Is a lack of moral leadership killing sports sponsorship in Australia?

Congratulations, Anthony, firstly on your article and secondly on being a responsible father. The lure of the dollar has unfortunately blind sided many a sports administrator over a seemingly incredibly short period of time. Even, I notice, making an appearance in this morning’s coverage of the golf on TEN (as a coverage sponsor not a sponsor of the sport).
More journalists and management in positions of influence need to become vocal in the gambling/sports sponsorship discussion or pretty soon the very substance of sport and competition will be lost.

As a sportsperson myself, I agree 100% Anthony.

Excellent article Anthony. I stumbled across the following today that may be of interest. According to the H2 Gambling Capital 2012 report Australia ranks #5 in the world for ‘winnings’ (I prefer to call it pay-outs), with a 5.3% share. Yet as a nation we represent just 0.34% of the world’s population, meaning we punch around 15 times our weight. Pretty scary.

A very interesting article, particularly given it is by the chief executive of an ad agency that represented the sportswear Skins when it was pinged by the competition regulator for its advertising. http://www.accc.gov.au/media-r.....gear-maker Remember those ads that featured famous sportspeople using their gear and supported by the line that they didn’t need to be paid to spruik the products because they were so good. And then it was revealed that they had in fact been paid. Hmmm… what was that you were saying about “the price of doing well today is doing good”.

Thanks for the comments. There was much more I could go on with but my word count meant a lot of culling!

Mufti – regarding the ACCC/Skins ruling, yes Skins did get penalised for resale price maintenance and misleading conduct in advertising. The readers can see the detail in the media release you have attached. With regard to the advertising component, the agency (The Furnace) was not included in the ruling as, quite simply the ACCC knew we had in no knowledge of the contracts in place with sports stars. There’s a lot more detail I could – but won’t – go into, suffice to say the ACCC have been more than willing to include advertising agencies in similar negative rulings where they believed the agency behaved inappropriately.

Even though they are no longer clients, Skins and the company owner – Jaimie Fuller – fight the good fight more than any other company regarding integrity in sport. A recent initiative by Jaimie, the organisation Change Cycling Now, http://www.changecyclingnow.org, is committed to generating positive change in professional cycling. He’s upsetting a lot of people, and I don’t always agree with his approach, but I don’t see others in the commercial world spending their own money to make things better for everyone (as opposed to further their own interests).

Anthony

The lure of the buck outweighs the integrity of the brand!

OK sports gambling is the worlds worst advertiser, that should be fabulous news for the likes of Maccas, Coke, Hungry Jacks, Tooheys, Fosters, the weight loss companies, the pain relief creams that don’t work, the ‘stick the thing under your tongue and have great sex’ strips companies are all breathing a huge sigh of relief.

Ask yourself, when Tom Waterhouse or the TAB girls come onto your TV do you rush out and have a bet???? No.. I thought so , neither do I and I’m a punter.
so is the ad really working???

Isn’t it ironic that in an article about a lack of moral leadership killing sports sponsorship in Australia, if the writer had his way, millions of dollars worth of sponsorship from gambling companies would be killed? Don’t you think?

Hi Alanis,

My point, maybe not very well articulated, is that you will kill the sports sponsorship dead if you don’t act in a responsible manner as a whole. The gambling example is one of many, but a pertinent one. I’m not saying there should be a blanket ban on it’s involvement in sport, but I do think that the way gambling has been integrated into content, like the Tom Waterhouse/Ch 9/NRL example, is not a healthy one for the future of the code.

Another maybe less contentious example but just as relevant to the future of contact sports in Australia is the one of head injuries and concussion on future health issues. In the US thousands of former NFL professionals have filed a class action against the NFL, accusing the league of deliberately concealing information about life-altering brain injuries caused by playing football. It’s a serious problem and will absolutely raise its head locally. If I was at the NRL and thinking about how I was going to encourage more kids to play the game, I think making sure they were doing everything possible to mitigate long term health issues might be a smart thing to do to ensure the future of the sport. Just my personal opinion of course, but acting responsibly I believe is the best way for sports to survive, which is what we all want.

Anthony

My elder son is about to go to university to do a degree in sports administration. He already makes comments about the situation in professional sport and clearly has developed his own strong opinions about a lot of the issues, and they appear aligned with Anthony’s.
Gambling is only one issue. There’s plenty for the next generation to sort out, but integrity in sport is the overriding issue and advertisers won’t tolerate the current situation much longer. Lie with dogs and you’ll get fleas.

It might be time to shift some sponsorship dollars from sport to entertainment – a safer bet perhaps?

I hate advertising people talking about morality, its a bit like a prostitute talking up chastity!! This an advertising guy tut tutting sport for taking money from organisations that are a little dubious from a moral perspective. I take it that Havas are capable of vouching for every single client they have on the books. What a hopeless naive platitude fest…