Extra: What Is Sportswashing — and Does It Work? (Update)

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🗓️ 4 March 2024

⏱️ 66 minutes

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Summary

In ancient Rome, it was bread and circuses. Today, it’s a World Cup, an Olympics, and a new Saudi-backed golf league that’s challenging the P.G.A. Tour. Can a sporting event really repair a country’s reputation — or will it trigger the dreaded Streisand Effect? Also: why the major U.S. sports leagues are warming up to the idea of foreign investment.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there. It's Stephen Dubner. Back in 2022 we published an episode called
0:09.9	What is Sports Washing and does it work?
0:12.8	The episode was primarily about a controversial new golf league
0:16.9	called Live Golf, L-I-V, that was financed
0:20.1	by the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia.
0:23.6	When we put out the episode, Live was just about to hold its first event.
0:28.0	Since then, there has been a lot of news, lawsuits, Senate hearing, copious name calling. So we have decided to update that
0:36.4	episode for you. We have also added a new interview with a sports lawyer who puts the
0:41.6	controversy in context and tells us whether foreign investors may soon
0:46.4	be flooding the NFL and NBA.
0:49.7	That's the final part of the episode.
0:51.7	I'd love to hear what you think. Our email is radio at freakonomics.com.
0:56.2	As always, thanks for listening. Hi, this is Victor Matheson. I'm a professor of economics at the College of the Holy
1:07.0	Cross. When I say the word sports washing, you say what? So that's a pretty new term. Basically it means using some sort of
1:16.1	sporting event to try to cover over any problems a country has had in the past.
1:22.4	And how is that different from any... any problems a country has had in the past.
1:22.8	And how is that different from any sort of reputation laundering?
1:26.9	Let's say I'm Andrew Carnegie and I know a lot of people think I've been a brutal capitalist.
1:31.5	So I decide to open libraries in many many many places
1:35.3	around the country or Leland-Stanford the robber baron decide to open what would
1:39.8	become one of the most esteemed universities in the world. Is this any different?
1:43.6	Really it's not much different. The idea of using politics to Curry favor is centuries old.
	...

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