Gina Rinehart spikes long-time volleyball sponsorship deal
Mining billionaire Gina Rinehart has quietly ended her $5m decade-long backing of Volleyball Australia on the eve of Adelaide’s beach volleyball world championships.
Billionaire Gina Rinehart and her Hancock Prospecting have ended a 12-year backing of Volleyball Australia just as the sport prepares to host the beach volleyball world championships.
Mrs Rinehart will be a notable absentee at the tournament, which begins in Adelaide on Friday, after recently bringing a quiet end to her decade-long stint as patron of the sport in Australia.
She and the iron ore mining giant had poured more than $5m into volleyball over about 12 years. It is understood there may have been a breakdown in the relationship between Australia’s richest person and the sport, though volleyball officials did not comment. Volleyball Australia is understood to have thanked Mrs Rinehart for her support in recent official communications or documents.
Mrs Rinehart and Hancock remain backers and sponsors of swimming, rowing and artistic swimming and also a sponsor of the Australian Olympic Committee until the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in February 2026.
Hancock remains featured as a sponsor on the AOC, Swimming Australia, Artistic Swimming and Rowing Australia websites, but not Volleyball Australia.
Mrs Rinehart would not comment via a spokesman when approached by The Australian about the termination of the volleyball deal or if she had any problems with the sport.
With an estimated $46.34bn fortune when The Australian published this year’s edition of The List – Australia’s Richest 250 in March, Mrs Rinehart is understood to have been giving about $10m annually to her favourite Olympic sports until now.
At least $5m, and potentially more, is likely going to swimming. Much of her funding is distributed via direct payments to athletes who receive bonuses for medal-winning performances at Olympics and world championships.
Rowing is likely to receive another $2m-3m annually, with Hancock also signing up as a naming rights sponsor of the national training centre in Penrith.
Volleyball had been receiving about $500,000 per year, and Artistic Swimming likely a slightly lesser amount. The AOC sponsorship runs until that organisation signs over its commercial rights to Brisbane 2032 Olympics officials at the beginning of 2027.
Many other sports, including hockey, have approached or negotiated with Mrs Rinehart for sponsorship deals or patronage arrangements, though she has until now stuck to backing her four favourite sports.
Volleyball Australia’s 2025 financial report shows it made a $704,662 surplus from almost $12m revenue. It has about $1.9m cash in the bank, but like most Olympic sports relies on government funding, grants and a small amount of key sponsorship deals.
It received about $6m in grants as well as another $2.8m in contributions for athletes, including money flowing from the Australian Sports Commission for high-performance funding and other aspects.
Corporate backers include Indian car brand Mahindra and Scape Australia, the fast-growing student property accommodation group headed by Volleyball Australia president Craig Carracher who is also on the AOC board.
Mr Carracher is also a former executive at the Packer family’s Consolidated Press Holdings investment business and key backer of Mrs Rinehart’s sporting pursuits, including backing her during Hancock’s stoush with Netball Australia in 2022 when it withdrew a mooted $15m sponsorship deal after player backlash.
Mr Carracher, whose son Izac has emerged as an Olympic representative in beach volleyball, last year revealed plans to establish a $20m investment fund to keep his sport afloat. He said it would be a legacy fund similar to a philanthropic charitable foundation that will eventually generate more than $1m annually for a cash-strapped sport constantly battling for government funding and corporate backing – as are many Olympic sports.
Mr Carracher has previously pointed out that volleyball receives roughly the amount in high-performance funding as it did more than a decade ago, despite a string of strong global results including beach volleyball pair Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho del Solar winning silver at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
It had also had to battle for government funding for the upcoming world championships, which will be attended by AOC and Brisbane 2032 officials.
Mrs Rinehart has previously been a regular attendee at volleyball tournaments, including the Paris Olympics in 2024 where the beach volleyball was held in the shadows the Eiffel Tower.
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