“Corporate sponsorship is really important for sport. And it is a time when we should be encouraging more corporate sponsorship and more government funding of sports, particularly Olympics sports, given that we have the Olympics in Australia in Brisbane in 10 years time,” he said. “As a rower and a chairman of Rowing Australia, our athletes really benefit from the support of the Australian Sports Commission (and) the support of Hancock Prospecting for example. “Often a lot of our Olympic rowers, similar to other Olympic sports, earn less than the minimum wage and so they are deeply grateful for the corporate support we get, and long should it continue.”