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The big-spending Saudi Pro League is aiming to build its global broadcasting presence and become one of the top 10 soccer leagues in the world, its chief operating officer, Carlo Nohra, told CNBC on Thursday.
The league dominated the sports headlines over the summer as Saudi clubs cumulatively spent more than $1 billion in transfer fees and attracted some of the biggest names from Europe’s top leagues with mammoth contract offers.
Brazilian superstar Neymar and Senegalese forward Sadio Mane followed the previous arrivals of former Ballon D’Or winners Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo, along with a host of other stars from the English Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, Germany’s Bundesliga, Italy’s Serie A and France’s Ligue 1.
Speaking to CNBC at the APOS conference in Bali, Indonesia, on Thursday, Nohra said that Saudi Arabia’s strategy is “extremely long term,” but that the acquisition of players was the first step.
“While that helps us grow on the pitch, the idea is to grow off the pitch and to commercialize as well, so the strategy takes in every element that we need to focus on to get the Saudi Pro League to where it aspires to be among the top 10 leagues in the world,” he said.
The kingdom’s massive investment in sport is part of a broader effort to diversify its economy away from oil by investing in commercial infrastructure to become a tourism, leisure and entertainment powerhouse.
It is also being used to bolster the country’s global reputation, with critics arguing that the ultimate aim of Saudi Arabia’s investment in soccer, golf, boxing, motor racing, and many other sport and entertainment ventures is to distract from its dismal human rights record.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in a recent interview with Fox News, embraced accusations of “sportswashing” and said he did not care about the criticism, so long as the massive sporting investments ultimately yielded a positive contribution to Saudi GDP growth.
Nohra explained that the objectives handed down to the Saudi Pro League’s bosses were to firstly improve on-pitch performance through the acquisition of world-class players, to fill the country’s stadia and ultimately to drive the commercialization of the vastly improved overall product.
“We had a long, hard look at ourselves, we’ve discovered that we need to improve the governance of the league, we need to improve the product itself and the commercialization of that product, better understanding of our fans,” he said.
“The player acquisition presented some issues that needed to be addressed, the clubs’ capabilities needed to improve so we’ve looked at that as well, and equally how we’re organized as a league in order to compete at the global level.”
Along with the domestic revenues the government is hoping to generate through in-person match attendance, capitalizing on Saudi Arabia’s young population’s love of the sport, Nohra also said the Saudi Pro League was looking to expand its broadcast presence around the world.
“Since the introduction of Cristiano Ronaldo into the league in January, we’ve seen global distribution expand to unprecedented levels for Saudi soccer, and through the acquisitions this summer, we’ve had renewals across the board with now the needle moving on the commercialization of those rights across the world,” he said.
“So we’re delighted with where we are at the moment but we still need to continue to deliver for fans across the world what they now wish to have from Saudi football.”
If you see Bobby Bonilla popping up all over your social media feeds on Saturday (as it tends to this time of year), it’s because July 1 marks the annual $1.2 million payday for the former third baseman — an event that has increasingly attracted interest from average Americans, even some who don’t know anything about baseball.
That’s because Bonilla and his agent, Dennis Gilbert, engineered a contract payout that has become one of the more talked-about feats of finance in sporting history.
On Saturday, Bonilla, now 60, will collect a check for $1,193,248.20 from the New York Mets, as he has and will every July 1 since 2011 and running through 2035, as ESPN has detailed.
Commentary: How to have your own Bobby Bonilla Day
Some have described Bonilla’s payout as one of the great examples of compound interest, because the baseball player opted to defer a $5.9 million payment in 2000 in favor of spreading payments out over 24 years, starting in 2011, with an 8% annual interest rate. Compounding is when you earn interest on your earned interest, which can have a powerful impact over time.
The net payment for Bonilla (and his agent) will be about $30 million when the baseball player turns 72. That amounts to a heck of a retirement plan if you are fortunate (or smart) enough to score it.
Related: Retirees on edge over inflation and stock volatility can take these 5 steps
To be sure, we have written about this time and time again. But it is worth reiterating, as compounding is a key concept for investors, including those investing in equities or in such stock benchmarks as the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
the S&P 500 index
SPX,
and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
even with stocks getting crushed in recent months as inflation and rising interest rates buffet markets.
Read: Bobby Bonilla Day: This retired baseball player’s contract is the perfect example of the power of compounding
Compounding holds true regardless of whether you are a Mets fan, or if you loved or hated Bonilla.
Opinion: Money lessons from Bobby Bonilla’s steal of a multimillion-dollar deal
Read on: The Mets are paying Bobby Bonilla over $1 million a year because of Bernie Madoff
This article was originally published in July 2021 and has been updated.