Two Democratic senators want Attorney General Merrick Garland to look into the PGA/LIV Tour recent merger.
Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wrote a letter to Garland and the DOJ stating that although details of the proposed alliance are unclear, “the red flags regarding antitrust concerns are clear.”
As many know, Saudi Arabia has backed the LIV Tour from the get-go and has managed to talk several PGA Tour stars into joining their tour and until last week, the PGA Tour had no interest in a merger.
Many PGA golfers expressed their anger because they weren’t told this was going to happen and they missed out on millions by staying loyal to the PGA Tour.
But Warren and Wyden are rising concerns regarding Saudi Arabia’s history of human rights violations and trying to use LIV to sportswash their history.
“The PGA-LIV deal would make a U.S. organization complicit — and force American golfers and their fans to join this complicity — in the Saudi regime’s latest attempt to sanitize its abuses by pouring funds into major sports leagues,” the senators wrote.
“The PGA-LIV deal, as described in the June 6 announcement, would be a clear violation if it is a joint venture,” Warren and Wyden continued to write. “It would give the PGA Tour and PIF control over all significant aspects of U.S. commercial golf operations, including contracts with U.S. golfers and their opportunities to compete, television rights, cost of attendance to elite golf events, and merchandise.”
At the time PGA commissioner Jay Monahan claims that the tour was basically forced to join LIV because they received no help from the feds to fend off these attacks on their league.
“While we are grateful for the written declarations of support we received from certain [congressional] members, we were largely left on our own to fend off the attacks, ostensibly due to the United States’ complex geopolitical alliance with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Monahan said.
{ESPN}
