Courtesy of The Washington Post, commentary on the possibility that the owner of Washington’s Wizards, Capitals and Mystics may sell a stake to the Qatar Investment Fund:

Washington sports mogul Ted Leonsis cultivates a diverse fan base for his franchises. All three of his major sports teams — the Capitals, the Wizards and the Mystics — organized Pride events, and digital billboards at Capital One Arena in June lit up with rainbow-colored themes. Monumental Sports & Entertainment, Mr. Leonsis’s ownership group, takes measures “to help empower all who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, or asexual in continued allyship,” according to a company news release.

Mr. Leonsis’s allyship, however, risks springing a leak. In a prospective deal reported by Sportico, Monumental is nearing closure to sell a 5 percent stake to the state-owned Qatar Investment Authority (QIA). Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar, and Human Rights Watch last year reported on the detention and beatings of LGBTQ+ people. “As a requirement for their release, security forces mandated that transgender women detainees attend conversion therapy sessions at a government-sponsored ‘behavioral healthcare’ center,” noted the group.

Joining the Washington professional sports club is part of a careful strategy on the part of Qatar, and there’s a name for it — “sportswashing,” whereby authoritarian regimes siphon respectability from sports brands by establishing alliances with them. Post sports columnist Candace Buckner put it well: “Sportswashing is a slow play, an erosion of ethics that takes its time to absorb the blows, weather the pushback and wait out the howls of disgust until they become quieter and quieter.”

The world leader in modern sportswashing is Saudi Arabia, whose government, under the de facto leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, approved the assassination and dismemberment of Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, according to a U.S. intelligence report. Despite those unconscionable acts — as well as the kingdom’s enduring record of human rights violations — the Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit recently managed to reach a framework deal with the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour to create an unprecedented international golf partnership. The Justice Department is poised to probe the PGA Tour’s arrangement over antitrust concerns, according to the Wall Street Journal.

By all means, probe away. (Saudi Arabia is also aggressively bidding to host the 2030 World Expo, a coup that would complement, and perhaps eclipse, its other sportswashing activities.)

Qatar is a close rival in the sportswashing arena. It mounted a successful bid to host the 2022 World Cup, a gambit that put it among such recent host countries as Russia, Brazil, South Africa, Germany, Japan and South Korea. We called it “a World Cup of human rights horrors” in light of Qatar’s treatment of women, its exploitation of workers and its laws on homosexuality. In 2011, state-owned Qatar Sports Investments bought a controlling stake in French soccer team Paris Saint-Germain — and later became the sole owner.

Dollars have a habit of steamrolling ethics. For its 5 percent stake in Monumental, the Qatari sovereign wealth fund is expected to invest about $200 million, a sum that Mr. Leonsis could plow into any number of initiatives to enhance his franchises. He is among those seeking to buy the Washington Nationals from the Lerner family. The National Basketball Association last year amended its rules to allow overseas sovereign wealth funds to buy into the league, and under the pending Monumental deal, the Qatari fund would have a minority, passive stake in Mr. Leonsis’s operation. “We allow funds to invest in teams but not control teams, not to have influence over teams,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said recently.

That distinction might be meaningful to Mr. Silver, but Qatar probably doesn’t want a say in the Wizards’ draft choices; it likely wants the goodwill rub-off factor — in proximity to all the powerful people in Washington — that comes with a Monumental alliance. It’s not a coincidence that the first direct investment by a sovereign wealth fund in a major U.S. professional sports franchise is taking place here.

The Qatari government’s media office declined to comment on the record, as did the QIA.

Monumental’s businesses mean a great deal to the District. By the company’s account, Capital One Arena, which was built with private financing, draws 3 million-plus people per year. Those visitors are critical to D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s (D) ambitions to revitalize downtown amid covid’s long-lasting work-from-home hangover — and they explain why D.C. appears eager to pitch in for improvements to Capital One Arena, especially as Monumental has reportedly opened exploratory talks regarding a possible move to Northern Virginia.

The Wizards, Capitals and Mystics also hold symbolic import for the city. They’re a source of local pride, even when they hit rough patches in the win-loss column. They give Washingtonians something to talk about, gripe about and, occasionally, shriek with joy about.

Those symbolic considerations, however, go both ways. A public-spirited organization that celebrates inclusive values can expect the support of the community. It can also expect the community to object when it does business with an authoritarian regime opposed to those same values.