OT: Saudi Public Investment Fund in Discussions with ATP Tour on “Investment”

[Drew]

Saudi Arabia’s bid to take over sport has moved on to tennis as the head of the men’s tour revealed he held talks with the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund.

The Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia have already swallowed up golf, taken over Newcastle United, lured star footballers like Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema to their own domestic league while there are reports of a £16billion offer to buy the rights to Formula One.

Mail Sport reported last month that tennis’s NextGen finals, the end-of-year competition for the world’s eight best under-21 players, looks set to move to Jeddah.

ATP Tour chair Andrea Gaudenzi said he held ‘positive’ discussions with PIF over potential investment in tennis. It was only a few weeks ago that golf’s PGA Tour finally relented in their civil war with breakaway Saudi-backed LIV.

Gaudenzi warned any investors must ‘stick to respecting the history of the sport and the product, working with the current stakeholder rather than against’.

Saudi Arabia bid to buy into tennis as they hold talks with ATP chief

Saudi Arabia's bid to take over sport has moved on to tennis as the head of the men's tour revealed he held talks with the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Seems inevitable at some point that they’re going to try to get directly involved in American sports, no? MLS would seem like a pretty good opportunity for them to flex their muscle to a degree where you can buy/sell global players and they’re in fairly desperate need of a shot in the arm for global relevancy

 

[Chin Diesel]

 

[Hurleyman216]

These guys seem incredibly bad with reading a room and timing. The US congress is already looking into the PGA/LIV deal and trying to find ways to block it. Maybe let that chatter die down before trying to buy your next major sport out with oil $$…just some advice from a guy with far less resources than PIF but obviously much more common sense.

 

[brihman]

Ignorant question here: how much money do they have? Is there a limit to what they can buy?

 

[Fishy]

These guys seem incredibly bad with reading a room and timing. The US congress is already looking into the PGA/LIV deal and trying to find ways to block it. Maybe let that chatter die down before trying to buy your next major sport out with oil $$…just some advice from a guy with far less resources than PIF but obviously much more common sense.

The ATP is headquartered in London, so good luck to congress on that one. They also won’t block the PGA/LIV merger because you know who is really tied onto Saudi Arabia? The US government. It’s just grandstanding from congressional lightweights looking for a camera op.

Ignorant question here: how much money do they have? Is there a limit to what they can buy?

That fund has $650B.

So, no.

 

[auror]

They have so much gd money.

 

[WhereistheDove?]

The ATP is headquartered in London, so good luck to congress on that one. They also won’t block the PGA/LIV merger because you know who is really tied onto Saudi Arabia? The US government. It’s just grandstanding from congressional lightweights looking for a camera op.

The congressional look into it is grandstanding, the DOJ anti-trust review will be interesting, given they had already opened up an anti-trust investigation into the PGAT prior to the announced merger and this administration has been a bit more aggressive on the anti-trust front.

 

[I Bleed Blue]

There were rumors they were poking around buying the right to Formula 1 from Liberty Media for $20 billion too. Saudi PIF is slowly but surely trying to control the sports world.

 

[temery]

Money is going to win every time. There are a few tournaments that could pull away and still be successful (grand slams in tennis) for a while. Then the Saudis would run competing tournaments at the same time with bigger money and a requirement to play or losing ranking points.

 

[nomar]

These guys seem incredibly bad with reading a room and timing. The US congress is already looking into the PGA/LIV deal and trying to find ways to block it. Maybe let that chatter die down before trying to buy your next major sport out with oil $$…just some advice from a guy with far less resources than PIF but obviously much more common sense.

Or they think they can get away with it because they, very likely, can get away with it

 

[Waquoit]

I gotta stop watching tennis now, too? At least I still have cricket.

 

[brihman]

They are also looking into getting in early on Pickleball

 

[uconnfan68]

The ATP is headquartered in London, so good luck to congress on that one. They also won’t block the PGA/LIV merger because you know who is really tied onto Saudi Arabia? The US government. It’s just grandstanding from congressional lightweights looking for a camera op.



That fund has $650B.

So, no.

Just invade and take their oil. What are they going to do?

 

[Drew]

It’s coming to college sports eventually