Why Saudi Arabia Is Spending Millions on Soccer Stars

Tracy Alloway (0:10)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:14)

And I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:16)

Joe, I think we need to figure out something extremely important before we even begin this discussion.

Joe Weisenthal (0:22)

I know what you're gonna say, and I was wondering if we should have figured this out before the episode started or no.

Tracy Alloway (0:30)

Let's force our work process on everyone listening to this. No, are we gonna call this soccer or football?

Joe Weisenthal (0:35)

I knew this was, call whatever you want, it's fine. I say soccer, but I also don't really pay attention to the sport, and I know you do, so maybe you should get to choose.

Tracy Alloway (0:46)

I don't as much as I used to, but for Odd Lots listeners, I lived in the UK for more than 10 years, and in the UK, soccer is kind of inflicted on you, whether you like it or not. So let me just say, if we do start saying football in this conversation, unless otherwise specified, we mean soccer, unless we say American football.

Joe Weisenthal (1:07)

What do they call it in Japan?

Tracy Alloway (1:09)

I don't know. That's a good question.

Joe Weisenthal (1:10)

What do they call it in Austria?

Tracy Alloway (1:13)

Fußball.

Joe Weisenthal (1:14)

Fußball, right, of course. What do they call it in Hong Kong?

Tracy Alloway (1:18)

Soccer, I think? No, it must be football, because that's British.

I have no idea. Okay, look, soccer and football are going to be interchangeable on this discussion, but I think we've given away what we are going to be talking about.

Joe Weisenthal (1:30)

Yes.

Yeah, and we brought it up very briefly in an episode with Brad Setzer, because at the time I asked him, I was like, what's the deal with Saudi Arabia offering like half a billion dollars to Lionel Messi? Then like two days later, that deal never actually happened and he went to Miami. There is a, but he, of course it was being Brad, he had this great like macro answer about the Saudi's current account surplus and all that stuff. And so there is a lot there with like the macro of soccer.

Tracy Alloway (1:58)

Right, it is no secret that Saudi Arabia has been on something of a soccer star spending spree recently. I think it all kicked off when they bought Ronaldo earlier in the year. And since then they bought some prominent people like Benzema, I think. I'm probably mispronouncing all of these names.

We're recording this on June 21st and I saw that they just picked up Conte, who's like a very well known Chelsea midfielder and they had a very strange video to go along with it, which maybe we can get into. But anyway, why is Saudi Arabia doing this, is I guess the big question. And what does it mean for both European football and American soccer?

Joe Weisenthal (2:40)

Yeah, I have no idea about any of these things.

I only found out recently that like, I mean, I knew like the Major League Soccer in the US was kind of like big, but I didn't realize it was quite as big. It was like booming.

Tracy Alloway (2:54)

You didn't know?

Joe Weisenthal (2:54)

Not really.

Tracy Alloway (2:55)

You know, my husband was briefly a youth coach for the New York Cosmos.

Joe Weisenthal (2:59)

I had no idea. That's crazy.

Tracy Alloway (3:00)

Yeah. All right. Well, we have a lot to talk about and I am very pleased to say that we truly have the perfect guests. We are going to be speaking with the co-hosts of the Double Pivot Pod, which describes itself as the world's most agreeable soccer analytics podcast. I love that tagline. We have Michael Caley, in addition to being the co-host of Double Pivot Pod, he is also the forthcoming author of a book with the very interesting title of the first apocalypse of James martyrdom and sexual difference. So not necessarily what you would expect from a soccer commentator.

And we also have Mike Goodman. He is the senior editor for soccer at cbssports.com. So really the perfect people to thread the needle between the soccer world and also Saudi Arabia's current account surplus.

Welcome to the show, Michael and Mike.

Michael Caley (3:55)

Thrilled to be here. We're both big fans, so it's great that we have the chance to do this.

Mike Goodman (3:59)

Yeah, we're so excited. I feel like we were probably the only soccer podcast to base an episode around Brad Setzer's research on the Saudi current account balance.