{"id":53658,"date":"2019-02-08T10:39:31","date_gmt":"2019-02-08T17:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/?p=53658"},"modified":"2019-02-08T15:12:47","modified_gmt":"2019-02-08T22:12:47","slug":"action-sports-pecker-the-saudis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/?p=53658","title":{"rendered":"Action Sports, Pecker &#038; The Saudis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-53659\" src=\"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/30Pecker2-jumbo-v2-450x271.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"271\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/30Pecker2-jumbo-v2.jpg 450w, http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/30Pecker2-jumbo-v2-200x120.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><br \/>\nAs if this whole <strong>TEN<\/strong> sale couldn&#8217;t get any stranger, a deeper dive into the backstory reveals a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/03\/29\/business\/media\/david-pecker-trump-saudi-arabia.html\"><em><strong>The New York Times<\/strong><\/em><\/a>&nbsp;story from March 2018 that hints at where the money used by <strong>American Media<\/strong> to purchase the TEN action sports properties (among other things) may have come from. . . Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The intersection of the tabloid publisher [<strong>David Pecker<\/strong>, pictured right with The Donald] with the Saudis, enhanced by the White House visit, is a previously untold chapter in the long, symbiotic relationship between the president and Mr. Pecker, <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2017\/07\/03\/the-national-enquirers-fervor-for-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">which was forged<\/a> in the 1990s. At the time, Mr. Trump was celebrating a real estate comeback after his casino bankruptcies and was both the subject and the source of much gossip in New York.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>One action sports executive wonders if this all might be part of a plan to use actions sports as a way to improve the public&#8217;s perceptions of a county that, in addition to various human rights violations, has allegedly murdered at least one journalist:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Sports have been an increasingly viable way for despots to soften their image and market a national brand (Russia\/Sochi; Qatar\/World Cup; Saudi Arabia\/PGA events). . .Doesn&#8217;t seem a crazy reach that Crown Prince <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/people\/mohammed-bin-salman.html\">Mohammed bin Salman<\/a>, et al. would have interest in creating action\/participant sports events, promoting tourism, etc. And these would be cheap and effective markets for this purpose. . .&nbsp;It all does line up: money gets laundered, Pecker gets ass saved, Saudi&#8217;s get backdoor to Trump administration, and a bunch of cheap sports\/travel media properties run influence campaigns.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Is this really why American Media had interest in a few small circ. action sporting brands? Click the link to read the rest of the story.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/03\/29\/business\/media\/david-pecker-trump-saudi-arabia.html\">The New York Times<\/a>]<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As if this whole TEN sale couldn&#8217;t get any stranger, a deeper dive into the backstory reveals a&nbsp;The New York Times&nbsp;story from March 2018 that hints at where the money used by American Media to purchase the TEN action sports properties (among other things) may have come from. . . Saudi Arabia. The intersection of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,6,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53658"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53658"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53671,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53658\/revisions\/53671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}