LIV Golf is clubbing down on its inside-the-Beltway enjoy.
This quarter, the Saudi-backed golf club reported second-quarter Parliamentary lobbying spending of$ 90, 000, according to mandatory reporting claims filed with the House and Senate. That disbursement—the same as what LIV Golf reported spending in Q1— represents a substantial drop-off from the$ 140, 000 it spent in each governmental quarter last season, when its contentious-turned-collaborative connection with the PGA Tour raised the votes of Washington politicians.
On June 6, 2023, the foe golf clothes, which had been embroiled in legal actions, announced that they—along with the DP World Tour—had agreed to settle their differences by partnering in a novel, for-profit object that would blend their professional rights. The Saudi Public Investment Fund ( PIF ) agreed to invest more than$ 1 billion in the new venture as part of the overall strategy.
Legislative condemnation came quickly, the day after the announcement, a House bill was proposed that would stop the PGA Tour’s special ability to operate as a national tax-exempt generosity. Shortly thereafter, the Senate’s permanent committee on investigations ( PSI) began probing the “unprecedented offer” and held a reading past July, which featured the evidence of two European members.
However PIF, which subsidizes LIV Golf, “refused to cooperate” with requests for documents and testimony, according to subcommittee chairman Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn. )
At a follow-up reading in September, Blumenthal said,” We can only conclude that this means that Saudi Arabia intends to get the benefit of our freedoms while abiding by our laws.” Eventually, the committee expanded its target to the larger pursuits of PIF in the United States. In January, Blumenthal and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc. ), the rank member, sent a notice to PIF Governor Yasir al-Rumayyan, saying that the PSI may carry forward with its expanded research.
” Although the subcommittee’s inquiry began last summer with questions about ( PIF’s ) billion-dollar investment in U. S. Golf, it has become much bigger and more consequential”, Blumenthal said during a hearing in February. A representative for the Senate did not respond to a request for comment on the current state of the analysis.
As Congress ‘ klieg lamps have shifted their focus, but also, it appears, have LIV Golf’s K Street work.
In August 2022, LIV Golf engaged Venture Government Strategies—previously known as Hobart Hallaway &, Quayle—to lobby Congress about” protecting the rights of expert golfers to enjoy when and where they choose. ” The work was headed up by the firm’s leaders, Ben Quayle, the former Republican senator, and Rashid Hallaway, a one-time Democratic Senate staffer.
At the start of the PSI probe, LIV Golf engaged the former Washington PR firm Gitcho Goodwin, which it paid$ 55, 000, according to Foreign Agent Registration Act ( FARA ) filings with the Department of Justice. A burst of LIV-related action was discovered in another FARA statements made by Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, the law company and lobbying company hired by PIF.
By contrast, Brownstein’s most new FARA processing showed a wayward LIV Golf-related contact—a Zoom conference with Sen. Blumenthal earlier this year—in the six-month period from September 2023 through February 2024. LIV and Brownstein’s members did not respond to emails asking for opinion.
More than a year after announcing their” model contract,” LIV Golf and the PGA have yet to take it to completion. Jimmy Dunne, a PGA Tour table associate credited with founding the alliance and who testified before the Senate last year, resigned from his position on the festival’s plan committee in May, complaining in a text that” no significant progress has been made in the direction of a deal with PIF.