Will the Saudis finally break into America’s national obsession, the NFL? You bet your bottom dollar

Nine years ago, an inveterate bankrupt turned reality television star attempted to buy the Buffalo Bills. After typical bloviating, a dirty tricks campaign involving the team relocating to Canada, and all manner of headline-generating tomfoolery, the pretender quietly withdrew from the bidding. He knew well his wildly exaggerated finances would never get past the NFL owners’ rigorous vetting procedure. Not to mention there was no way that group of 32 would ever allow a chancer like Donald Trump to join what they consider to be the most exclusive club in America. Becoming president is one thing; owning a slice of the national obsession is something else altogether.

A chastening episode worth remembering in the wake of LIV embarrassing the PGA Tour, and Manchester City’s treble triumph over human rights and basic decency. There is already talk about whether the investment arms of various Middle Eastern petro states may want to splash their cash on gridiron franchises. If the latter term alone denotes these are businesses first, sports entities second, Trump discovered to his embarrassing cost that the NFL plutocrats (plus the anomalous fan-owned Green Bay Packers), strictly control who can buy into their league, and their rules prohibit private equity firms, public corporations or, most significantly, sovereign wealth funds. For now.

The Saudi Arabians are well aware of that. Four years have passed since the Guardian unearthed evidence of the government of crown prince Mohammed bin Salman hiring a Los Angeles consulting firm and registering its lobbying interests in this country. Smart moves in advance of meetings they held with commissioners and representatives of Major League Soccer, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, Madison Square Garden, and the World Surf League. They even snagged an audience with the late Kobe Bryant, purportedly to pick his brains about growing the sport back home.

In what might be perceived as the foreplay stage of sportswashing, the Atlanta Hawks took on the Milwaukee Bucks in a pair of pre-season games at the Etihad Arena on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi last October. Later this year, the Dallas Mavericks and Minnesota Timberwolves will do likewise at a venue that became world famous as “Fight Island”, home of UFC during the pandemic. By sheer coincidence, the NBA recently relaxed its ownership rules, voting to allow sovereign wealth funds to acquire stakes in teams, a decision that sparked immediate speculation about the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia eyeing the league for opportunities to buy in and rinse some of the stench off their regimes.

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As far back as 2007, there was a mere suggestion about Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum possibly spending $700 million on the Chicago Cubs. The very notion of the ruler of Dubai presiding over Wrigley Field’s timeless bandbox of Americana provoked serious anger among baseball fans. Funny thing is nobody expects there would be anything like that vehement opposition now. Why? Because everybody realises an influx of oil money would almost guarantee a World Series. Never mind the barbarism in the faraway desert, feel the wins.

Major League Baseball allows foreign investment and boasts the loosest ownership regulations of America’s Big Four sports. Free-spending owners can smash through its salary cap as long as they pay a fine. Logistically, then, it’s the perfect vehicle for any potentate bent on shamelessly overspending his way to glory while distracting from international outrage at his abusive treatment of migrant workers, women and gays back home.

Baseball does lack the global reach of the NBA and it can’t match the prestige of the NFL, the ever-increasing popularity of which might well be what eventually forces it to open the doors to Middle Eastern money. The Washington Commanders, perennial underachievers with dwindling attendance numbers, are about to be sold for $6 billion, a staggering number that ensures the already microscopic constituency of people who can purchase a team is shrinking even more. Unless they amend their own regulations to allow those who run sovereign wealth funds to come sit in the stands and pretend to be excited by touchdowns. Like Yasir Al-Rumayyan feigning interest at St James’ Park when he’d much rather be 100 miles up the road on the Old Course in St Andrews.

[ Golf’s filthy lucre: the bottom line of the deal between the PGA Tour and Saudi PIF in dollars ]

A sporting oligarchy with even less regard for human rights at home or abroad than your average LIV golfer or PGA Tour commissioner, the only thing NFL owners enjoy more than flexing their power and refusing entry to their enclosure is the prospect of making heaps more money. Allowing any petrocracy to buy a club for way above market price will inflate all their fortunes, and crucially, unlike baseball, the league’s strict salary cap prevents a cash-rich outfit from spending their way to historic levels of domination. Or pulling a Manchester City, as it should probably now be known.

Ultimately, it may be that only the federal government can prevent any of this. Earlier this week, senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut launched a congressional investigation into LIV and the PGA Tour, bristling at Saudis controlling “a cherished American institution”. A bit of a stretch there. Most Americans could care less about who owns pro golf but the NFL, well, that would be an ecumenical matter. The one true church, the game crosses all class and regional boundaries. If there is political capital to be made objecting to Arabs running the Travelers’ Championship in Hartford, it’s difficult to ever imagine them being allowed to buy the Dallas Cowboys.