Sport’s asset bubble

Will there be a global sporting financial crisis?

The implosion of Tiger Woods last year was reported in the business pages; this is because Tiger is more than a person, he is a brand.

It is a status he shares with other leading sports ‘personalities’. The idea is that product endorsement by the likes of David Beckham, Roger Federer or Michael Jordan actually leads to consumers modeling their purchasing habits viz that same endorsement.

What David Bekham knows about mobile phones is probably up there with my knowledge of Canadian fungi, but it must work as Motorola paid him a truckload of cash to endorse their Razr phone. In fact, a lot of pseudo science has been peddled around trying to quantify how much product endorsements are worth.

Given that a lot of this “research” bleeds from the marketing industry, most of it can be dismissed out of hand.

Marketers do know that human beings aren’t rational. From this it flows that neither are marketing budgets. Most of it is just simple psychology aimed at making people feel like they belong. It works well in societies where real social networks (as opposed to facebook) are parlous or have collapsed, such as suburban Australia, especially at the more affluent end.

Exhibit A in this regard is Firepower.

Product endorsement by sports personalities is just a subset of the power of celebrity that has been growing since the mid-twentieth century.

Such endorsements are not new. Pope Leo XIII once endorsed a plonk laced with cocaine (left), which probably explains Tony Abbott.

Even if celebrity sports endorsements do work to some degree it is probable that their audiences, globally, are shrinking.

There may be more people watching, but as a percentage of total potential audience sports are in decline.

I base this assertion on declining TV audiences. No doubt many sports watchers have simply shifted medium, but that doesn’t help sports organisations whose main income stream is from traditional media.

Cricket Australia has a revenue stream of about $150 million, a fact it attributes to income from media. Cricket Australia isn’t doing media deals with the profusion of dinky little blogs and message boards that can keep you very up to date with matters cricket. They do their deals with the likes of Foxtel and Channel Nine who, in turn, rely on cricket’s drawing power to grab eyeballs and thence advertising and/or subscription.

It’s a simple business model that has two big, terminal problems. One; audiences for TV, especially free-to-air, are in decline; and two, advertisers are getting much more targeted in their marketing spend, leaving TV ads as poor value for return.

Radio has been through this revolution and the result is revenue from radio ads is a lot lower, the ads are cheaper, and the products they now flog are a lot more downmarket, generally speaking and radio as a whole is becoming a shoestring operation with a decreasing accent on celebrity.

The current crop of Australian players are already not loved by the Australian public, as David Sygall pointed out in the Fairfax papers a few weeks ago.

That cricket is aware of the potential damage this could do is undeniable. Sygall reported the market research they are doing. Also witness their ham fisted attempts to control the image of their ‘product’ by keeping news agencies from reporting test matches unless they signed ‘we love you’ waivers with Cricket Australia.

It is worth noting that if Cricket Australia’s revenue stream declines, so does the share going to the contracted players. So the deflation from lost media revenue will flow through to deflation in player’s incomes.

I’m using Cricket as an example here, but you could equally apply it to AFL, Rugby League, Rugby Union and Football. Globally, football will remain strong because of its sheer weight of numbers, but Tennis, Golf, the American sports and global Rugby must be getting nervous.

Sport as a product faces some big problems when it comes to the dreaded monetization. The problem that many of us have suspected for some time – that elite sports people and their organisations are paid far too much – is coming home to roost.

Celebrity is so vacuous that it relies on constant attention to survive. Paris Hilton knows that if the eyeballs stray elsewhere, they may never come back.

Sport as a business faces the big problem of continuing to attract eyeballs in a day and age when its very elitism and the carry on of its 'celebrities' alienates many viewers for a host of reasons that it isn't worth dwelling on at this time. Hence their need to turn to the vulgarity of 20/20 in cricket in order to feed the popularity beast so essential to the mainstream media outlets.

There is an alternative that is unthinkable to the moneymen surrounding elite sport. Sports could always return to being a past-time; an activity, rather than a spectacle.

But, who is going to endorse your product or watch your TV show if everyone is out there playing sport? Besides, humans are far too passive to reject the verisimilitude of spectating.

Actually doing it – as Nike suggests – requires more effort than western consumerism could stand.

