What To Do About Saudi Arabia's Sports Takeover? Nothing, Apparently.

Hello and welcome to another edition of Free Agent! Hurry up and enjoy your Taco Tuesday Cinco de Mayo today.

We'll start with thoughts on Saudi Arabia's sports takeover that's been stopped in its tracks. After that it's time to dive into the implications of the Dianna Russini–Mike Vrabel affair for league policies. We'll close with a slightly bonkers idea: Did the Sixers beat the Celtics with a little help from the war on drugs?

Locker Room Links

1. The Milwaukee Brewers donated $27,000 for pothole repairs and are getting some advertising out of it. (Granted, taxpayers have spent over a billion dollars combined on their ballpark.)
2. A lawsuit over immigration rules almost forced the Dutch soccer league to replay 133 matches.
3. Ever wondered what happens to all the horse poop at the Kentucky Derby?
4. A Senate Commerce subcommittee will hold a hearing on sports betting on May 20.
5. It was a chaotic weekend for D.C.'s golf courses (and not just because I played 18 holes!)—after an initial report said the three courses at East Potomac were getting closed by the Trump administration, a judge forced the government to keep the courses open (for now). Also, the administration might want the Commanders to run a golf course?
6. That's still a better idea than the Washington, D.C., city government getting an ownership stake in the Commanders.
7. Elsewhere in Reason: Nick Gillespie interviews Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch on the Declaration of Independence, how unchecked power threatens liberty, and what the Founders can teach future generations.

The Saudi Sports Takeover That Wasn't

Sometimes, the right thing to do is nothing at all.

Just a few years after it seemed like Saudi Arabia was going to take over the sports world, backed by its unlimited oil money, the takeover has been stopped in its tracks. LIV Golf is losing its Saudi funding after years of $500 million annual losses. The Saudi Pro League is no longer trying to lure in the biggest stars in soccer with eye-popping sums. Other plans to host or bid for global sporting events are scaled back or scrapped altogether. This isn't just a coincidence of timing, or solely because of the chaos caused by the Iran war: The Saudi Public Investment Fund is making a strategic, long-term shift away from sports (at least for the rest of the decade).

That "unlimited" oil money isn't so unlimited after all.

This wasn't because of any direct government action. Sports fans just never bought into what the Saudis were selling. Ignoring Saudi sports products has always been relatively easy.

As much as Americans were against a Saudi sports takeover, it never rose to a threat level high enough to justify government action, even from those who aren't libertarian-minded. LIV Golf struggled under both a skeptical Biden administration and an accommodating Trump administration. Legislation to tax LIV Golf and the Saudi wealth fund went nowhere in Congress. A Justice Department investigation and congressional hearing over the proposed LIV Golf merger with the PGA Tour yielded no results went anywhere. The biggest government action was probably an antitrust investigation into PGA Tour punishments against LIV players—had that investigation led to prosecution, it would have helped LIV and hurt the PGA Tour.

There was no need for a heavy-handed ban or sanctions. Other than some generally negative vibes, politics didn't bring down the Saudi sports plan, capitalism did.

The investments still had an impact, to be sure. Competition was always going to produce changes. PGA Tour players are enjoying more prize money than they used to. Soccer clubs had to make marginally higher offers to stars who were tempted by Saudi money. But the Saudi-backed competition wasn't enough to take down the biggest establishments in sports.

Saudi investment in sports isn't going away forever. The country will still host the 2034 World Cup, and the wealth fund still owns Newcastle United of the Premier League. Other oil-rich countries have their own sports investments, too. But the failure of Saudi Arabia's sports investments will be a cautionary tale that these efforts will not yield the intended economic or political results. It should always be remembered that Middle East oil investments, especially in sports, are still largely made and governed by the politicians of those countries, not innovators and entrepreneurs who can actually be competitive in a capitalist system.

The Vrabel Problem the NFL Can't Legislate Away

The (alleged) Dianna Russini–Mike Vrabel affair has raised some questions for the NFL, like whether it needs an official policy change that could stop conduct like a coach having an affair with an NFL reporter.

