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Off the Wall
Written by: Jeff WallMar 18, 2009 9:29am
If you watched the Bulldogs v Sea Eagles match on Saturday night, you will have noted that the charity, “Camp Quality”, figured prominently as a Bulldogs sponsor. Don’t think for one minute that this most worthy of charitable causes – helping children and young people who suffer from cancer, and their families – is using it’s hard earned funds to sponsor the Bulldogs. The contrary is the case. Because the Bulldogs have been having difficulty securing a major sponsor – and they are not alone in that regard – the club decided to “adopt” Camp Quality as a sponsor, at no cost to the charity itself. As a result, Camp Quality is gaining massive free publicity for its worthy cause at no expense. On a day in which there is yet another story about a player allegedly behaving badly, it is timely to point out not only how much the Bulldogs are doing to rebuild the good name of the club, but just how harmful bad publicity arising from bad player behaviour is for the whole game. The Bulldogs, to their credit, are downplaying, but not denying, that the horrendous publicity arising from the Sea Eagles season launch has had a most unfortunate consequence for an entirely innocent party – the Bulldogs. Apparently the Bulldogs had been close to concluding a major sponsorship – possibly worth a seven figure sum – when the fallout from the Sea Eagles launch started dominating the headlines. The potential sponsor last week quietly dropped out. So it is back to the drawing boards for the new management at the Bulldogs, in an environment that is getting tougher by the day when it comes to securing corporate sponsorship. Unfair to the Bulldogs, yes, but that is the reality of the world today. I have commented before that the extent of the damage bad publicity causes is underestimated. Just as the extent of the fallout from the economic decline is underestimated – and most certainly not confined to our code. Last week we read about the extent of the financial problems facing the Eels because of multi-million dollar losses incurred by the leagues club, today it is the Port Power AFL team on the financial rack, desperately seeking a bailout from the AFL. The opening round of the NRL premiership could hardly have been better – good crowds, great games, and few refereeing dramas, and a video referee system whose obituary is now being written by some commentators! But under the surface the financial challenges for the game grow. And that is why surely every coach, and every CEO, must be telling their players just how much damage they do the game when they behave badly – and how much damage they ultimately do themselves and their fellow players. And if they have any doubt about it they should tell them to ring the Bulldogs Club - an innocent victim of one of the worst debacles in the games recent history!
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