While footy flourishes, Olympic sports are treated like paupers

The big footy codes have access to billions in broadcast cash but they still beat out battling Olympic sports to taxpayer money.

Glenn Arboit, manager of the brand new stadium that is set to open in Townsville.

Football officials don’t have to kick down doors to political figures to lobby for millions in funding. In one case the Adelaide Crows had two years of dialogue with former Defence Minister and Crows ambassador Chris Pyne so when fresh government money tallying $115 million was being made to professional sporting clubs, the Crows were one of the first in line.

That pool of cash, quite separate from the sports rorts of $100m community infrastructure funds that cost sports minister Bridget McKenzie her job, underscores how the Crows had spent a good two years laying the groundwork for funding no matter who won the federal election last year. Now they are in the design stage for the two storey training centre that will house the Crows’ offices, a public swimming pool and upgraded oval. It’s been costed at $65m — although it is still unclear where the rest of the budget will come from.

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Up north the sparkling new 25,000-seat Townsville Stadium will open the NRL season next month with the blockbuster game between the North Queensland Cowboys and Brisbane Broncos. It was built with $100m of federal government money following a meeting between NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg and the then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. By all accounts Turnbull didn’t need much lobbying to match what Bill Shorten had been publicly promising — even amid accusations of pork barrelling for the marginal seat of Herbert.

The yawning gap between taxpayer support for professional codes — which enjoy lucrative broadcasting and sponsorship deals — and the cash-strapped athletes of minor sports trying to get to the Olympic Games is vast.

The big codes have access to government through COMPPS, the Coalition of Major Professional and Participation Sports representing tennis, soccer, cricket, rugby union, netball, rugby league and AFL.

Between them, they have 8.95 million participants and 16,000 clubs, but they aren’t lobbying Canberra for athletes, they want to talk about deregulating broadcast rights. And attempts to strip the big codes of sports grants from the Australian Sports Commission is fiercely resisted, not because they need the money, they want the power and relevance of a continuing connection to ministers.

Other sports have not had the influence, nor the connections to get into the very heart of government, although the AOC has been lobbying hard for the government to unleash another $60m to get Australia back to a semblance of competitiveness on the world stage.

All the while, the professional codes urge for more money, for their fans and for the female side of their games. Around $30m in taxpayer money was recently announced to support the construction of a new Brisbane AFLW facility in Queensland and redevelopment of Carlton’s AFLW facilities at Ikon Park in Melbourne.

Then there’s the four-year $12m handout to Tennis Australia to boost women playing tennis and $7.7 million over two years to promote and prepare for the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup.

Even in the controversial local level of funding there is an inherent bias towards clubs associated with football and other professional sports such as tennis.

Apart from being a political plaything to win over votes before the federal election, grants of half a million were given to the Bardon Latrobe football club, Brothers football club, Caboolture Sports Club Ltd, East Shepparton Bowls, Mackay hockey, Redcliffe district rugby league and South Australian cricket.

It is a despairing situation for the 30-plus Olympic sports which fight over the pot of around $131m a year to train, prepare, and develop the next generation of sports stars. The imbalance between the big professional codes and Olympic sports relying on government money, is particularly striking.

Notwithstanding the shocking spending priorities of the AIS on high salaries, travel, advertising, consultants and recruitment companies, sport funding has flatlined for eight years.

Even the big medal-winning sports that get the lion’s share of the money are in financial strife as today’s story about swimming so starkly illustrates.

Australian Sports Commission chairman John Wylie headed the board in 2012 ostensibly to be able to attract more money for struggling sports to inspire young people to be active. But even with his gold-plated social, business and political connections, sports funding has declined in real terms.

Peter Conde, as head of the AIS on $426,000 a year, hasn’t pulled in any significant new sponsors for the sports, although there are preparations to boost a sports foundation to encourage philanthropic donations.

The tepid Move It Aus advertising campaign cost around $8m. It was headed by the AIS’s chief marketing officer Louise Eyres, who was on $400,000 a year and has since departed the role, and a whole floor was renovated for her staff. The program was partly about trying to convince federal cabinet of the connection between lowering obesity and sport and push sport up the government’s priorities lists. Wylie didn’t like it, but was overruled by the board of the Australian Sports Commission. Now it stands as yet another tranche of lost opportunity and money.

Sports officials are despondent about the future but most have not yet given up the fight. They urge the powerbrokers to broaden Australia’s sporting base and give a range of activities to appeal to the nation’s youth rather than concentrating on the sports that people simply prefer to watch.