Former Test spinner Stuart MacGill is adamant sports and sports stars should not accept money to promote food brands like KFC and McDonald’s. “I don’t think you can have any of us advertising junk food to be honest,” he told Crikey.
MacGill, who retired from Test cricket in 2008 and has been making a career in commercial radio, is particularly concerned about Test cricketers’ endorsement of KFC, which is owned by the world’s largest fast-food company, Yum Brands.
For the last eight years, KFC has been a “gold partner” of Cricket Australia, spending up to $8 million a year on marketing and promotion linked to the sport. For this it gets TV ads, endorsements from the Australian team and Channel Nine commentators, a KFC Classic Catches competition and billboards at the games. KFC also gets naming rights to the Big Bash Twenty20 competition, televised by Fox Sports, and the title of Australian cricket’s official fast food restaurant. All up, it probably pays Cricket Australia between $1 million and $2 million a year.
“The problem for me is that KFC and Cricket Australia are hitting parents where they’re vulnerable,” said MacGill, who has two young children. “Parents are already under a lot of pressure from kids to buy this stuff and when you get the Australian cricket team endorsing it you just increase that pressure. It’s just wrong in so many ways.
“Cricket Australia and KFC would say they’re promoting a healthy lifestyle, but it’s absolute tripe.”
Just before he retired, MacGill refused Cricket Australia’s instruction to take part in a TV ad for KFC. “They had just accused me publicly of being unfit and told me I would have to lose weight if I wanted to play again. And I just hit the roof. I said: “you’re telling me I’m fat and you want me to do a KFC ad? Well, you’ve got to be crazy. I’m not going to do it.'”
Australia’s elite cricketers are required to do KFC ads for free as part of their contract with Cricket Australia, and MacGill had no right to refuse. But Cricket Australia did not force the issue. “They backed off pretty quickly,” he said. “They could see that the press might say something, and if the press didn’t I would.”
MacGill also has concerns about Milo’s junior cricket program, which has been running since 1993 and has introduced 5 million young Australians to the game: “I don’t think Milo would exist any more in Australia if it weren’t for Milo cricket. It’s been the greatest marketing exercise of all time.
“It’s not even called cricket, it’s ‘Milo in2cricket’. First day they turn up they get a bat, a bag, a hat and a shirt, which are all branded Milo, then they have to wear that every time they play. It’s just a brandathon. At least it makes my kids drink milk, but I don’t really want them drinking chocolate milk, and yet we’ve got Milo in our house.”
Rob de Castella, Australia’s former world-champion marathon runner, shares MacGill’s concerns: “I certainly have major problems with sports men and women and organisations taking money from fast food or junk food companies. I had a couple of offers to do ads for fast food companies when I was an athlete and I always turned them down because I had a moral objection.
“I’d say to anyone considering it: be very conscious of the effect your endorsement is going to have on the future lives of young Australians. And it’s not just the physical consequences of obesity, it’s the social and emotional consequences as well.
“Some sportspeople don’t care. Some are driven by agents, who want their fees and commissions, like any other business. But the individuals have got to recognise they’re putting their reputation alongside something that they may not really want to be associated with.”
MacGill said today’s top young cricketers don’t even think about what they’re being asked to do: “They just know they’ve got to turn up, do what they’re told and there’s going to be lots of media.”
KFC defends its use of cricket to sell its wares. “We’re proud of our sponsorship of cricket in Australia which, aside from promoting KFC, also funds a large number of community programs across the country to encourage children to play the game and be active,” a spokesperson said. “It is a positive initiative and we are delighted to be involved.”
It also defends its high-fat, high-energy meals, telling people to think of KFC as “something which should be enjoyed as an occasional treat and as part of a balanced diet that includes exercise”.
Something which you won’t find in a KFC ad. Or the fact its Tower Burger, advertised by fast bowler Doug Bollinger and cricket commentators Bill Lawry and Tony Greig this summer, has one-third of an adult’s daily energy needs, or almost a half if you add French fries.
According to NSW Cancer Council nutritionist Kathy Chapman: “KFC has no redeeming nutritional qualities, and is full of fat and kilojoules, and is the sort of food product that displaces more nutritious foods (like a home cooked dinner of chicken and vegetables). It’s the worst of all.”
57 thoughts on “Don’t sell KFC, MacGill tells his cricketing mates”
Vinnie
March 9, 2011 at 12:32 pmAnd you know what, you’re never going to win all your battles with kids. You just pick your fight. Let’s face it, i’m happy to take my boy to Maccas or let him have a slice of pizza once every couple of weeks. If he pesters me for it every night and i let him, who’s faield there??? Anywway i love my junk food, but off KFC now, and enjoy my weekend blowouts too!!! But i know i’ll suffer the next week as i’ll be at the gym at least 3 days to work off that burger. But it’s all worth it!!!!
SABA
March 9, 2011 at 1:26 pmOn this note i wish cricket would return to its roots. I’m sick of sitting down to watch the ashes or a one day game to be constantly hounded by hopeless kfc advertising. “It’s just not cricket without the Colonel”, well it was three years ago when 3 were the leading sponsor. I wish their were no player commitment to sponsors, the rights were stripped from channel nine and cricket was given back to the abc, which at the moment has much more alluring commentary on Grandstand radio than the hopeless out dated commentary provided by channel 9, not to mention their shameless cross promotion during the middle of a match. Good on Stuart MacGill for voicing his opinion.
Stiofan
March 9, 2011 at 1:31 pmKFC “which is owned by the world’s largest fast-food company, Yum Brands”. The significance of that fact is what, precisely? It’s just a little bit of dog-whistling designed to appeal to Crikey’s core audience: KFC is part of a nasty multinational – and we all know what *that* means, don’t we, kids?
