There is what amounts to a clandestine consulting company here in the good old US of A that has been secretly working with Saudi Arabia for the past 70 years and the New York Times has been trying its best to shed dim light on McKinsey and Company and its low-key profile and discretion when it comes to collecting big fees from authoritarian regimes — i.e. — The Saudis.
What’s really weird and what sets McKinsey and Company apart from other “consulting” companies is its insistence that it not be acknowledged for its work. McKinsey clients often agree not to publicly disclose the fact that they hired McKinsey. Part of what the firm is selling is credit for its ideas, in addition to the ideas themselves.
Recently McKinsey came under fire because it may have, inadvertently, had a hand in the Saudi government’s harsh treatment of its critics. The aforementioned New York Times reported on October 20th, 2018, that Crown Prince MBS (Mohammad bin Salman) had his operatives harass dissidents — including the now-deceased (allegedly murdered on Oct. 2, 2018) Washington Post correspondent Jamal Khashoggi.
The New York Times article also included the the fact that McKinsey and Company had prepared a nine-page report measuring the public perception of certain Saudi economic policies, and cited three individuals who were driving much of the largely negative coverage on Twitter, and named a Saudi Arabia-based writer named Khalid al-Alkami, a Saudi national living in Canada named Omar Abdulaziz, and another anonymous writer. After the report was created, Al-Alkami was arrested, and Abdulaziz’s brothers living in Saudi Arabia were put in prison. The anonymous Twitter channel was shut down.
So by now you’re probably asking — what does all this have to do with golf?
Last week the New York Times wrote about how it was in receipt of confidential documents that showed a McKinsey and Company proposal made in 2021 for the Saudis called “Project Wedge.”
The Times article revealed that said “Project Wedge” outlined a number of scenarios for the Saudi golf venture that ultimately launched in June 2022 and became known as LIV Golf. According to this Times story, the documents revealed some benchmarks for success and the “need to sign each of the world’s top 12 golfers, attract sponsors to an unproven product and land television deals for a sport with declining viewership—all without significant retaliation from the PGA Tour that it would be plundering.”
Hmmmmm.
As we all know, LIV Golf did make its best effort to “plunder” the PGA Tour but it didn’t come close to those benchmarks set forth in “Project Wedge.”
But wait there’s more.
The cloak-and-dagger folks at McKinsey projected possible outcomes for LIV Golf.
Outcome No.1: It would be a struggling start-up, co-existence with the PGA Tour with dominance over the game. In its most successful endgame, LIV Golf would have projected revenue of at least $1.4 billion a year in 2028.
We know that ain’t happening.
What we’ve really got is outcome No. 2 as McKinsey stated: “A league mired in start-up status—defined as attracting less than half of the world’s top 12 players, navigating a ‘lack of excitement from fans,’ reeling from limited sponsorships and confronting ‘severe response from golf society.’” McKinsey said that scenario stood to lose $355 million, before interest and taxes, in 2028.
But wait, this gets even better.
McKinsey suggested that LIV give serious thought to assembling a board of directors that would include: Michael Jordan, Condoleezza Rice, Mark Parker (Nike executive chairman), Ginni Rometty (former IBM chief executive) and Randall Stephenson (former AT&T chairman and member of the PGA Tour Policy Board).
Not even The Lamest Commissioner In All The Land (aka Greg Norman) would have the lack of common sense to even pitch LIV participation to the aforementioned power-hitters.
Yes, going after McKinsey is nothing new for The New York Times. Times writers Walt Bogadanich and Michael Forsythe put out a book titled: “When McKinsey Comes To Town.” Suffice to say it does not paint a flattering picture of the company.
More secret stuff is bound to come out as this LIV lawsuit against the PGA Tour progresses.
Already the PGA Tour has sought to depose some of the Saudi Secret Squirrels, if you will, and the Saudis are adamant about not allowing that, citing “sovereign immunity.”
Yeah, those “Sovereign Saudis” have no desire whatsoever to raise their right hands and swear to “tell the truth.”
Now those folks at McKinsey and Company? Well, there’s nothing “sovereign” about them.
10 Comments
forky76
You say ‘more secret stuff is bound to come out as this LIV lawsuit against the PGA Tour progresses’.. interesting article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about the 9/11 Justice Group that just popped up out of nowhere 20 years after the event and started protesting outside LIV events. Allegations it was all funded by the pga tour. All this mud slinging by both sides is not doing golf any favours.