Rupert Loves Kristina

A funny thing is happening in NSW. The News Limited stable is having a love affair with the latest ALP Premier Kristina Keneally.

Witness this

Simultaneously, over at the thinking right wing lunatic’s newspaper, the Australian, Liberal opposition leader, Barry O’Farrell is getting beaten about the head and neck for being, well, Barry.

A Canberra media source has suggested that Rupert likes to back winners, and perhaps News see Kristina as a winner.

An alternative reading may suggest that there’s a contra deal going on here. If so, what is News Limited getting for their gushing coverage? It’s a scary thought. Time to bury the silverware.

There is a genuine liking out in the community for Keneally. Her ‘li’l ole me’ routine is working a treat; as is the super-mum thing. The less said about the MILF factor (although it has to be acknowledged) the better. All of it is bullshit of course, but the public enemy number one running Kristina, Premier’s Department head Walt Secord (who did the same job for that equally talentless fluff, Bob Carr), at least has something to work with this time.

It’s not just News either. The Parrott was in on the act, reminding his listeners on Monday January 18 what an intellect Miss Ohio was, and how she bikes to work, performs miracles, etc. etc.

If News Limited think Kristina can survive it’s also assuming the ALP is going to survive, which is not beyond the realm of possibility, just beyond the realms of sanity. Maybe they’re just happy that Hamlet of Macquarie Street, Nathan Rees, is gone? Whatever it is, it sure is weird.

The psephologist’s psephologist, Antony Green pointed out that Rees received a similar (though marginally less impressive) bounce [link] when he ascended to the right hand of Joe Tripodi. None of that bounce flowed through to improving the ALP’s vote though and in the end he was bumped, along with his minder, Graeme Wedderburn, who was proving to be a looming problem come the ALP senate preselection.

So News, and Alan, may want to be careful. Preferred leader polls are always a beauty contest and have little to do with voting intention. Keating was preferred Prime Minister right up to election day in ’96 – and that ended up with the ALP wandering the streets crying “bring out your dead”.

Likewise, the primary vote numbers in the poll that prompted the WE LOVE KRISTINA headlines still has the ALP lying in a ditch with flies buzzing around its eyes.

She is also stuck with a team that is the end result of three generations of nepotistic inbreeding. None of those jokers have had an original idea since the Golden Palace in Sussex Street last changed it’s menu back in 1984.

What will be of greater concern for the Tyke Keneally will be the release of the attempted papicide, Mehmet Ali Agca.

Kristina is a good Catholic Girl – Quiet up the back! – and must be terrified at the thought of the guy who tried to kill the pope, who has God’s mobile number on speed-dial, being welcomed back into society, a la Denis Ferguson.

Ole Memsy is loose on the streets of Ankara, offering to kill Osama Bin Laden and declaring himself Messiah.

Such delusional antics prompt an idea that Mehmet is fine material to be the next Premier of NSW. Bob Carr is living proof that Mehmet wouldn’t be the first character the major parties have thrown up who came with his very own Messiah complex.

(Methuselah would like to declare that he is a former altar boy, and as such will have three Bloody Mary’s and a How’s Your Father as penance.)

Play Abandoned #25 - Say it ain't so, Kamran

What is really going on with the Pakistan cricket tour?

There is little doubt that if Pakistan was a racehorse it would have been swabbed by now.

There have been allegations that the fix was in at Sydney. None of these allegations have surfaced in the mainstream media because of the old juicy laws of libel, which can be a profitable earner for the professional litigant thanks to, amongst other things, the ACT Supreme Court.

So, did Pakistani vice-captain and wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal fall, or was he pushed? He did miss four catches and a relatively straight forward run out, which has raised  eyebrows in some quarters, but he has form in this department.

Some critics say he has lost games before. He dropped Lara during the World Cup a few years ago, never a good ploy. And has made some howler missed stumpings but, well, he kept getting selected on the basis of his batting. So what does that say about the Pakistani selectors?

But there was more to this than some inconsistency from the gloveman. Cricket is not a one man game. It would be a difficult job for one person to work alone to ensure the correct outcome for a punter or bookmaker on a cricket test. But there are the 'exotic' bets - highest scores, next wicket to fall, etc.