MacGill “hit the roof” when asked to do a KFC ad? Well not quite: he hit the roof when asked to do a KFC ad at a time when he was apparently facing the threat of being dropped from the team. Out of curiosity: did he participate in any KFC promotions before that time?
“Rob de Castella, Australia’s former world-champion marathon runner, shares MacGill’s concerns …”.
Is that the same Rob de Castella who is an advertising spokesman for a vitamin supplement produced by a multinational drug company?
rhwombat
March 9, 2011 at 2:21 pmStiofan: way to miss the point.
Pushing high-fat foods to kids through aggressive advertising is a billion dollar industry in Australia, never mind the Land of the fat and the Home of the “Freedom fry. The fat epidemic is having more impact on Australian’s health than smoking (smokers die, type 2 diabetics linger longer and occupy more bed-days). As with cigarettes, we cannot regulate supply or ban the product, so the only way of attacking the aggressive promotion by totally amoral producers and marketers is to limit advertising and promotion to the obvious target groups. We know that doesn’t work well – look at the cigarette industry – but it’s all we have. The Paediatric Division of Royal Australasian College of Physicians has been trying to do something about junk food advertising for more than a decade, and has just been knocked back, yet again, at a federal level.
Flogging vitamins may just make expensive urine, but it’s a good deal more moral than sucking up to your corporate bosses by sneering at those who have the guts and the profile to publicly call out the fat pushers, and the Media-Industrial complex who expend so much effort in keeping sweet, rich advertising calories flowing.
Stiofan
March 9, 2011 at 2:39 pm@RHWOMBAT
Missing the point?
The story is about MacGill’s standing up to KFC, an arm of a multinational. I simply asked for some facts about him and KFC.
The story cites de Castella as an authority (BTW appeals to authority don’t actually prove anything) on standing up to a multinational. I simply asked how this squared with de Castella’s promotion of the vitamin products of a multinational.
You and I clearly share the same view on claims about the benefits of multivitamins. The difference is that I am as concerned with diversion of health expenditures into placebos as I am with the “obesity epidemic”.
Oh, and I don’t eat KFC!
rhwombat
March 9, 2011 at 2:59 pmStiofan: Maybe you don’t eat KFC, but you are curiously sensitive about multinationals. Perhaps you work for Coke – in which case you really shouldn’t be sniping at either MacGill or de Castella. And as far as health expenditure on placebos diverting health expenditure from the fat apocalypse – pull the other one, it’s got the 195kg man I admitted on Saturday attached to it.
Stiofan
March 9, 2011 at 3:08 pm@RHWOMBAT
You are clearly having problems with basic reasoning skills.
Talk about shoot the messenger! You’ve apparently decided (without any evidence) that I work for Coke. I won’t grace that delusion with a reply.
I’m not sensitive about multinationals, but I am sensitive about standards of journalism. This report included the fact that KFC is part of a multinational, but didn’t indicate how that was relevant to the story. As I pointed out, the only reasonable explanation is that it’s a piece of dog-whistling for Crikey’s target audience.
I then made the point that, if KFC’s multinational status was relevant, then de Castella’s relationship with a multinational would also be relevant.
Finally, you clearly have no idea of the amount of health dollars expended on placebos, “alternative medicine” and “complementary therapies”. It is part of a continuum with the obesity issue in which ignorance is a common factor.
Dave Slutzkin
March 9, 2011 at 3:24 pm@STIOFAN
“The story cites De Castella as an authority on standing up to a multinational.”
Nah. He says:
“I had a couple of offers to do ads for fast food companies when I was an athlete and I always turned them down because I had a moral objection.”
It cites him as one experienced in standing up to fast food companies. He doesn’t mention multi-nationals. I agree that Barry’s reference was a bit superfluous, but I also think you might have derailed the discussion a little in moving it on towards multi-national drug companies.
Sean
March 9, 2011 at 3:32 pmI’m not sure what all the straw man argumentation about multinationals is about. The existence of multinationals is an inevitability of life these days. I thought the question and argument was about using sportsmen to advertise junk food that’s bad for kids.
rhwombat
March 9, 2011 at 3:59 pmStiofan: Keep backing up. Your first contribution to this thread on an aspect of the fat-promotion industry was to (1) claim that Crikey is pandering to an anti-multinational audience (you inserted the “nasty multinational” meme) and (2) attempt to smear both MacGill and de Castella as hypocrites. That Yum foods is the largest pusher of junk food on the planet, and is a multinational that does the same thing, in the same way, for the same reasons in markets everywhere, is entirely relevant to this piece of extra-corporate journalism. I suspect that’s why you felt you had to make the crack about dog-whistling. I was obviously wrong about Coke, though I notice that you don’t deny it. Actually, I suspect that you are a tool of the Ltd News stable, hence your sensitivity about standards of journalism (/irony).
Finally, you clearly have no idea that we spend NO public health dollars on placebos, “alternative medicine” and “complimentary therapies” (we let people fund their own delusions, not the PBS). Useless treatments are not “part of the continuum” with “the obesity issue” (mustn’t say “fat” must we). We do spend more than $25 Billion (with a B) of our tax dollars each year on obesity-related disease, and it continues to rise. . It’s not ignorance which is the common factor, it’s an active scheme of subverting the message we at the bleeding edge of the health care system have been pushing for decades (fat kills), delivered by interdependent industries (including the commercial media) and their lobbyists intent on the fat bucks. That you attempt to obfuscate with false equivalence suggests to me that you are a corporate shill.