What McKinsey Told The Crown Prince
What McKinsey Told The Crown Prince
The New York Times obtains documents prepared by the maligned consulting firm projecting scenarios for Saudi's golf league. Plus, a Year In Review podcast from McKellar.
New dimensions were added to the LIV v. Golf Establishment saga just hours after another lifeless edition of The Match finished under (not enough) lights. Off the Florida course where Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth played a 12-hole match for Hurricane Ian and Warner Discovery debt relief, it is not known whether the Five Families and match participants gathered for a strategy meeting, as had been predicted by the Telegraph and BBC. However, Tampa’s own Fred Ridley was spotted at The Match by Golf Digest’s reporter. (The Masters Chairman is a member at the course.)
If the execs and players convened for a confab, they might have discussed the hot-off-the-presses New York Times reporting on Project Wedge, code name for a McKinsey assessment of possible outcomes and revenues for Saudi Arabia’s foray into professional golf. The project name was first revealed a week ago in a PGA Tour filing to compel the testimony of Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the chief of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
The Times’ Alan Binder and Sarah Hurtes obtained McKinsey & Company’s early 2021 financial projection for the golf league concept stolen from the Premier Golf League. The LIV Golf effort is considered just one small part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 plan to distract the world from his nefarious tendencies.
Although McKinsey has advised the Kingdom since the 1970’s and works with authoritarians around the world, this recent pairing with “MBS” feels especially grimy in the wake of Walt Bogadanich and Michael Forsythe’s unflattering new book, When McKinsey Comes To Town.
According to the Times report, McKinsey’s consultants were only tasked with assessing the financial possibilities of a new golf tour, a.k.a. growing the game. They were not examining whether LIV as part of Vision 2030 “was a strategically viable idea.” Translation: they did not have to assess whether giving “the biggest mediocre” golfers crazy millions would make people like the Kingdom better.
Here are highlights from the documents viewed by the Times (none of the papers were displayed with the story and the assessments were only lightly quoted throughout the piece):
McKinsey called LIV “a high-risk high-reward endeavor” with three possible outcomes predicted: “languishing as a start-up; realizing a ‘coexistence’ with the PGA Tour; or, most ambitiously, seizing the mantle of dominance.”
The best case scenario presented required luring Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Rory McIlroy under the headline “What you need to believe,” followed by some upbeat financial projections.
McKinsey predicted best case revenues of at least $1.4 billion a year by 2028. They projected net earnings of $320 million, or about three days of construction costs for MSM’s Neom.
Another document featuring a Golf Saudi logo was obtained by the Times and “shows that LIV organizers considered assembling an all-star board of business, sports, legal and political titans” including what looks like an emphasis on Augusta National members.
Former IBM exec Ginni Rometty, former AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and NBA great Michael Jordan were among the names targeted for a board that has still not been revealed. But Stephenson did tell the Times he was never contacted and his answer would have been no. He currently sits on the PGA Tour Policy Board.
McKinsey flagged a major championship ban on LIV defectors as one of the “gravest hazards” the league faced. And what a shame McKinsey didn’t exhibit similar foresight for electrocuted US Steel workers, maimed Disneyland visitors, detained dissenters in Saudi Arabia and most egregious of all, OxyContin users.
The Times report curiously lands just days after the PGA Tour’s lawsuit filing targets Al-Rumayyan for depositions. The court document claimed that the Crown Prince’s right-hand man and PIF overseer is micromanaging LIV, causing 2022’s record number of somber chats at the Global Home pizza oven.
All parties involved declined comment and McKinsey does not disclose its client list.
If you’re thinking this Saudi work rules McKinsey out of past, present or future consulting for the Five Families or PGA Tour, think again. The company is working concurrently for Chinese military interests and the United States military.
McKellar Golf Podcast: 2022 In Review
I joined McKellar co-editor Lawrence Donegan for a year-end review that managed to go nearly an hour without significant LIV talk.
We chatted about where 2022’s majors ranked against each other and compared to recent years, how the Old Course held up (and my McKellar Issue 5 essay), amateur golf, Todd Demsey (Issue 4) beating some big names at Champions Q-School using the persimmon woods and putter he makes, and inevitably, LIV’s impact. Available now wherever you get your pods!
Or, the Apple and Spotify options:
Howdy, Geoff. "Especially grimy" indeed. With alumni like Sundar Pichai, Sheryl Sandburg and James McNerny, the dungus rarely drops too far from the bungus when it comes to McKinsey. Somewhat humorously (as is black as pitch), the Big Mc's transgressions in helping the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma kill millions of Americans through the Days of Wine and Oxycontin SURELY were not as grave as the Enron and Worldcom scandals that led to Andersen Consulting getting SMU'd. So, the beat goes on. As you point out, the brilliant reportage offered by the NYT's Sarah Hurtes and Alan Binder, gives us a jeweler's loupe view of MBS, Vision 2020, and Saudi LIV SPORTSWASHING from planning to execution. (Thanks, by the way, for the suggestion of When McKinsey Comes to Town.) As I live through the remainder of my life, I am stunned less and less by that which floored me only a few years ago. So many of our brothers and sisters in this human endeavor seemingly just don't give a flying f*** about standards on a human scale, or moral points on a compass. Immediately, though, many of them WILL retort with an overused false equivalence in an attempt to justify an action or to prove hypocrisy. In Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon offered “... if they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers." The right questions will ALWAYS be the right questions. Period.
Oh yeah, The Line - NEOM, which is ALL MBS. Over 150 members of the Howeitat tribe have been arrested for criticizing their removal from their tribal lands in prep of The Line. Two have been sentenced to 50 years imprisonment, while three others have been sentenced to death, due to protesting their eviction from their homes. But as the Trouser Shark said in response to Jamal Kashoggi's murder: "... we've all made mistakes." Imagine that the Crown Prince is still mazing the same mistakes. Who'da ever thunk it?
Gahhh... meant it, didn't write it. Apologies for the stream of consciousness garf sans checking my facts versus my "memory."