Looking a gift horse in the mouth and getting bitten

It’s well and truly time for Netball Australia, and in particular the players, to have a much-needed reality check. Commercially, netball is a minority spectator sport. It’s a sport that many people love to play, but very few want to watch. A quick check of TV ratings and spectator numbers would confirm this.

Gina Rinehart’s sponsorship was much more of a gift than a sponsorship. She was being kind to a sport that could never give her prospecting company back anything of measurable commercial value. She was simply being generous. She was trying to help save NA from further financial embarrassment after it was found that the organisation was seriously in debt. NA needed a benefactor because it knew that no normal sponsor would waste real money sponsoring something that couldn’t possibly give any tangible return on the investment.

Now, because NA is unable to rein in a handful of petulant players, it has put the future of national netball in jeopardy. It really is time for NA to tell these players to play the game or become full-time protesters; they can’t be both.

Terry Griffin, Belair, SA

Gemma Tognini makes a sensible point (“Learning the rules of green hypocrisy, our national sport”, 22-23/10). If athletes feel strongly on certain matters then they are free to follow their convictions and stand aside. But the virtue signalling we have seen from Netball Australia players is a different beast. It requires the herd to follow suit. It requires the message to be loud and clear and the message is to fall in line with the collective. The pressure on other players who are grateful of the financial windfall and just want to play the game becomes enormous as dissent will expose them as lacking righteousness. Let’s hope athletes will take heed of this mess and halt the endless spiral into the vacuous pit of wokeness.

Lynda Morrison, Bicton, WA

Gemma Tognini is quick to criticise our sports leaders for calling out fossil fuel companies that sponsor sporting events. Our sporting athletes are at the coalface when it comes to being impacted by the effects of climate change. During the Black Summer bushfires, several important sporting events had to be cancelled or postponed. In recent years the Australian Open has had to introduce an extreme-heat policy and local sporting clubs in eastern Australia are now facing rising insurance costs and staggering repair bills due to flooding. For many years, tobacco companies played a major role in Australian sports sponsorship, later to be banned for ethical and health reasons. Fossil fuel sponsors have had their day in the sun. Sponsorship is meaningless if we don’t give our climate a sporting chance.

Anne O’Hara, Wanniassa, ACT

Gemma Tognini, you are spot on. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and if the “stars” do not like their sponsors then they can take their “bats and balls” and go home. This would satisfy their consciences and give someone else a go. Perfect.

Peter Claughton, Farrer, ACT

How privileged I am to live in a country where sport is encouraged at all levels and sponsorship of elite players is readily available.

It’s disappointing, then, to see the sanctimonious attitudes displayed by a few prominent sporting elites with regards to some sponsors’ tenuous links.

Few things in life are without compromise; and those with strong convictions can always stand down.

Julie Branch, Brentwood, WA

Congratulations to the Diamonds for taking the tough stance of standing up for their values and rejecting sponsorship from organisations that do not align with their principles. As former Diamonds captain Sharni Norder stated: “We have put too much into our sport to give social licence to a company whose profit-at-all-cost attitude puts our future in danger. Be better.” We can only learn from their hard decision and be better ourselves by not allowing fossil fuel companies to buy social licences/acceptance that hides their destruction of the planet.

Ching Ang, Magill, SA

Sponsorship of the Australian national netball team looks like an ideal opportunity for Climate 200. Perhaps Peter FitzSimons could broker a financial deal with Simon Holmes a Court. It would seem an ideal fit for both of these climate change warriors.

Riley Brown, Bondi Beach, NSW