While gay people around the world were screaming “homophobia” because Matthew Mitcham had not received any endorsement-deal offers in 2008, it seems he did. AussieBum was rumored months ago to be planning on offering him a deal, and now SameSame says AussieBum did offer him a six-figure deal, but that Mitcham’s management ignored the offer (luckily for us, plenty of other guys have decided to work with AussieBum). An unnamed AussieBum spokesperson told the blog:
The bottom line is AussieBum was very supportive of Matt's trip to the Olympics. Sean [Ashby, AussieBum founder] sat him down and offered him a job. We want him to be a part of the company, to go out to the marketplace. We wanted to give him a career. It was a really fantastic opportunity as the face of the company, but they [his management] came back and said they could offer us only a few hours a week. We thought they misunderstood us, but from there we didn't hear back from them. To say that Matt Mitcham has had no offers is wrong.
While gay people around the world were screaming “homophobia” because Matthew Mitcham had not received any endorsement-deal offers in 2008, it seems he did. AussieBum was rumored months ago to be planning on offering him a deal, and now SameSame says AussieBum did offer him a six-figure deal, but that Mitcham’s management ignored the offer (luckily for us, plenty of other guys have decided to work with AussieBum). An unnamed AussieBum spokesperson told the blog:
The bottom line is AussieBum was very supportive of Matt's trip to the Olympics. Sean [Ashby, AussieBum founder] sat him down and offered him a job. We want him to be a part of the company, to go out to the marketplace. We wanted to give him a career. It was a really fantastic opportunity as the face of the company, but they [his management] came back and said they could offer us only a few hours a week. We thought they misunderstood us, but from there we didn't hear back from them. To say that Matt Mitcham has had no offers is wrong.
Interestingly, the article has since been removed from the SameSame site.
Whether the deal was right for Mitcham we certainly cannot say. But if this is true, it's clear that his management let the calls of "homophobia" ring across the Internet while they knew he was getting offers. That would be pretty crappy.
We at Outsports always questioned the conclusion that the reason for Mitcham's lack of endorsement deals "had" to be homophobia. With this revelation, by Mitcham's own recent revelations, and the fact that he has in fact received a deal with Telstar, it's becoming more and more clear that homophobia has had little effect on Mitcham's finances.
Hat tip to Aussielicious.
