After winning the golf’s civil war Saudis set sight on Tennis
Another fast-paced week in golf’s civil war is coming up with several crucial meetings taking place and the game is braced for more defections to the Saudi-backed LIV series.
Following the temporary ceasefire at the US Open last week, all sorts of rumours have been swirling as to the identity of the defectors, including two or three names from the world’s top 15 that would place the rebel circuit on an entirely different level.
There are some who think they are simply waiting for the end of America’s national championship before being announced by LIV and revealing themselves in time for the next rebel event in Portland, Oregon in 11 days.
The amounts being bandied about are beyond mind-boggling. Jon Rahm, who isn’t defecting, all but revealed last week that he had been offered $400million to switch.
By that mark, Rory McIlroy must have turned down $500m. ‘I’ll be honest,’ said basketball legend and keen golfer Charles Barkley. ‘If someone offered me $200m, I’d kill a relative!’
The pressure it is placing on the status quo is immense, and clearly poses an existential threat to the game as we know it.
The Travelers Championship on the PGA Tour next week is usually a tournament filled with light relief after a major but not this time.
On Tuesday, the characteristically tranquil setting in Connecticut will be transformed into a hive of activity as a PGA Tour board meeting will be followed by another mandatory gathering for the players.
They will be presented with the novel changes expected for the latter part of the year to bring excitement to a humdrum part of the schedule, not to mention guaranteed riches to keep the world’s best out of the clutches of the Saudis.
The credibility of the rebel circuit was hardly helped by the performances at the US Open of those lured already. Only two of the 15 players who competed in the inaugural LIV event at St Albans made so much as the cut.
The Saudis know they need rather more than hasbeens and twentysomethings taking the easy way out. But they have time and, clearly, limitless wealth on their side.
With golf in their kitty, Saudi Arabia is plotting a major push into tennis by trying to entice a women’s tour event to the kingdom.
The Saudis have been seeking a deal with the ATP Tour for at least five years but have been repeatedly rebuffed by the men’s game, yet the Women’s Tennis Association, which enjoys far less financial security, declined to rule out the concept when contacted this week.
A spokesperson said: “We have received inquiries from Saudi Arabia as to interest in bringing a WTA event to the region. As a global organisation, we are always interested and appreciative of inquiries received from anywhere in the world and we look seriously at each opportunity [but] we have not entered into formal negotiations.”
The WTA Tour has been sailing into strong financial headwinds since chief executive Steve Simon took a moral stand on China’s apparent silencing of Peng Shuai last year. Although admirable in principle, this knocked out one of his central sources of funding.
When the WTA signed a four-year deal with health provider Hologic in March, it is understood that it had to request more than half the total sum - which works out at around $20 million a year - to be paid up front in order to allay cash-flow concerns.