As far as Kamran throwing the game, the conservative captaincy of the Cat Stevens of world cricket, Mohommed Yousef, played a big part in Siddle and the little Hussey putting on the lead that they did. A lead that proved a winning lead.

Maybe they are all just playing us for mugs? It wouldn't be the first time.

But either way, reserve wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed will make his Test debut for Pakistan against Australia in Hobart on Thursday. Apparently Kamran's brother Umar is having a sulk and may not be fit to play.

At this rate the Hobart show will be all over by tea on the third day.

This is a tragedy as a country like Pakistan needs a win right now. With the Talibs on one side and Uncle Sam on the other, life is not much fun in the land beneath the ancient Kush. One would hope a bit of Pashtun pride and Kashmiri dignity will see them, at least, compete.

God willing, it will be so. But maybe god has given up on Pakistani cricket as well.

Methuselah - playing forward defensively to the flighted ball

Applied Appliance Applications

I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer. 
- Brendan Behan

Most of the effective technology in use today is that which can be employed without necessarily understanding how it works.

F'rinstance, how many would understand the inner workings of radio, the internal cumbustion engine that drives their car or even the computer with which they are reading this?

Yet political technologies - the technology of making and changing public decisions - require a sound understanding of how they work before they can be used.

Political technologies? Put simply, it is the technique of organising a group of people to achieve a commonly desired outcome.

At the dawn of the second decade of the twenty-first century this technology (or 'the craft of politics' if you prefer) is a rare skill.

Governments and political parties of all hues rely strongly on the disorganised community. It allows then to govern by executive fiat; internally within their parties and at a cabinet level within government.

The community - the household community - is increasingly disempowered as decisions are made that are either illiberal or directly act against the interests of the household sector. A cursory glance overthe history of electricity privatisation in NSW shows this.

Social organisation needs to work in such a way that people can organise without necessarily understanding how they do so.

This already happens to some degree. It's called society. The problem is that it is ineffective in the face of the organised demands of an increasingly authoritarian state.

So, how can politics be applied in a way that gives people control over decisions that affect them, without them necessarily understanding how those decisions are made?


How we informally organise needs to be examined. How can political structures be built that do not require an understanding of how they work to be effective?


Such structures would radically alter how society is organised. Would it simply be mob-facism by another name?


The great beauty of Liberal Democracy is the protection it provides for the dissident. Democracy is not the rule of the majority - that is populism - it is the right to dissent.


Liberal Democracy increasingly looks like the 'Democracy' of Greece and Rome. A system that benefits an elite few and is made to work by an army of slaves. For now the 'slaves' have the vote, but given that elections have degenerated into little more than beauty contests where issues seldom see the light of day (or if they do, they are ignored by the political elite that benefit from them), this 'right' held by the slaves is viewed by many as an imposition rather than a benefit. As the Anarchists say of the democratic political class: voting only encourages them.


In the face of such cynicism demand for the innovation of a user friendly politics may appear to be wanting. This is probably true, but as Lord Bowden once attributed to Douglas Hartree:

"...in his opinion, all the calculations that would ever be needed in this country could be done on the three digital computers which were then being built — one in Cambridge, one in Teddington, and one in Manchester. No one else, he said, would ever need machines of their own, or would be able to afford to buy them."

 So, who knows what the future will bring? It is doubtful if it will be party political.


What would a society that applied such an innovative political technology look like?


The various incompatible values of humanity would need to be accommodated, as well as the ancient Siddarthian conundra, and the age old economic question.

Currently we are drifting into various flavours of totalitarianism, with little practical solace for the professed dissident, apart from being able to hold a belief. Outside of this the dissident is held as a crank or a nutjob, as effective and more insidious (if more comfortable) version than being locked away in a gulag or concentration camp. Totalitarianism has got smart.


Most political debate in this country is predicated on who can tell the better lie. No doubt the progenitors of these debates believe what they are saying or doing to various degrees, but that they are fundamentally untrue is a demonstrable (if more complicated than a sound bite will allow) fact.


Rather than lies that work we need to accommodate various competing and, at times, incompatible (or, dare I say it, inconvenient) truths. Not to build a global hegemony, world government or hand power over to some manifestation of conspiracy fantasy, but to make sure we get enough to eat and keep warm when we are old.