After LIV forced a PGA merger, could the Saudi Public Investment Fund target NFL ownership?

This is where the assumption of an NFL pursuit comes in. In the pantheon of sport in the United States, some would argue there is no more powerful sportswashing machine than an NFL franchise. And that’s why many are presuming that Saudi Arabia will include the NFL among its next attempted sports purchases in America.

“It’s not Premier League soccer, where you can spend to the bottom of the barrel and all you need is a deeper barrel than everyone else. The salary cap puts limits [on] the number one resource: the player talent. What good is the money if you can’t use to outspend everyone else two or three fold in free agency?

It’s also worth noting that basketball has been popularized in Saudi Arabia to the point of the NBA being a very recognizable sports commodity in the country. The NBA also has a soft salary cap that allows teams to spend as far beyond the cap as they wish, with the only penalty being a luxury tax. It’s pricey, but it also fits the “no cap” soccer leagues that the Saudis have previously pursued.

Instead, the NFL is in the midst of trying to solve that problem another way, and we're seeing it in the Commanders sale. For the first time, the league is structuring a team sale that not only, but it's also allowing the group to finance more of the debt in the purchase. And if it works out well, it means there will be less of a need for ultra-wealthy investors who can simply write a check for the vast majority of their purchase.

The Saudis have the kind of investment capital to accomplish what many before them have failed to do: anchor a competing league and start hammering away at the NFL’s talent base by using massive amounts of money to steal players and gut drafts. All agreed that it was a matter of doing what so many other leagues haven’t been able to pull off: spending enough money over a long enough timeline to hurt the NFL’s talent base and eat into some of its television audience.

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