ABC accuses Mitchell of misleading Tennis Australia state representative over Seven deal
Media buyer Harold Mitchell has been accused by the ABC of giving misleading information about Tennis Australia’s rights deal with the Seven Network in order to influence last year’s re-election of Geoff Pollard as the sporting organisation’s president.
The allegations came in last night’s Four Corners programme on ABC1 which examined events behind last year’s contested re-election of Pollard.
Mitchell is executive chairman of Australia’s biggest media buying operation Mitchell Communication Group and is also on the board of Tennis Australia.
The “State of Play” report on the ABC featured former and current tennis champions including Pat Cash, Peter McNamara, Liz Smylie and Lleyton Hewitt calling for an overhaul of the tennis body.
In the report, Dean Williams, president of Tennis West, which represents 190 tennis clubs in Western Australia, said he had nominated TA director Paul McNamee for the usually uncontested presidency which has been held by Pollard for more than 20 years.
According to Four Corners reporter Debbie Whitmont, Williams said he was approached by Mitchell, who told him that a vote for McNamee would have “serious implications” for TA’s broadcast deal with the Seven Network.
Williams: One of the board members, Mr. Harold Mitchell, came up and said he wanted to have a chat to me. And I said… I’d never met… I’d never met the man at all. So I introduced myself and he wanted to have a chat out in the corridor.
Whitmont: Harold Mitchell is Australia’s largest media buyer, and he negotiated Tennis Australia’s deal with Channel Seven. Mitchell told Williams a vote for McNamee would have serious implications.
Williams: Well, he said basically, you realise you’re putting the whole project into jeopardy with regards to the Channel 7 TV rights. Which is, they’ve just signed a new five year deal with Channel 7 and it’s a lot more money than the previous five years.
Whitmont: What did you think of that statement?
Williams: I just thought it was totally inappropriate, to put it mildly.
Whitmont: Nor was it true.
When Whitmont questioned TA chief executive Steve Wood over Mitchell’s claims, he said it had already sign off on the deal with Channel Seven “nearly two years ago now”.
Whitmont: So why would that have been said if it did happen? It was a threat, wasn’t it?
Wood: Well, I don’t know if that’s been said or not, but… and I can’t comment on whether that has gone on.
Pollard was re-elected president by nine votes to seven. A new round of voting for TA’s presidency is due next month.
Mitchell told Mumbrella that he had nothing to say about the programme. He said: “I don’t comment on speculation.”
Update:
In a section on the ABC website, there is a response from Mitchell that was not included during the broadcast of the ABC story.
In the statement Mitchell said:
On or about October 2009 I had a telephone conversation with the President of Tennis West, Mr Dean Williams in which he advised me that the Channel Seven Television Network would have no problem with Paul McNamee being President of Tennis Australia.
“This conversation took place in the run up to the election of President. I expressed surprise at this statement as I was aware that the Seven Network had found Paul McNamee difficult to deal with when he was involved in Tennis Australia.”
Note: This story originally said Dean Williams was a board member of Tennis Australia. This information came from Tennis West. In fact he is state representative.
Paul McNamee
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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I watched the whole program: that part was like 1/30th of the whole episode.
(disclosure: yep, I do work for a Harold company)
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I am a Level 3 Tennis Coach and past examiner and lecturer of TCA.
Tennis Australia coerced TCA (Coach Education) into shutting down by deregulating them in the market. There is a lot more to come out with the structure changing from a member business into a money hungry system where the money does not seem to get to grassroots or back to the states.
TA used to be in charge of Marketing and Structure. Now they want it all.
The whole system has imploded due to this dictatorship.
Great view on 4 Corners.
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