What does professional golf have to do with future gas prices? Why is the U.S. Senate concerned about the merger of the Professional Golf Association or PGA, the European Tour and the LIV Golf Tour?

The new entity would be controlled by the Public Investment Fund – the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia and it has raised suspicions of "sportwashing."

Fletcher McClellan (Ph.D.), professor emeritus of political science at Elizabethtown College recently wrote about the impact and possible repercussions of the merger in LNP and joined us on The Spark Monday where he defined sportwashing,"That refers to efforts by a country, a nation state, to try to improve their public image internationally by associating itself with with athletic events, stars, teams, typically by investing or buying, you know, into a franchise."

McClellan pointed out that sportwashing is not new and cited examples of said Hitler's propaganda attempts for Nazi Germany at the 1936 Olympics and Russia using the 2014 Olympics in Sochi to distract from annexing Crimea.

Why would the U.S. Senate have concerns about the PGA/LIV merger? "When this deal was announced in early June, there were senators, other politicians, that a number of them, for example, were responding to the cries from 911 families about the Saudi's role in 911. And they they interpreted this effort as kind of an effort to of the Saudis to improve their public image and the take over sport that Americans tend to think is one of their own. We're the largest golfing nation, just not just in terms of professionals, but the number of people who play golf. So kind of a foreign takeover of a dominant sport by a country which is regarded in many circles as a pariah."

McClellan also said some politicians may have considered the merger as a monopoly of professional golf. But he added he doubted the Biden Administration would pursue an anti-trust investigation,"The Biden Administration is negotiating pretty hard with the Saudis on a number of Middle East issues. And the Saudis basically are the major player in among oil producing nations. They determine in large part what oil prices will be depending on how much oil they and other petro states produce. So, we have an election coming up. Inflation, gas prices is sort of front and center in this election. And I don't think the Biden Administration is going to do a whole lot to interfere with this deal."

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