True Lies: Groupies

Getting hot and heavy

Paul Sweeney decries the valorization of sportspeople by business people.

“On many occasions, I’ve attended senior management conferences featuring rallying keynotes from famous ex-athletes or retired football managers, as if sharing their experiences from contexts that had little in common with the work lives of their audience would somehow catalyse a change for the better in the collective brain.”

I have sat through so many of these keynotes but it got upfront and personal when I found myself in a room with a bunch of senior partners at prestigious professional services firm PKED and the former captain of an Australian sports team. The Head of Sales had got this person in under the guise of “leadership coaching”. However the true nature of the transaction became clear as I watched unobserved.

This group of middle-aged men were like groupies around a rockstar. This wasn’t about skills transfer. It was about living out a fantasy of access. Most senior businesspeople are boring. They might try to persuade you otherwise but they are moderately intelligent, hardworking, and conformist. That’s how they got to where they are. And they are well paid. But what they aren’t is adored. No one shouts their name with joy*. No one comes up to them for a selfie.

Sportspeople are different. Sportspeople are the vessels into which we pour our collective wishes and dreams. Which is why we turn on them so savagely when we feel that they have let us down. And businesspeople want some of that borrowed glamour. And they have the money to buy it. Or at least to buy access to it.

The career of a businessman can easily go into senility. The career of most sportspeople is over by their mid-30s. So they need whatever money they can get. They shift from selling their bodies (and the damage that physical endeavour can do to a body) to selling their stories as the pornography of inspiration. A little bit of glamour to rub off.

This particular sportsperson shared some nostrums about teamwork and commitment. But the reason that he was paid money to be there was to give a little bit of his glamour to the wealthy but dull people around him.

And as long as there are people wanting to sell their stories and people with the money and desire to buy them, this trade will continue.