News Corp’s Australian chair claims ‘activist’ athletes hurt grassroots sport | Australia sport
Rupert Murdoch’s Australian chief executive has accused athletes of harming sport by becoming “activists” and rejecting sponsorship from mining or energy companies.
News Corp Australia Chief Executive Michael Miller, Australasia, told a sports leadership conference that athletes who turn down sponsorship don’t lose salary, but “grassroots” sports organizations suffer from their activism.
News Corp is Australia’s largest publisher, with mastheads including Australian, Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun and news.com.au, as well as pay-TV broadcaster Sky News Australia.
Miller appeared to be referring to Netball Australia’s withdrawal of Hancock Prospecting’s $15 million sponsorship last year after a player reaction.
The backlash was sparked by First Nations squad member Donnell Wallam, who objected to wearing a uniform bearing the Hancock logo because Hancock Prospecting founder and father of Gina Rinehart, Lang Hancock, suggested Indigenous Australians should be sterilized.
Speaking on a panel at SportNXT’s Shaping the Future of Sport conference in Melbourne, Miller said, “Stars are your greatest strength and your greatest liability.
“When sports stars become activists, it negatively impacts the growth of football as athletes decide who their sponsors are and who they work with and don’t work with.
A panel of world-renowned leaders comment on the state of sport in Australia and around the world.
Moderated by @TraceyLeeHolmesthe panel included ICC Chairman Greg Barclay, NBA Asia MD Ramez Sheikh, News Corp Executive Chairman Michael Miller and Melbourne FC President Kate Roffey. pic.twitter.com/lT7cxwZflM
— SportNXT (@sportnxtau) March 28, 2023
“You hire people, you come to work and you accept that the team, the company you work for, is making decisions on your behalf, and that the athletes make a pretty firm decision that they don’t want to take sponsorship from a mining company Energy companies…their pay won’t suffer, but eventually the grassroots and pathway programs will.”
When asked by the host, ABC journalist Tracey Holmes, Miller doubled down on what he said.
“I find that athletes feel they have permission to make such statements, but other organizations would not accept it,” he said. “If you don’t want to work for this organization, go and work somewhere else.”
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Another panelist, Melbourne Football Club President Kate Roffey, disagreed with Miller.
Roffey said she supports her players, whom she described as her greatest asset, and if they were having issues with sponsors, they had every right to speak out.
“It’s just courtesy, it’s not my responsibility to ask them what’s important to them as athletes,” Roffey said.
Miller has been critical of sports codes that make it difficult for the media to cover by scheduling multiple games at once, saying it’s important to give the media access to stories and personalities.
He also said Kayo, Foxtel’s sports streaming service, has numbers showing more men are watching women’s sports than women, and getting women to watch women’s sports is a challenge.