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MGS blog article: YouTubers and Saudi Money


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This was announced a few months ago and the article posted today about shiels, finch, and the jazzy golfer’s ties to performance 54 and Saudi money.   A John Barba written article so it is a good read.   

https://mygolfspy.com/liv-the-saudis-and-performance54/

Based on the article, there seems to be future blog posts on this topic.  

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I really enjoyed this article and have to give a lot of credit to Barbs on this one. I know he's been doing a lot of work on it and will fully admit it wasn't what I had expected. 

Great to have quotes from the main channels mentioned and just a good thorough article that provides facts for what is going on. 

I've always been a finch fan and not so much in the RS camp. Just taste for what i want to watch, but glad the article was written the way it was and looking forward to any future content he has been working on for us!

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I like John and think he's doing incredible journalistic work as a former journalist myself, but anyone looking for anything explosive here like was being pushed on social media is going to be disappointed. Partnerships began before Saudi money came in. Saudi money came in, partnerships continued. Is it important to some, sure it is. Transparency is important in all forms, but I don't think this is the big bombshell everyone thought it might be.

I do look forward to more of these article from John though. Exposing who can exert influence in different fields to make you consider the sources of your information is definitely a worthwhile endeavor.

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Agree with the comments above.  I was surprised that the article ended up being so level set.  I'm glad it was! John mentions it in his article, the facts alone without the timeline are a lot more spicy than the story with them.  I also am glad to see that the three YouTubers took the time to respond.  

I'm not sure I could say I blame them for continuing their contracts with P54 considering it seems their channels have grown a lot with their consulting.  We also don't know the extent of their contracts with P54.  Perhaps they're contracts don't allow for termination without paying a penalty?  We still don't have all the facts so I'm not going to push a judgement on them for wanting to grow their business.  And during a pandemic probably isn't the ideal time to go and try to find new business partners.

I think it mentioned Titleist wanting to bring a lot of that work in house in the near term, maybe their agreement is ending and will not be renewed, or maybe they're seeking to get out of the agreement they made with P54?  They would certainly have more power to negotiate on the contract with P54 than RS and the other guys.

 

TL;DR - Another nice piece of writing from John that hopefully we'll get some follow up and better understanding of over time.  

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57 minutes ago, Berg Ryman said:

I like John and think he's doing incredible journalistic work as a former journalist myself, but anyone looking for anything explosive here like was being pushed on social media is going to be disappointed. Partnerships began before Saudi money came in. Saudi money came in, partnerships continued. Is it important to some, sure it is. Transparency is important in all forms, but I don't think this is the big bombshell everyone thought it might be.

I do look forward to more of these article from John though. Exposing who can exert influence in different fields to make you consider the sources of your information is definitely a worthwhile endeavor.

And it’s not the big bombshell the social channels teased it to be. Did a disservice to John and all the work he put into the article IMO 

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Interesting article, well done. While it’s disappointing to me those YouTubers have Saudi ties, they weren’t Saudi owned when initiated. But evidently they have no intention of distancing themselves now that LIV has surfaced. Not sure what to make of that frankly, but I know that’s not an issue for many fans.

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41 minutes ago, Middler said:

Interesting article, well done. While it’s disappointing to me those YouTubers have Saudi ties, they weren’t Saudi owned when initiated. But evidently they have no intention of distancing themselves now that LIV has surfaced. Not sure what to make of that frankly, but I know that’s not an issue for many fans.

 

... Yup great article by John, as usual. But unless I missed it, we don't know how the contracts were structured and if they could cut ties even if they wanted. Sorta being caught between a rock and a hard place since it occurred well after establishing a relationship. 

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4 hours ago, chisag said:

 

... Yup great article by John, as usual. But unless I missed it, we don't know how the contracts were structured and if they could cut ties even if they wanted. Sorta being caught between a rock and a hard place since it occurred well after establishing a relationship. 

Because P54 owns shares in each i would imagine it is more of if they want to sell or get out first rather than the YouTubers deciding to cut ties. 

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11 hours ago, GolfSpy_APH said:

Because P54 owns shares in each i would imagine it is more of if they want to sell or get out first rather than the YouTubers deciding to cut ties. 

And also worth noting, while the Saudi government may be the majority shareholder of P54, P54 is not the majority shareholder of any of the three channels in question (33% of Shiels, 40% of Finch, 25% of Jazzy), so again, the question of influence over these channels has to be brought into question. That means, and I hate to keep harping on this point, social did a terrible job in obfuscating the good reporting of John by making it seems so much more nefarious than it appeared.

And Jaime is right, I strongly doubt that Finch, Shiels, and Jazzy are going to sell their remaining shares in their own companies, which is really themselves, to any business interest, Saudi or otherwise. That's a bad business call.

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i learned a lot from shiels over the years, not as much from finch but i used to enjoy his quest for the open series. i unsubscribed from shiels channel, finches channel and good goods channel after reading the article. i can’t remember if finch ever mentioned liv on anything i watched, but shiels has definitely talked about liv without, at least while I was listening, disclosing his conflict of interest there. i signed up to both at the same time, so i unsubscribed at the same time. good good just got caught in the crosshairs, after having done all that cross promotion with shiels recently. i’m sure many won’t be bothered by this, but i was. i’m impressionable, and when I feel like an influencer i like has lied to me, it’s over. i haven’t missed them. so much great golf on youtube. i’m sure they’ll both be fine. apparently shielsy’s driving a bentley these days. 

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  • 2 months later...

Aldo the article is interesting, what's wrong? I bet if 99% of people get a all payed trip to there they will take it.

This world is all about money and I bet the most of us have allot of stuff in there possession that is made in China, is that less wrong?

They just buy company's that make money, interesting? Nope the world always turned like that but now it's another player on the tee 😉

(ps the oil isn't there forever so they do need another way of income in the future)

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