Tag: Richard Blumenthal

Senate to examine pending PGA Tour deal, Saudi Arabian PIF’s investments in U.S.

PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan once again denied a request to testify before the subcommittee.

The Senate investigations subcommittee has scheduled a hearing for Sept. 13 to further address the pending deal between the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund and the PGA Tour.

Titled “The PGA Tour LIV Deal: Examining the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund’s Investments in the United States,” the meeting is set to begin at 10 a.m. ET at Dirksen Senate Office Building.

According to Front Office Sports, no one from the PGA Tour has been requested to appear again thus far. But PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan once again denied a request to testify before the subcommittee.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the subcommittee chairman, asked Al-Rumayyan to testify before the committee since June, when the two entities shocked the golf world by announcing an agreement to form a new commercial entity in conjunction with the DP World Tour.

In a letter dated Aug. 16, Blumenthal once again asked the PIF governor to testify before the committee on Sept. 13 or propose an alternate date. Akin Gump Strauss & Feld, the firm legally representing PIF, declined on behalf of its client on Aug. 23 in a letter first reported by Politico.

“The PIF is proud of its investments, and believes that its support for forward-thinking companies will facilitate growth, economic opportunity, and job creation in the United States, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and around the world,” wrote Akin Gump partner Raphael Prober in the letter.

“As the governor of an instrumentality of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and a minister bound by the Kingdom’s laws regarding the confidentiality of certain information, however, [Al-Rumayyan] cannot participate in any public hearing that is part of an unbounded inquiry into the PIF’s past, present, and future interests and investments.”

The PGA Tour and the PIF-back LIV Golf had been in litigation until it released a framework for its deal in June. The parties have until Dec. 31 to finalize a deal.

Lobbyists on behalf of the Tour had denounced the rising Saudi influence in the game of golf, but now the Tour is spending record sums on The Hill to win approval of the deal.

The Tour spent $460,000 on federal lobbying in the first six months of 2023, more than the $450,000 it spent on lobbying in all of 2022, according to federal lobbying disclosures analyzed by the money-in-politics tracking nonprofit OpenSecrets.

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What you need to know from the Senate subcommittee hearing involving PGA Tour-PIF agreement

Here are some of the best nuggets we found out during the Senate subcommittee hearing.

Tuesday is set to be another monumental day in the history of professional golf.

PGA Tour Chief Operating Officer Ron Price and board member Jimmy Dunne were sworn in at a Senate subcommittee hearing in Washington D.C. to discuss the proposed deal between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which is the main financial backer of LIV Golf.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., is the chairman of the committee and has been publicly critical of the deal, which will unite the two once-warring factions in golf under the same commercial umbrella.

In excerpts of his opening remarks that were released on the eve of the hearing, Blumenthal says this isn’t simply about golf, but rather “how a brutal, repressive regime can buy influence – indeed even take over – a cherished American institution simply to cleanse its public image.”

Here are some of the best nuggets we found out during the Senate subcommittee hearing.

U.S. Senate opens investigation into PGA Tour-PIF-LIV Golf deal, requests slew of information

Even the U.S. Senate wants more information on secretive deal between Saudi PIF and PGA Tour.

The PGA Tour, the Saudi Arabian-owned Public Investment Fund and LIV Golf may be working to finalize the terms of their planned merger, but it won’t take place without a closer look from Capitol Hill.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said Monday the deal raises concerns “about the Saudi government’s role in influencing this effort and the risks posed by a foreign government entity assuming control over a cherished American institution.”

Blumenthal sent letters to both the PGA Tour and LIV Golf seeking records and emails about how the deal was reached and how the newly formed entity will be structured and operated.

After an initial media release last week by the Tour that called it a merger, both parties have tried to avoid characterizing the deal as a merger, saying the PGA Tour would retain its non-profit status and the joint commercial entity would exist as a secondary asset. The press release by the PIF announcing the news June 6, and still available on the organization’s website, starts with the statement that the “PGA Tour, DP World Tour, LIV Golf merge commercial operations under common ownership.”

However, LIV Golf and several golfers sued the PGA Tour last year for alleged antitrust violations, calling it a monopoly throughout their 118-page complaint. The U.S. Department of Justice had also been looking into possible anticompetitive practices of the PGA Tour after the Tour tried to punish some of its players for joining LIV.

By combining forces, the PGA Tour and LIV Golf could become an even bigger target for antitrust regulators, who could potentially try to block or delay the deal.

Citing Saudi Arabia’s “deeply disturbing human rights record at home and abroad,” Blumenthal said in his letter to PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan the Tour’s “sudden and drastic reversal of position concerning LIV Golf raise serious questions regarding the reasons for and terms behind the announced agreement.”

Brent Schrotenboer and Nancy Armour from USA TODAY contributed to this article.