Swimming Australia has announced its Memorandum of Understanding with the Australian Swimmers’ Association (ASA) aimed at both improving athletes’ financial stability as well as growing the sport of swimming.
As part of the agreement, aquatic athletes will receive a share of Swimming Australia’s commercial revenue from sponsorship, broadcast rights and licensing. This is the first agreement of its kind for Australia’s aquatic stars.
Swimming Australia President Dr. Michelle Gallen said, “I’m really excited to announce this agreement because it represents a really big step forward in collaboration between the organization and the swimmers themselves who share in this common interest in seeing the sport grow and leveraging the green and gold pathway, particularly toward the 2032 Olympics and Paralympics in Brisbane.
“This MOU represents a significant step for our sport and has laid a solid foundation for all parties who share a common interest and desire to see the sport thrive both now and in the future.
“It recognises the potential growth for the sport as a whole and builds in mechanisms for all parties to benefit from that, in particular our athletes.
“The revenue sharing model will ensure our swimmers are looked after and that a stronger sport benefits everyone.
“We see this as a genuine partnership to usher in a new era for our sport as we collectively strive to maximise the green and gold runway to Victoria 2026 and Brisbane 2032,” she said.
Bronte Campbell, Olympic gold medalist and President of the ASA said of the agreement, “This is really a historic moment in our sport. It’s the first time we’ve had this sort of agreement and as we’re seeing across sports in this nation and worldwide, athletes having a voice is important for the success of the sport.
“The reason we wanted this agreement is to ensure that the athlete’s voice gets included and elevated and this Memorandum of Understanding means that we have an ongoing relationship, we can work together to build the sport which is how we create a strong future for everyone.”
Campbell continued, “In order to swim professionally and have a long career, finances play a big part of that. So to be able to tie the success of the sport to the swimmers sharing in that is a really important step forward.”
Details regarding the deal have not yet been released so we don’t know the portion of revenue, timing details or level of athlete included in the agreement.
The future of past potential athlete revenue streams of the International Swimming League (ISL), as well as the defunct Australian Swimming League (ASL) are rendered unknown at this time. Thus, any additional monetary inflow for Aussie swimmers can be seen as a plus, added to the funding elite-level athletes already receive from the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) and other sources.
Is there any revenue to share? SA basically only still exists because Gina Rinehart likes swimming and keeps the doors open.
I had the same thought. Probably feels like a moral victory and maybe a PR victory, but Swimming Australia has operated in a deficit for each of the last two years.
The post states “As part of the agreement, aquatic athletes will receive a share of Swimming Australia’s commercial revenue from sponsorship, broadcast rights and licensing.”
A share of revenue is not related to profit/loss (deficit). If the swimmers are truly getting a fair share of gross revenue, before expenses, this deal works. What’s missing in the article is the percentage of gross revenue. For example, the NBA, NHL, MLB and NFL player’s unions negotiated about 50% of gross revenue for players, irrespective of net profit of the the franchises.
No revenue is probably why they agreed.
They have a lot of revenue (23 million/year), but just not a lot of profits.
The percentage claim excludes most of the organisation’s 25 million annual revenue, (eg, it excludes the approx $20 mil of grants from Sport Australia.) It is basically for an unknown — but obviously token — share of sponsorship and broadcast rights whose combined revenue is under $5 mill.
Despite the lack of transparency, it was hailed by SA as a significant step forward for swimmers: that’s corporate-speak for an embarrassingly tiny percentage of not much. A bit like someone taking your Picasso and expecting you to be grateful for getting the frame back.
If it serves the same purpose as previous agreements with SA, it might buy one or two junior posts within SA or AOC for swimmers’ reps/ advocates.