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Immediately, in the course of the Bloomberg Make investments convention, Bloomberg’s Scarlet Fu asked WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert about the potential of the league enjoying a sport in Saudi Arabia in gentle of current information of the merger of Saudi-backed LIV Golf and the PGA Tour. Engelbert commented that if Saudi Arabia, a rustic with “a deplorable rights record” according to Human Rights Watch, approached the league about internet hosting, it might be put into consideration.
Wednesday night, Atlanta Dream managing associate Larry Gottesdiener chimed in via Twitter together with his opinion of the Bloomberg interview:
“I learn Bloomberg relating to the @wnba enjoying in Saudi Arabia. It isn’t clear if this was an nba trial balloon (they govern the W) or a solution to a query. Both approach, it’s repugnant to a league that “prides” itself on empowering girls and supporting the LGBTQ neighborhood.”
The total Bloomberg article and video of the interview are paywalled. Right here is the transcript of the alternate between Fu and Engelbert (daring emphasis ours):
Scarlet Fu: So we’re in sports activities this week, which after all, is the surprising merger of the PGA Tour and LIV Golf. What intrigued me although, was how girls’s golf considered doubtlessly doing enterprise with Saudi Arabia. And I do know you’re on the board of LPGA as a result of the LPGA Commissioner final summer season stated she would take a telephone name from LIV Golf as a result of it’s my duty to guage each alternative. What do you consider that concept that ladies’s sports activities can’t afford to disregard a possible benefactor even when the Benefactor won’t be their first alternative?
Cathy Engelbert: Proper. Properly, first, I’m not on the board of the LPGA I’m a board of the USGA, which is I talked is an non-profit in regards to the sport of golf. So simply however um, look, I believe girls’s sports activities is de facto exhausting. It’s like pushing a giant boulder up a hill and at any time when you’ll be able to have a look at alternatives, but it surely additionally needs to be whether or not it’s an organization that you simply’re partnering with, or a rustic who need to associate with, it has to share your values. And that’s how we give it some thought on the WNBA so I can’t touch upon the LPGA or golf particularly. However I do have [gets cut off]
Fu: Hypothetically, if Saudi Arabia got here to you, how do you suppose you would possibly reply to that?
Engelbert: I believe we’d consider it throughout what our international video games platform seems like. It wouldn’t be the primary place I went for positive. However we’ve got this chance like we’ve got in Canada, in Europe, in Asia and Africa. I imply, Africa would love for a WNBA sport to come back there. So, we’d have a look at it within the context of possibly an EMEA video games, you recognize, Europe, Center East, Africa, as a part of our international platform. However we’d have a look at it too, so I don’t disagree with Molly, commissioner, you recognize, of the LPGA. However it’s one thing I believe it’s a must to suppose via and the WNBA gamers. We’re operating a really player-first, player-led league and I’d go to them first and say the place do you need to play.
Whereas WNBA is celebrating Pride month, there are not any authorized protections for members of the LGBTQ+ neighborhood in Saudi Arabia, and gay acts are punishable by demise. Right here is the nation’s scorecard from Equaldex’s Equality Index.
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