Swim icon and ASC chief executive Kieren Perkins gives Australian sport a spray of Atlanta 1996 proportions at Sport NXT

From overburdened grassroots volunteers to power-hungry governing bodies, Australian sport is headed for ‘oblivion’ if it doesn’t change, according to Kieren Perkins. SHANNON GILL witnessed a stunning address from the swim icon turned ASC boss.

‘Dual Olympic gold medallist’ does not do full justice to Kieren Perkins.

If you watched his against-the-odds 1996 Atlanta Olympics 1500m swim in real time, it is tattooed on your brain as one of the greatest-ever performances by an Australian sportsperson.

On Tuesday, the audience may have been smaller and the interest level more niche, yet those at the SportNXT conference in Melbourne saw a version of the Perkins we saw in Atlanta.

He’d just traded his Speedos for a business suit.

Kieren Perkins after winning gold in the Mens 1500m freestyle at the 1996 Olympic Games. Picture: Bob Martin/Getty Images

The Australian Sports Commission doesn’t usually elicit excitement at these types of events, let alone for the public. Yet Perkins, the ASC’s CEO, ended up being the star of the panel that opened the conference.

He lambasted the Enhanced Games concept as “laughable and borderline criminal”, was blunt in the challenges facing sports participation because “teenagers are turning away in droves”, and warned Australian governing bodies that “the federated model of sport is guaranteeing our future destruction”.

Whether you agreed or not was not necessarily the point.

It was a tour de force that had people hanging off every word, and this from the boss of an organisation that has historically had a public image befitting the Canberra bureaucracy.

Kieren Perkins has labeled the concept of an Enhanced Games as ‘criminal’. Picture: Chris Hyde/Getty Images

In the queues for coffee at morning tea, Perkins was the main topic of conversation.

Former ASC staffers were amazed at how strong he’d been. “This wasn’t the ASC we knew,” they said admiringly of the man who took over the commission in 2022.

His warning that “someone will die” if the Enhanced Games flourish grabbed the headlines, yet his insights on all topics were thought-provoking, if not provocative.

On the administration of community sport, Perkins said that “volunteerism will always have to underpin our sporting environment” and therefore, we must lessen the load and change the expectations.

James Magnussen is open to swimming at the Enhanced Games. Picture: Dave Hunt/AAP Image

“So much of what happens at that club level across many sports isn’t necessarily the new most flexible, modern and technologically-enabled way of doing things. It’s usually the way that it’s being done for the last 30 years,” he said.

“And as requirements and things like integrity start to overlay on it, what we’re not doing as an industry is being able to say, ‘Right, here are the important standards and requirements that you need to engage in. All this other crap that you’ve been told you need to do, just stop. It’s not relevant. It’s not important anymore. It might have been important 50 years ago but just let that go’.”

Perkins believes these difficulties are directly related to the way sports are run. Specifically, sports that are governed by federated models where state interests compete with national priorities.

“How we engage with that community and help support their growth and maturity and improvement, it’s extremely difficult and it’s extremely difficult while we remain a combative, federated sporting society,” he said.

“The fundamental governance principles that underpin so many of our sports in the federated model of sport is guaranteeing our future destruction.

“I am absolutely 100 per cent convinced that when we talk about fighting for relevance and maintaining engagement with the community that we need to serve, while the federated model spends all its time fighting for power, authority and recognition, we will miss what happens to us.

“Which will be oblivion.”

Perkins has a command of the audience like he commanded the pool. Picture: Matt King/Getty Images for the Australian Sports Commission

Similarly searing was his message for Olympic sports to take a reality check on their commercial scope.

“You think about all the membership fees that are paid out there, you think about all the access that’s paid by the community that’s involved. There is an enormous amount of money out there, and currently any sport that does not feel like it has the ability to be sustainable is obviously not governed well, and wasting the opportunity that’s presented by that base of activity and support.

“A bit of focus on that and actually looking at the right ways to leverage it, grow and get much better and more efficient use of that, versus spending an enormous amount of time and energy trying to come up with an AI solution or a data solution or a big commercial broadcasting opportunity.

“Let’s be honest, if you’re a sport that only exists once every four years when the Olympics is on, it’s probably not the area to be spending all of your time and energy.”

Just like he did in that famous Atlanta gold medal race, Perkins came out blazing when everyone least expected it and never let anybody catch him.

He may end up having just as big an impact in sporting boardrooms as he did in the pool.

Originally published as Swim icon and ASC chief executive Kieren Perkins gives Australian sport a spray of Atlanta 1996 proportions at Sport NXT