SAN DIEGO — I'd rather not be Phil Mickelson.
That's what many American deal-makers have to be thinking, while they exhale.
Critics near and far are lambasting Mickelson, the golf star from San Diego, for doing business with Saudi Arabia, even as many other Americans partner with Saudi Arabia and other countries with repressive governments.
We hold sports stars to a higher standard when they do business with perceived bad actors, as Mickelson has found out since he joined a new Saudi-financed golf tour.
"Watching professional golfers leap for the blood money of the new Saudi golf tour should shock approximately nobody," writes Esquire magazine's politics columnist, Charles Pierce, who's far from alone in excoriating Mickelson and colleagues for enabling "sportswashing" from an authoritarian country. "These guys generally have the social conscience of a flesh-eating amoeba. And that Phil Mickelson was their drum major is even less of a surprise. Good on the PGA [Tour] for suspending the players who signed up for the Bone Saw Tour."
Aligning with Saudi investors subjected Mickelson as well to charges he's callous toward families of 9/11 victims. They sent him a scathing letter protesting his participation on the Saudi-funded tour. Naturally, reporters grilled Mickelson on that topic.
You don't have to look long or far to see that non-sports entities in this country that do business with the likes of Saudi Arabia receive a whole lot less harsh scrutiny than Mickelson.
For example, the sponsor of a football bowl game involving San Diego State nearly five years ago, Lockheed Martin, describes itself as a business partner to Saudi Arabia. Their relationship dates to 1965. Well-equipped to get its message out and avoid inconvenient news conferences, the Texas-based defense contractor can point to economic benefits for both countries stemming from their relationship.
U.S. intelligence reports that Saudi agents murdered and dismembered Washington Post journalist and activist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 didn't prevent Lockheed Martin — and many other American businesses — from striking subsequent deals with the oil-rich, Middle Eastern country.
China's government qualifies as authoritarian. Meantime, U.S-Chinese ventures have boomed.
"For decades, American capital has funded Chinese growth," writes The Atlantic this week. The magazine adds: "Chinese funds catering to American institutional investors — such as university endowments and pensions funds — have attracted trillions of dollars of investments in China."
That's trillions with a T.
But it was NBA star LeBron James, NBA coach Steve Kerr and the NBA as a whole that drew much stronger criticism for not disassociating from China. They were labeled hypocrites, given their moral activism elsewhere.
This isn't to praise Mickelson or endorse his Saudi venture that reportedly will pay him $200 million. He'll have to live with his decision. Or as former PGA colleague Rory McIlroy, one of his many outspoken critics, said this week of Mickelson and other golfers who've bolted to the lucrative new tour: "My dad said to me a long time ago, 'Once you make your bed, you lie in it,' and they've made their bed."
Even so, shouldn't American athletes be able to do business where U.S. businesses and our government also go? And, why should they be held to a higher ethical standard?
