By Paul Hayes
SYDNEY, NSW: Jaycar Electronics managing director, Gary Johnston, is standing firm behind his decision to take out a full page ad in the Daily Telegraph urging NRL chief David Gallop to reverse his punishment of the Melbourne Storm.
In last week’s stinging attack, Johnston said he was ‘astonished’ to hear that Gallop expected the Storm to play out the rest of the season for no premiership points.
Speaking to Current.com.au, Johnston said that beyond damaging the Storm and its sponsors, one of which is retailer Harvey Norman, Gallop’s decision will potentially hurt the sponsors of other teams.
“If you are a sponsor of a rugby league team in the NRL, like in the case of the Brisbane Broncos there is the retailer WOW, and your team is playing the Melbourne Storm, it is very unlikely that Channel Nine would run that game on Friday night because they could never be certain that the Storm just wouldn’t run dead and the game would be a dud.
“That would prejudice your opportunity to promote your company on the back of your team because the game would possibly be relegated to a relatively minor cable television timeslot.
“As the sponsor of the club playing against the Storm you also go down the gurgler with them.”
Jaycar Electronics is a major sponsor of the Canterbury Bulldogs, but despite his company’s involvement in sponsoring an NRL team, Johnston maintains his decision to take out the costly full page ad was not to do with commercial interests.
“As an individual who is basically an unknown as far as the public domain is concerned, I have no choice but to take an ad out in the paper, and pay for it, to get publicity.
“It doesn’t make the company any more money because I didn’t even print the logo of the company.
“I put that ad in as a sports lover, not as the managing director of Jaycar Electronics.”