PI SPORTS BLINK: “When Saudi-funded LIV Golf first arrived in the U.S. earlier this year, it was met with criticism from politicians and the families of 9/11 victims, who claimed the new golf circuit was a bid by Saudi Arabia to use a popular sport to whitewash its reputation for brutality and alleged involvement in the 2001 terrorist attacks.” — “Now, LIV Golf is claiming in a new court filing that much of this backlash was secretly coordinated by its rival, the PGA Tour, through a Washington, D.C. public relations firm hired by the PGA Tour,” the Wall Street Journal’s Mark Maremont, Louise Radnofsky and Andrew Beaton report. — “‘The Tour has secretly directed, coordinated, and funded public protest, defamatory advertising, and other tactics to stir up anti-Saudi sentiment directed at its first-ever global competitor, all in an effort to maintain its unlawful monopoly,’ LIV alleged in a filing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia submitted Tuesday but made public Wednesday. — “The PGA Tour hired the Washington public relations firm, Clout Public Affairs LLC , ‘to front this campaign, insisting that Clout conceal the Tour’s orchestration of this effort,’ according to the filing. ‘The Tour knew how bad it would look if its fingerprints were on the campaign to link LIV Golf to the tragedy of the Sept. 11 attacks, so the Tour hid behind Clout,’ the filing claims.” — “Clout’s president David Polyansky acknowledged that the firm was representing the PGA Tour, and said it was proud to do so. … LIV indicated in an attachment to the filing that it was seeking information from Clout about its communications with the groups 9/11 Justice and 9/11 Families United, in particular, and its communications with the PGA Tour about those groups.” NCAA TAPS BAKER AMID NIL TURMOIL: Outgoing Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker will become the next president of the NCAA, putting a seasoned political hand at the helm of collegiate athletics’ governing body following a series of challenges to its business practices that resulted in a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court to allow athletes to profit off endorsement deals. — “Although his hire is unconventional — he was not a sitting university president or college athletic administrator — it also highlights the importance of political expertise for an entity that has sought assistance from federal lawmakers, particularly around issues regarding name, image and likeness,” The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach reports. — “The NCAA has taken a largely hands-off approach to NIL regulation due to antitrust concerns and pressure from both the courts and Congress. [Outgoing NCAA President Mark] Emmert and other prominent college athletic leaders have asked for years for a federal NIL law” to avoid a patchwork of state rules. “Those involved in the presidential search noted Baker’s history of ‘successfully forging bipartisan solutions to complex problems,’ which led them to believe he was ‘uniquely suited to the NCAA’s present needs.’” — As the NIL battle heated up ahead of last year’s Supreme Court decision, the organization’s spending on lobbying soared — from around $200,000 annually before 2014 to more than half a million dollars last year. — Meanwhile NCAA’s so-called Power Five conferences — the Big Ten, Big 12, PAC-12 Conference, Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference — have all begun lobbying federally in recent years. They’ve collectively poured more than $1.1 million into lobbying efforts so far this year, according to a PI analysis of lobbying disclosure, advocating on issues from player compensation and NIL legislation to athletes’ rights to unionize. PHARMA DEPARTURE LOUNGE: The drugmaker AbbVie is withdrawing from top industry trade groups around town, our Megan Wilson reports. The company is leaving the top two pharmaceutical trade groups, PhRMA and the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, as well as Business Roundtable, which comprises the country’s top business executives. — “We regularly evaluate our memberships with industry trade associations and our most recent assessment led us to decide not to renew our membership with select trade associations,” an AbbVie spokesperson told Megan, while declining to name which associations. — “The decision comes as regulators begin to implement the drug pricing provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act that drugmakers spent millions in lobbying to defeat. With the passage of the bill, which allows Medicare to negotiate certain drug prices, the industry and its advocacy groups were handed the most significant legislative loss in three decades and are now regrouping and charting a new path.” — “AbbVie declined to say why it’s leaving the associations, but said the decision ‘has nothing to do with Humira,’ its blockbuster anti-inflammatory drug. The company expects to have a decline in revenue next year once biosimilar competitors to the treatment — which reached $20.7 billion in sales in 2021 — are allowed on the market, AbbVie CEO Rick Gonzalez said on an earnings call. There will be a ‘significant return to growth’ after the initial decline, he added.” RESTAURANTS’ NEXT PUSH: The restaurant industry is still clamoring for federal assistance to help it recover from the pandemic despite failed attempts to secure another round of funding for an industry-specific relief program earlier this year. — Many of the same lawmakers who championed the Restaurant Revitalization Fund have introduced legislation offering restaurant owners who missed out on the grant program another lifeline amid a rocky economic climate. The bill would create a tax credit allowing restaurants to offset their payroll tax liabilities up to $25,000 per quarter next year. — The tax break would be restricted to the roughly 177,000 restaurants who applied for RRF money but did not receive it, given they demonstrate sufficient levels of loss during the pandemic, and have varying extents of refundability. Both the National Restaurant Association and the newer Independent Restaurant Coalition have thrown their support behind the bill. — “Even with months of positive steady job growth and families dining out again, restaurant[s] and bars are still under a mountain of debt from month after month of anemic business in wave after wave of the pandemic,” Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) said in a fact sheet on the bill, adding that it “will allow these businesses to stay afloat while fairly compensating their staff.” SENATE PASSES ANOTHER FARA BILL: Don’t look now, but the Senate last night passed a second bill from Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that would make changes around the margins of FARA’s LDA exemption. — The chamber adopted by unanimous consent the pair’s bill from September that would require lobbyists looking to avail themselves of the LDA exemption — which allows operatives working for a foreign entity to conduct business under the LDA’s less-stringent reporting requirements — to indicate that on their lobbying disclosure. — Assuming the Justice Department’s recent endorsement of repealing the exemption altogether is a ways away — if it happens at all — Peters and Grassley’s measure is aimed at shrinking the pool of registrants DOJ’s FARA Unit would need to sift through as it looks for potential violations, without adding too much of a burden on the registrants themselves. — Earlier this fall, the Senate passed another bill from Grassley, Peters and several others that would require lobbyists filing LDA paperwork “to identify any connection with a foreign government or political party that plans, supervises, directs, or controls any effort of that lobbyist, regardless of those entities' financial contributions to the lobbying effort,” which has previously been the standard for such disclosure. Both bills now await House action.
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