Abroad, there is unease that the Morrison government donated $18 million to the governor-general’s pet charity before that charity appeared to be more than an idea, leading to suspicions that “Who You Know” might be the is what you need to snatch millions of taxpayers’ dollars.
So great is the uneasiness that four MPs have moved to reject the grant to the Governor-General’s Australian Future Leaders Foundation.
There are certainly oddities about the AFLF and the role of relationships in raising public funds – but it’s a relatively small beer and nowhere near as odd as the who-you-know and the political favoritism that leads to it big companies get much larger sums of money before everyone’s eyes.
On Tuesday, the AFL should have been blowing full-time with shady grants from buddies for buddies in Big Sport — companies as profitable and undeserving as any when it comes to government largesse.
No need for handouts
Courtesy of $4.5 billion in broadcast rights — and not to mention all of their other sponsorship deals — the AFL said it didn’t need any money from federal or state governments.
Guaranteed by the broadcast deal, the AFL will be a billion dollar deal next year. It grossed $800 million in 2019 — its last “normal” season for which definitive numbers are available.
AFL’s particular nature – a restricted game with negligible outside competition for its talent – means its main cost will depend on how much it is willing to spend.
The $230 million paid to players in 2019 and the more they’re getting this year are discretionary amounts — AFL players can’t really take their ball and go somewhere else.
The average AFL player wage of $389,000 this year doesn’t translate outside of the AFL.
(It’s in the nature of great professional sport that player payments end up taking up most of the available replacement money, but with restricting trading in players the AFL employs above the salary cap allows the company at the top to remain in control.)
Over the past five seasons, the AFL managed to add $175 million to their retained earnings, not to mention the impact of COVID.
Well connected
Either way, it’s big business, so why are politicians rushing to donate money to this particular big corporation?
The only sane answer is politics – buddies, connections, vote-buying. It’s not about sport for sport’s sake, spare me the nonsensical claims that it’s about encouraging the kids to get fit, it’s about favors for the well-connected and nobody is better connected than Big Sport, with the possible exception of Big Gambling.
In the AFL’s case, $10 million for the West Coast Eagles (“Australia’s most profitable sports club” according to the Australian Financial Review), $15 million for Collingwood, $15 million for the Sydney Swans… the federal money adds up. And then there’s the generosity of the state government and if you’re doing it for these clubs, what about…
If AFL fans are still reading at this point, this admitted rugby fan will expect gnashing of teeth and claims of bias in Australian rules, but AFL will only act, billed by the size of its self-congratulations and the timeliness of the show.
Political Soccer
Rugby league’s NRL is also undeserved. For example, it is just obscene that the Queensland and federal governments are giving millions to the Broncos, a public company controlled by Murdoch.
Ditto for the matches the NRL has played with the NSW Government over stadiums (stadiums for the Latin speakers) and the grand final.
I don’t recall the NRL party actually running in the last election, but they are able to act like they won.
And yes, even poor little rugby union’s (a truly international sport, at least) claims on the taxpayer are in doubt.
On a professional level, if you claim to be a professional, be a professional. Tailor your stuff to fit – just like sport does at the community level, where it’s overwhelmingly self-funded.
If governments really care about youth participation and fit, well-socialized children, they should focus on making children’s sports more affordable, rather than buying photo ops and company box invites with Big Sport.
For example, it would be a simple matter for the government to cover the cost of insuring children’s sports – all sports, no code or gender discrimination.
And ban professional sports from extorting money from the grassroots by getting the parents of the boys and girls running through the park on a Saturday to subsidize the six-figure salaries of pro players and the seven-figure salaries of executives.
But it won’t happen. Big Sport is too well connected, too powerful a lobby, up there with the pub and club poker machine industry in their influence on politicians and increasingly in bed with the gambling industry for these purposes.
Instead, at the community level, the volunteers who do it for the love of their game and their children will fight on and be exploited (like the taxpayer) for their efforts.
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