Sportsbet in the spotlight over controversial commercial

Australian sports betting operator Sportsbet has caused a furore over a new 90-second commercial broadcast on Australian TV featuring disgraced Jamaican-born Canadian sprinter, Ben Johnson.

Johnson was stripped of the Olympic Gold medal he won at the Seoul 1988 Olympic Games when he tested positive for a banned performance-enhancing steroid test and disqualified.

The tongue-in-cheek commercial features Johnson promoting Sportsbet’s recently launched Android sports betting app, saying: “It tested positive for speed and power, again and again,” as he refers to the app as “juiced up”.

Johnson introduces himself as the “88 Games 100m Olympic Gold medalist,” while text runs across the ad reading “for 48 hours” and a voice over saying: “When it comes to performance enhancement, Ben really knows his stuff.”

The ad, running the tagline “Puts the roid into Android,” has raised the ire of Government officials and the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) who has reportedly lodged an official complaint with the “relevant authority”.

“This advert makes light of the use of performance enhancing drugs in sport and sends the completely wrong message that the use of drugs in sport is normal,” ASADA said in a media statement, Monday.

“This advertising campaign belittles the achievements of clean athletes and denigrates those who work to protect clean sport across the world.”

Sportsbet is unabashed, responding with: “Sportsbet have no plans to pull the adverts from air – we’ve received overwhelmingly positive support from the public and they see it for what it is, a tongue-in-cheek joke.”

In a later blog post, Sportsbet said: ”We thought it was pretty funny – but sections of the media lost their absolute minds”.