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Geoff Munro has recently written in Crikey and GrogWatch about the appalling response of major sporting codes to the suggestion that alcohol sponsorship of professional sport could be curbed or banned outright.
On the right, you can download an article by a member of the CAAN board, Dr Con Stavros, on this issue.
See below for Geoff's original article (a slightly edited version appeard under the title "Alcohol ads, or cricket for the disables: you decide" in Crikey on 28 April 2008)
PROFESSIONAL SPORTS PLAY HARDBALL IN THE SENATE
The Coalition of Major Professional Sports (COMPS) is trying to intimidate the Senate into rejecting Family First's Alcohol Toll Reduction Bill. The sports coalition claims the Bill would force sports to cut funding for female, indigenous, and disabled people's sport.
COMPS represents four football codes (Australian Football League, National Rugby League, Australian Rugby Union, Football Federation Australia), Cricket Australia, Tennis Australia, golf (PGA Tour Australasia), horse racing (Victoria Racing Club) and motor car racing (V8 Supercars Australia).
The provisions of the Bill are relatively mild - it would ordain health warnings on alcohol labels, vetting of alcohol advertising by a government panel and extend the period in which alcohol advertising is banned from television by 30 minutes, from the 5.00am-8.30pm period to 5.00am-9.00pm.
The last object has thrown big sport into a spin because it fears it would prevent the alcohol sponsorship of televised sport. It says the loss of alcohol sponsors would reduce earnings from broadcasters who depend on advertising revenue, and that would affect the amount they would pay for TV rights. It is at least debatable whether revenue would be lower, or by how much, and COMPS prefers making assertions to providing evidence. But in a breathtaking dummy spit, "major professional sports" threaten to recover "lost" revenue by hitting the punter at the gate with higher ticket prices and cutting funding to female, indigenous and disabled sport.
COMPS' submission to the Senate Inquiry into the Bill states "...any reduction to consolidated revenues directly impacts the ability of sporting organisations to directly invest in a range of programs - particularly in the areas of sport participation and broader community initiatives...sport plays an important part...providing opportunities for indigenous Australians and access to programs for people with disabilities." (1) Cricket Australia was even blunter: "The bill would affect our ability to deliver indigenous, women's and disability programs." (2)
If professional sports earn less revenue it would seem sensible and fair to reduce pay outs to the people who are paid to play them. That tends to be the way of the world. COMPS' members could say: "The bill would affect our ability to fund the players' salaries at current levels, and we will have to trim them." But COMPS plays hardball. So the salaries of elite players -who are handsomely paid by community standards- and the top prize money for major competitions, are sacrosanct; while low paid, even unpaid, players and the most marginalized, will be cut loose.
This could be the mother of PR disasters, a foul, an own goal of monumental proportions. It renders doubtful the claims the sports make about their family values, and their keenness to foster grassroots participation. What happens to Cricket Australia's "cricket family"? "You're part of our family as long as you're not black, disabled or female?" That should go down a treat.
The case COMPS is putting is not sustainable. Sport does not need Alcorp's sponsorships. Corporate sponsors are knocking down the walls of stadia to front big sport. Think Emirates Melbourne Cup, think Toyota AFL. Alcohol sponsors represent a minority of the deals: the others are done by suppliers of sports goods, motor cars, airlines, banks, insurance houses. The list of suitors is endless and the senators doing the inquiring will know it.
COMPS' submission is so lacking in credibility that it must be doubted whether all of the sports bodies have read it. And it is a gigantic bluff. Do we really believe the AFL, which boasts its racial vilification policy changed race relations in this country, is going to cut funding to indigenous footy? When 10% of AFL players are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders? Who will be game enough to tell Michael Long and Kevin Sheedy?
The public hearings begin in a fortnight and it should be worth going along to see someone present COMPS' submission in person. How will they put a positive spin on Cricket Australia chopping the disabled out of the game? Shane Warne couldn't twirl it that far.
It doesn't say much for COMPS' political skills if it thinks it can hold Parliament responsible for its decision to withdraw funding from marginalised sportsmen and women. But the most significant revelation is the failure of Australian sport to mount a cogent argument in favour of Alcorp's sponsorships when it counts. If it depends on the case put by COMPS, it's a matter of "last drinks, gents".
(1) COMPS Submission to the Senate Inquiry into the Alcohol Toll Reduction Bill 2007, p3
(2) Sunday Telegraph 13 April 2008 p 9.
To read all the submissions to the Bill, including the submission from COMPS, please click here.
Date: 2008-04-29
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