Netball Australia and Hancock Prospecting sponsorship saga: Powerbrokers, not players, are to blame

Go woke and you go broke. Judging by news coverage and selected journalist commentary, this is apparently a lesson to be drawn from Hancock Prospecting’s decision to cancel its $15 million, four-year sponsorship of Netball Australia last weekend. 

Professional athletes should, in effect, shut up and play instead of engaging in so-called virtue signalling about racial justice and environmental issues. Player power should be kept within strict limits, as to do otherwise risks biting the hand that feeds, and poses a dangerous problem for sport.

That the relationship between Netball Australia and Hancock Prospecting could end so suddenly and with such controversy is striking. 

Yet, it also poses an important question: How much due diligence did Netball Australia and Hancock Prospecting complete on each other when negotiating the sponsorship arrangement? 

Scapegoating players is an effective diversionary tactic for sport and corporate powerbrokers when they enter into ill-advised partnerships.

Chequered histories

Both Netball Australia and Hancock Prospecting are vulnerable on questions of racial justice and the treatment of Indigenous communities, irrespective of what their press releases and public statements say. 

Gina Rinehart’s father, Lang Hancock, is on public record proposing a genocidal response to the “Aboriginal problem” in 1984. The virulent racism and ugliness contained in his comments are self-evident. 

As Executive Chairman of Hancock Prospecting, Gina Rinehart hasn’t distanced herself from these comments, and instead points to the ongoing good work of the Roy Hill Community Foundation with Indigenous communities in Western Australia.  

Did anyone at Netball Australia or Hancock Prospecting identify this history as a potential problem for a sport with an unimpressive record on race? 

Just two years ago, we witnessed the embarrassment of Super Netball’s only Indigenous player, Wakka Wakka woman Jemma Mi Mi, being left on the bench for the Queensland Firebirds during Super Netball’s Indigenous Round.  Only three First Nations’ athletes have represented the Australian netball team. 

The decision of current Diamonds squad players to stand alongside their teammate, and Noongar woman, Donnell Wallam, by rejecting a playing strip emblazoned with Hancock Prospecting signals a principled commitment to much-needed change. 

That Wallam is reportedly devastated by the decision to cancel the sponsorship of Netball Australia suggests a similarly principled commitment to her teammates and the sport.

Different paths

The other point of contention in this imbroglio involves environmental issues and the climate crisis. 

Gina Rinehart’s astronomical wealth is generated by carbon-intensive mining activities. She’s on public record complaining about climate change “propaganda” being taught in the education system. 

Hancock Prospecting has been a generous funder of the Institute of Public Affairs, a think tank consistently associated with climate change scepticism. Rinehart is also a supporter of former Nationals leader, and notorious climate backslider, Barnaby Joyce.    

In contrast, Netball Australia was, at least up until 2019, a member of the Sports Environment Alliance (SEA).  The SEA is a peak industry body dedicated to encouraging climate action through mitigation and adaptation (Netball Victoria is still a member). 

SEA ambassadors include both current and former Australian Diamond representatives Jo Weston, Amy Steel and Shani Norder (nee Layton). 

Standing alongside three other netballers, Australia’s most-capped international player, Liz Ellis, and former Diamonds captain Kathryn Harby-Williams are supporters of The Cool Down campaign. 

This widely publicised athlete-led campaign is calling for a cut of at least 50% to national carbon emissions by 2030, and the achievement of net zero before 2050. 

This campaign reflects a growing number of national and international athlete-led calls for action on the climate crisis, as highlighted by Cricket for Climate, AFL Players for Climate Action, Eco-Athletes and Protect Our Winters.

Problematic alignments

Did anyone at Hancock Prospecting or Netball Australia consider these facts and contemplate the problematic alignment between their respective organisations on questions of race and the climate? 

Challenging athletes on their naivety about the realpolitik of sport sponsorship misses the mark when those running the game and signing the cheques appear not to have understood it themselves. 

As with most professional sports, Netball Australia actively encourages its players to use the platforms provided by social media and news to communicate with their fans and express themselves publicly. Their “offences” in doing so on this occasion? Standing by a teammate while playing a team sport and expressing concern about the climate crisis – a commonly held position among a majority of Australian citizens.

Having withdrawn its sponsorship, complaints from Hancock Prospecting and Rinehart about sport being used as a vehicle for social and political causes, or virtue signalling, are hypocritical. They ignore the long history of sport playing a role in such causes. 

Sponsorship is virtue signalling by corporations, drawing on the popular appeal and entertainment generated by athletes and sporting spectacle to burnish their image in the eyes of the public. 

Rinehart may well love sport and sportspeople, but the fact Hancock Prospecting announces her as “Australia’s biggest Olympic fan” alongside images of iron ore mining is about maintaining her company’s social licence to operate.

If anything is to be learnt from this mess, it’s that Hancock Prospecting, Netball Australia, and several journalists need to be less concerned about athletes expressing themselves. 

Lecturing players that “money doesn’t grow on trees” is risible when many netballers need to maintain outside paid employment to maintain a sporting career. 

Focus instead needs to turn to what happens when executives and board members of two uncomfortably matched organisations decide to join forces. The result on this occasion has been disastrous for all involved, and tarnished the image of a much-loved Australian sport.