Saudi Arabia is spending more than a billion dollars to sponsor global sporting events as it looks to burnish its reputation and assert itself as a global superpower, according to a new report out Wednesday.
The report by think tank New Weather Institute revealed that oil giant Aramco, a Saudi state-controlled company and one of the world’s most profitable firms, is pouring around $1.3 billion into the global sports industry, leveraging a playbook widely employed by Big Tobacco before it was banned from doing so.
The findings come as the just-concluded Paris 2024 Olympics shed light on the extent to which climate change, primarily caused by the burning of oil, gas and coal, is already affecting the health and performances of athletes.
“Petrostates are betting on sports sponsorship to sell tourism and business opportunities in their countries, but also to sell the idea that their countries can offer something just like the West,” said Madeleine Orr, an assistant professor of sport ecology at the University of Toronto and the author of “Warming Up: How Climate Change Is Changing Sport.”
