Will American sporting organizations, athletes, and brands stand up for democracy? They haven’t in the past, and chances are that they won’t in the future. Why? There’s a lot of money to be made by collaborating with totalitarian regimes.
When I was many years younger, I bought the propaganda about sports, that it wasn’t a business, but was an example of American Exceptionalism. Major League Baseball even had, and still has, the pretentiousness of calling its championship playoffs “the World Series,” which is true if you believe that the world consists of the North American continent.
But as I aged and witnessed baseball franchises threatening to move (as some did) if cities didn’t subsidize new stadiums. My attitude began to change. And when I became a sports writer for New York City newspapers, and later managed or played key roles in major national and international sports events for Burson-Marsteller, the then-leading global public relations agency, my attitude toward sports changed.
–I saw players who committed acts that would have gotten non-athletes fired, given slap-on-the-wrist punishments if they could help their teams.
–I saw Major League Baseball attempt to treat players like slaves by making it impossible for them to make a better living by joining another team. I saw these baseball owners turn a blind eye toward the use of steroids by players until Congress acted.
–I saw the owners and brass at the National Football League attempt to destroy the careers of scientists who discovered that concessions can lead to brain damage.
–And maybe worst of all, in my opinion, was the International Olympic Committee (IOC) continually awarding its games to totalitarian countries. When American companies that provide the money to fund the games were asked why they support the totalitarian games, they said, “We just follow the athletes.”
Senators Flake (L) and McCain (photo courtesy AZ Central)
Today, the moguls of sports still try to separate sports from other businesses by wrapping themselves around the flag and honoring “veterans of the day,” even though they charged the military for “honoring America” until Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake in 2015, conducted an investigation revealing that the Department of Defense paid professional sports leagues millions of dollars for what they termed “paid patriotism.”
The report, released in November 2015, found that the Pentagon had spent $6.8 million on sports franchises for “patriotic events,” and that teams in the NFL, MLB, NHL, MLS, and college sports programs were involved.
But it was to no avail. Sports writers no longer cover up the seedy side of sports. They cover it as it should be, a multi-billion dollar business, at least the print media does. Much of the broadcast media still acts as “homers,” especially the Olympic reporters at NBCUniversal, who see no evil about the Olympic Games being held in totalitarian countries devoid of human rights, like Russia and China, and maybe in the future, Saudi Arabia.
But things have changed. No longer is the IOC the only sports organization to welcome totalitarian money.
“Sports washing,” that is, using sports as a cover-up to camouflage the actions of totalitarian countries, has become ubiquitous. The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the National Basketball Association (NBA), Formula 1, and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) are among sports organizations that have had ties to totalitarian countries. But no totalitarian country is more prone to use sports washing than Saudi Arabia, which has financial interests in multiple sports.
The Kingdom’s latest venture is a tie-in with the NFL. On September 17, 2025, The New York Times reported, “On March 21, Fanatics, which runs the league’s online merchandise shop, will produce a flag football event in Riyadh that will feature former stars like Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski as well as a host of current players. The event is a foothold for Fanatics: The Saudi sovereign wealth fund invested in the online licensed sports goods retailer in 2017, as did the Qatari sovereign wealth fund in 2022.” NFL coaches Pete Carroll, Sean Peyton and Kyle Shanahan will coach the teams.
Even though the American sports leagues and some athletes see no wrong in associating with the repressive Kingdom, there has been a broad spectrum of criticism. Among the most prominent organizations that have denounced the association, citing human rights abuses, are Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW), and Families United.
Also, last year, more than 100 professional women’s soccer players signed an open letter to FIFA protesting its sponsorship deal with the Saudi oil company Aramco, criticizing Saudi Arabia’s record on women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, calling the deal a step backward for the women’s game.
While the term “sports washing” is relatively new, the use of sports for propaganda purposes isn’t. The ancient Greeks and Romans used sports for propaganda purposes. And in 1936, the year of the Nazi Olympics, the games provided Hitler with his first worldwide stage. Today, the IOC claims that politics has no place in sports, while history shows that politics and sports have always co-insisted. It’s too early to say if sports will be the engine that moves Saudi Arabia to embrace human rights.
It’s way too early for American sports organizations, brands, and athletes who are eager to be part of the Saudi “sports washing” oil campaign to forget that Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist, was killed and dismembered by Saudi agents at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on October 2, 2018.
But it’s not too early for American sporting organizations, athletes, and brands that sponsor sports to stand up for democracy. It’s a shame that they haven’t in the past, and chances are that they won’t in the future, because there’s money to be made in totalitarian countries.
