Author: Federica Di Sario, Giovanna Coi

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…