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Saudi’s Riyadh Season festival goes global

Sep 15, 2025, 8:53am EDT
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Promotional photo for the Six Kings Slam tennis tournament.
Courtesy of Visit Saudi

Riyadh Season opened with a punch — literally — as viral clips showed Mike Tyson jabbing YouTube star MrBeast alongside Saudi entertainment chief Turki Al-Sheikh.

The monthslong festival, running until early 2026, blends sports, music, and spectacle, and this year extends beyond the kingdom and into living rooms around the world: Netflix will carry the “Six Kings Slam” tennis event from the expanded 27,000-seat Kingdom Arena.

The event follows a blockbuster boxing match on the streaming platform between Canelo Álvarez and Terence Crawford, which Al-Sheikh touted as the most-watched fight ever. While the full calendar is still pending, Riyadh residents are buying up tickets for a WWE Royal Rumble and a comedy lineup featuring Bill Burr, Aziz Ansari, and Dave Chappelle.

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