While there have been intense conversations about the role Saudi Arabia plays in global sports over the past few years, they’ve diminished recently. But ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap thinks there’s still an important story to tell there, with that country continuing to have huge impacts on various athletes’ markets and now officially set to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup.
On the Awful Announcing Podcast this week with host Brandon Contes, Schaap spotlighted Saudi Arabia as his top pick for a sports story that deserves more attention, saying the story there goes well beyond continued LIV Golf drama.
“If you’re asking me right off the bat, something big right now that I’m hoping we do a full treatment on, I think it’s the role of Saudi Arabia right now in the world of sports,” Schaap said. “Everything that’s been going on, LIV and beyond. Obviously, certainly there’s the topic of sportswashing, which we talked about, but it goes beyond that as well.”
There is a tremendous Saudi influence there. Beyond the golf saga (which may see some resolution soon), the country has reshaped the boxing, wrestling, various MMA, and tennis landscapes, has made huge deals for soccer players, is trying to grow their NFL influence, and even officially completed their long-anticipated buy of a significant $1 billion minority stake in global streamer DAZN this week. And as Sportico’s Eben Novy-Williams spotlighted recently, six of that publication’s list of the 10 highest-paid athletes (including No. 1 Cristiano Ronaldo, who not only plays in the Saudi soccer league but uses his massive social followings to broadcast other Saudi-sponsored events) are primarily paid from Middle Eastern wealth funds, and most of that money is coming from Saudi Arabia:
Schaap told Contes that the Saudis’ impacts are massive, but that’s not necessarily on the radar for many U.S. sports fans.
“When so much of the power in the world of sports right now resides in Saudi Arabia, and the impact that has on the rest of the world, leagues around the world, where there’s so much money, that’s, I think, a fascinating topic that I’m guessing your average American sports fan hasn’t spent a great deal of time thinking about beyond the LIV controversy, which really kind of peaked, what was that, two years ago, three years ago? I think that’s a fascinating story.”
And he said this story has the advantage of tying together on- and off-field dimensions.
“There’s the business of sports; there’s actually what’s going on on the field in sports, but that one, I think, is kind of a global story. We’re always looking, you know, over at E:60 especially, for these kinds of big stories, which we can spend a lot of time working on, and we get a lot of time on the air to discuss.”
Schaap and E:60 certainly have done a lot of big stories over the years. He has plenty of experience exploring Middle Eastern countries with controversial sports impacts, as seen in his 2014 and 2022 E:60 features on Qatar. While not every journalist or media company wants to explore those stories closely (indeed, ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Fox Sports executive producer David Neal proudly proclaimed, “Viewers come to Fox Sports during the World Cup to see the greatest sports event in the world. They don’t come to us expecting us to be Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel or E:60“); Schaap and ESPN have a proven track record of doing so.
You can listen to the full episode of the Awful Announcing Podcast featuring Jeremy Schaap now. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. For more content, subscribe to AA’s YouTube page.