Tom Edrington
Forky: You missed the fact that there have been protesters at the LIV events, especially the one at Trump Bedminster — it was organized by the 9-11 Survivors and families group — not the PGA Tour. Saudi higher-up are trying to claim “sovereign immunity” to try and avoid being deposed.
forky76
I fully agree there have been protesters at the LIV events, not a fact I have missed. But that’s the allegation regarding 9/11 Justice isn’t it.. it was the PGA Tour putting these people there to do the protesting.
Tom Edrington
Forky, no, apparently you don’t understand how seriously the families of the first responders who perished that day feel about this…..no one pays them to show up…..they remember who they lost that day and they don’t want anything Saudi-funded going on without bringing attention to this latest form of sports-washing……no, the Tour is not paying these people, besides, if you believe they are, please provide us with some definitive proof other than your opinion.
forky76
You are right, I do not know a lot about 9/11. But my words are not my opinion.. I refer you back to my original comment where I referenced an article in the Wall St Journal on Wednesday about this group. Worth a read.
Tom Edrington
Your accusations of the PGA Tour paying protesters have not been printed by any free sites….and the Tour has its share of critics who would jump on something like this if it were indeed true….the Wall St. Journal has been grinding its axe with McKinsey and Company for a long time. As for 9-11, I know some families who lost relatives — we lost a LOT of fire-fighters and many who survived now have debilitating health issues…Jimmy Dunne, president of Seminole Golf Club, lost most of his investment company’s employees and his best friend in the Twin Towers; Jimmy is now on the PGA Tour policy board so we’ll be writing something about that soon. Jimmy has a LOT of influence in the world of golf. Also, I just looked up what you are referring to and it is LIV accusing the Tour of coordinating and funding said protests. Just for you, here’s the statement from the National Chairperson of 9/11 Families United: Terry Strada, the national chairperson of 9/11 Families United, said “these accusations are outrageous.” “Neither I nor 9/11 Families United took a penny from the PGA or anyone connected to golf. Over the past 21 years, I have dedicated literally thousands of hours of my own time into efforts to hold the Saudis accountable and am disgusted, but frankly not surprised, to see the Saudis attacking us personally today. Shame on them — again.”
forky76
It’s all a bit too much of a coincidence for me. This charity registers itself 2 days before LIV’s first event with ‘mysterious’ funding and its sole objective seems to be to protest LIV. If it was about the Saudis, not golf, why weren’t they also protesting, for example, the US F1 Grand Prix that has Saudi money all over it? The only beneficiary of all this noise is the PGA tour. As I said earlier, mud getting thrown around by both sides is not winning any fans.
This is far from the most outrageous claim being made. Certainly has more credit to it than Phil bin Mickelson being the mastermind of 9/11 and Crown Prince Mohammad Norman watching over the Post journalist assassination 🙂
Tom Edrington
I know nothing about Grand Prix racing, never followed, never will; LIV fired the first lawsuit shot, LOST the first lawsuit and I don’t think they’ll have success in a US court; Our country frowns upon foreign entities trying to start their own company by stealing from a US Company then trying to sue the US company even though the US company allowed those entities to be “stolen” and signed to employment contracts; I don’t get the Phil Mickelson phrase you threw in there; There’s no doubt what happened to Jamal Khashoggi; Former second-in-command of Saudi Intelligence did a CBS 60 Minutes appearance; too bad you didn’t see it; The Saudis sent a hit squad to Canada to try and kill him, they were intercepted at customs and sent packing; He has great personal knowledge of MBS and called him a “psycho-path” — and went on to say that one day, they will sneak into Canada and find him and kill him….now Forky, that’s from second in command of Saudi Intelligence — please come back with something tangible as I have.
forky76
The last sentence was just a joke.. these liv guys have been accused of everything under the sun on social media. It’s gotten way out of hand. They are just golfers for goodness sakes.
I am about as big a golf fan as can be and this whole thing is just putting me off. I used to love watching the pga tour late of an evening here, but haven’t watched a ball hit since the tour championship. Watched a bit of the European tour last month.. but losing interest in that too.
Maybe the new pga & liv seasons in 2023 will get my interest.. but if not, it’s starting to get too late for both tours to salvage anything. If they start losing fans like me, there is no hope for the casual fan.
Tom Edrington
Well, for one, I’ve always enjoyed the Tournament of Champions at Kapalua, coming soon. Sorry you didn’t think an interview with the former second-in-command of Saudi Intelligence was credible. You keep throwing stuff against the wall…..that interview was from a high-ranking insider and very eye opening as to how the Saudis operate. That’s why they tried to kill him.