Seven fails in athletes monopoly
Glenda Korporaal, Wayne Smith and Ben English in Beijing | August 23, 2008 12:00am
THE Seven Network sent legal letters to both the AOC and the IOC in a failed bid to prevent Australian athletes appearing on Nine's 60 Minutes tomorrow night.
Seven, the official broadcaster of the 2008 Olympics which has lost the rights to the 2012 Olympics to Nine and Foxtel, was told by both organisations they did not control what Olympic athletes did outside official Olympic venues.
AOC president John Coates said yesterday Seven executive chairman Kerry Stokes "was under the misapprehension" that his broadcast contract with the IOC gave him the rights over athletes outside of venues.
"He understands that this is not the case," Coates said.
But Coates said later Stokes was "entitled to try, I suppose.
"In the end he knows he doesn't have a right to our team (outside the venues).
"He knows it's not something we would ever sell."
Olympic sources said yesterday that the IOC also made it very clear it had no jurisdiction over what athletes did outside the Games' competition venues and the Olympic village.
"It's an outside the fence issue," one source said.
It's believed that when the AOC and the IOC declined to intervene, Stokes pulled out his cheque book.
Stokes, who has been in Beijing for the duration of the Games, is reported to have signed three-time gold medallist, swimmer Stephanie Rice, to Seven for a rumoured $700,000 deal that also prevented her and other medal-winning athletes appearing on 60 Minutes.
Stokes also is understood to have brought out the cheque book to ensure Australia's rowing gold medallists, Duncan Free and Drew Ginn, the men's pairs champions, and double scull winners Scott Brennan and David Crawshaw didn't make an appearance on 60 Minutes. Reportedly they shared about $30,000.
Other athletes, including triathlon champion Emma Snowsill and 100m hurdles silver-medallist Sally McLellan, were signed up.
Coates said he did not know the exact details of financial offers made by Seven to Australian athletes.
But he said Olympic athletes should not be handcuffed and they were "entitled to optimise their opportunities" and strike their own financial arrangements.
"This would appear to be an ideal opportunity for that. That is their right," Coates said.
He warned athletes against signing short-term deals with one media organisation which could rebound against them later in their career.
"Athletes have to understand the risks of burning their bridges and offending one media organisation for a short-term gain," Coates said.
Among those medallists who did take part in the 60 Minutes programme, recorded on Thursday, were Libby Trickett, Leisel Jones, Eamon Sullivan and Cate Campbell, but McLellan and Snowsill were conspicuous absentees.
The background to the horse trading is that Stokes and his son, Ryan, are both reported to be very disappointed at losing the rights to the next Olympics to Nine and Foxtel, which offered more than $20 million more than Seven's bid.
All this appears to be the preamble to what is shaping as the main contest, a fight between Seven and Nine for the TV rights to swimming from next year.
Seven is also poised to make a massive bid for the domestic television rights to the national swimming titles as part of a spoiler, get-square campaign in retaliation for what it regards as Nine's ambushing of Australian Olympic medal stars in Beijing.
Swimming Australia president David Urquhart said yesterday no negotiations had been entered into, with all parties agreeing to wait until after the Olympics.
"We haven't signed anything yet but we are negotiating with Channel Nine, or more correctly, Sports Marketing and Management will be negotiating on our behalf," Urquhart said.
Meanwhile, Channel 7 was fuming atr Coates' comments that Kerry Stokes did not properly understand the rules applying to athlete access.
"We are fully aware of our rights and those of non-rights holders,'' Seven said in a terse statement last night.
"We have been covering Olympic games since 1956. We remain surprised - if not bemused- by the Australian Olympic team's facilitation of access to athletes to a non-rights holder.''