In theory, the Patriots (or any other employer) could fire someone for marital infidelity. Given some infamous actions in team owner Robert Kraft's past, that might look like a bit of a double standard. Plus, marital infidelity is probably, unfortunately, too common and messy for the league and teams to investigate every occurrence or to try to maintain a useful set of standards on.

The NFL could, though, adopt a policy on conduct between league personnel (players, coaches, administrators, etc.) and the press. They could set a strict rule against contact with the press outside of official team events and venues to avoid any appearance of impropriety—but this would make everyone worse off. Any kind of journalism outside of buttoned-down game reports and superficial quotes would be difficult to do. Reporters and subjects spending time together outside of official venues is a common form of source-building for journalists. Plus, the league thrives on the insider culture of constant updates coming from Adam Schefter, Ian Rapoport, etc. Insiders always have news to share because someone in the league is giving them updates outside of official channels. The NFL insiders are cozier with the league than I'd like, but all involved benefit from the league news they constantly churn out.

The league could specifically ban sexual relationships between journalists and personnel. But then it would need to define which journalists fall under that rule. All of them? What about a local TV news anchor whose channel covers the team but isn't specifically a sports journalist? Also, if any of this is going to affect the players, it would have to be spelled out in the collective bargaining agreement.

The league is better off regarding the Russini-Vrabel affair as a shocking yet rare event. It's a distraction the league wants to avoid in the future, but the downsides of all the possible one-size-fits-all solutions are too large.

If it were up to me, given the particulars of this specific situation, I'd fire Vrabel anyway. The evidence of the relationship is fairly overwhelming. The nature of a romantic coach-reporter relationship creates a complicated power dynamic—the coach can threaten to cut off the reporter's access and scoops at any time if he doesn't get what he wants, putting the reporter's job in jeopardy, or at least making it more difficult. It's unbecoming and below the standard of judgment that the league should have for itself.

Did Ketamine Knock Out the Celtics?

Should Sixers fans thank the war on drugs for their upset of the Celtics? Maybe!

In January, Paul George was suspended for 25 games for taking "an improper medication" relating to his mental health. There's no confirmation or even solid reporting to back this up, but there are rumors that say ketamine is the banned substance that George was caught taking. (In theory, it could have been anything else on the NBA's long list of prohibited substances—this take would still apply to any other illegal drugs on that list.)

Ketamine is a drug that dulls pain and has hallucinogenic effects. It's sometimes used to treat depression, and some users will take microdoses instead of full-fledged doses. It's shown to be effective for therapeutic uses, sometimes rapidly so. For athletic purposes, it would have no performance-enhancing effects—that's partially why the World Anti-Doping Agency does not explicitly ban it. The case could be made that ketamine is safer than alcohol and nicotine, but the federal government lists it as a Schedule III drug that's only legal for prescribed medical use.

Whether it was ketamine or not, George had to sit out for February and most of March—making him well-rested and ready to roll just in time for the playoffs. Now 36-years-old, George averaged 18.2 points in the series. In Saturday night's huge game-seven win, he played 42 minutes, his second-highest in the series. Fans are hoping he gets suspended every year just for the downtime before the playoffs.

Maybe it was luck that helped the Sixers in game seven, maybe it was Joel Embiid or the lack of Jayson Tatum, or maybe it was defense. Maybe George's absence actually hurt in the big picture because he was away from the team for so long. Or maybe, just maybe, getting suspended for (allegedly) taking a Schedule III drug is why George played well and why the Sixers upset the Celtics.

But before other players start getting any ideas, the suspension cost George $11.7 million in salary.

Replay of the Week

I was watching in a bar and couldn't hear anything, I just remember thinking "The pack is really tight! Wait, where'd that guy come from?" Unbelievable finish.

That's all for this week. Enjoy watching the real game of the weekend, Hannover 96 battling for promotion in Bundesliga 2.

The post What To Do About Saudi Arabia's Sports Takeover? Nothing, Apparently. appeared first on Reason.com.