bankrolling it has bought the similarly ignored United States Football League and nearly a dozen other sports that no fans in their right mind should care about.

It's called sportswashing, using sports to deflect attention from a tarnished reputation, like China hosting this year's Winter Olympics, or Herschel Walker running for the U.S. Senate.

The Saudis, though, with their record of human rights violations and state-sanctioned killings, have gone full bore into sportswashing. Cornhole, darts, pickleball and lawn-mower racing are among the marginal so-called sports in which they have invested – not to mention even more obscure local sports with a goal of going international.

For the moment, though, they're taking aim at the National Football League.
 
Quarterback Josh Allen has joined the new USFL. He reportedly received a $160-million signing bonus. Dozens of other NFL players have been offered bonuses in the $50-million-to--$100-million range.

“The way I see it,” Allen said, “I'm going from burgers and brews to caviar and champagne. I'm going to be a Tampa Bay Bandit – and if I haven't mentioned it before, Buffalo totally sucks in the winter.”

But quarterback Josh Rosen turned down the offer, explaining,"?הם לא אוהבים את עמי אז למה לי לאהוב אותם" (“They don't love my people so why should I love them?")

And running back Ameer Abdullah did the same, saying, “Where do they think I was born? Try Alabama. Freakin' morons.”

On Monday NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell predicted: “The Saudi-USFL won't last a year.” On Wednesdsay he told his league's owners the Saudis “have offered to triple my $64-million a year salary, so forward my mail to Riyadh.”

The Saudi's bank balance makes the NFL look like a beer league. In all, the eight-team USFL payrolls are expected to exceed a combined $7.25-billion. By comparison, the total payroll of the NFL's 30 teams was about $5.65-billion in 2021.

“Seven billion would seem to be a lot of money,” USFL President Brian Woods said of the USFL's 2023 payroll during a news conference in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, “and I suppose in most of the rest of the world it is. But not here.

“When I asked Ministry of Sport Agency Executive Abdulaziz bin Turki bin Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud how they could afford to pay such lavish salaries, he said, "واضاف "سنرفع سعر النفط عشرة سنتات وهذا سيغطيه."
(“We will raise the price of oil by a dime and that will cover it.”)

The USFL's regular season ended last weekend. The June 25 semifinal playoffs and July 3 championship game were to be played in Canton, Ohio, home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But they've been moved to the 62,345-seat  King Abdullah Sports City Stadium, 18 miles north of Jeddah.

The Saudis bought the rights to the fledgling World Cornhole League - and before anyone considers purchasing a board and bags filled with corn or resin pellets, understand that this league involves cornhole competition that became popular in the United States nearly a century ago.

When the Saudis bought Premier League Darts, it was split into regional competition, Arab and Russian divisions. The rules remain essentially the same but in the Russian version the darts are tipped with polonium-210 and all rounds are single elimination. «Гораздо быстрее и приятнее» (“Much quicker and more satisfying”) Russian team captain President Vladimir Putrid said.

As for other, ahem, sports, the names are semi-explanatory and all have to be seen to be believed, so look for websites on Det Internasjonale Dødseforbundet (Norwegian Death Diving), Bao-Taoshi (Japanese Pole Toppling), Fierljeppen (Dutch Canal Vaulting), Kaninhop (Danish Rabbit Jumping), and one of the United Kingdom's oldest and nastiest competitions, Ferret Legging.