Tennis Australia attracts more controversy

If you are reading this, you already know about Tennis Australia’s decision to strictly enforce their Ticketing Terms & Conditions at the Australian Open by confiscating “Where is Peng Shuai?” T shirts from a couple of attendees and eject them from the venue.

So I will spare you the background and get straight to the point.

What was Tennis Australia thinking? Do they seriously consider this political activity?

Tennis Australia should have seen this issue coming from a mile away. As highly-experienced event organisers, surely they run internal workshops in the months leading up to the Australian Open to plot all the possible risks on their radar, then (a) minimise the likelihood of them occurring and (b) run exercises to ensure that, if they do occur, TA’s response is professional and effective.

Maybe the decision to confiscate the shirts and eject the people was made by an inexperienced TA staff member, whose bad call didn’t get overturned by a more senior staff member, who failed to report it up the chain for further review.

Or maybe Tennis Australia has terrible judgement, zero ability to read the room and they have overreacted in a most disconcerting way.

I know a bit about Terms & Conditions for sporting tickets, partially because I worked at an Olympics and a Rugby World Cup, but mainly because I have had 16 years of “education by osmosis” after marrying a sports ticketing guru.

I totally understand why ticketing T&Cs include clauses prohibiting commercial or political activity at a sporting event. And I support the right of sports to enforce those T&Cs if the circumstances warrant.

For example, no one wants guerrilla or ambush marketers running the gauntlet to divert fans’ attention away from the game and from the legitimate sponsors who invest millions of dollars into the sport. It’s bad for the game, the players and the organisers.

Nor do fans want their favourite sporting match disrupted by protestors, activists or political parties, particularly about issues that have zero or tenuous relevance to the event.

So if Extinction Rebellion, or Australians Against Immigration or a bunch of Clive Palmer acolytes decide to hijack my favourite sporting event, I would loudly support a decision to have them tossed out.

But I am really struggling to understand how Tennis Australia thinks it’s the right move to ask a woman to remove the shirt off her back, in public, because she dared to ask a highly legitimate question about a current professional player whose whereabouts and welfare are uncertain.

Does free speech seriously breach Tennis Australia’s terms and conditions?

At the time of writing, I’m yet to get to the bottom of exactly what happened.

Were these people legitimate fans, professional protestors or social media content creators looking for their next viral hit?

Was it a publicity stunt driven by a Senate candidate who appears to be closely involved with the people?

I will be watching this issue closely in coming days to learn more. Sadly Tennis Australia’s official response to the media is nowhere to be found on their website or social channels (one of my pet hates).

In the absence of information, people will always assume the worst. Right now I am in the dark and I assume Tennis Australia thinks it’s OK to eject tennis fans from the Australian Open for daring to speak freely about a legitimate tennis issue.