As well as being a figure of the Adelaide establishment, Kelley also owns the Adelaide 76ers NBL franchise, hence his appearance on the podcast. Tredrea introduces his special guest as “a recognised leader in private equity, real estate investing, fund management and business strategy”.
That’s not his CV, Tredders. That’s the self-endorsed skills of an unemployed executive on LinkedIn!
To be fair, one could not expect the former Port Adelaide forward to shape-shift into David Speers. Still, Kelley’s exit from Vicinity was the elephant in room, completely avoided across 32 painful minutes.
Instead, Kelley was tee’d up with painful podcast fodder from Tredders, such as: “Is there anything other than sports you’re looking at? Because it sounds like you don’t mind a bit of hard work and you don’t mind getting out early and you love turning businesses around whether its sport or anything else.”
Nonetheless, “Kelley unplugged” does go over ground that a more self-conscious business figure would find hairy. Like when Kelley grapples with the recent poor performances of the 76ers, the owner notes “your fans need to see commitment, hunger” and “they need to see a culture that’s built around a team and a system that people respect and work towards”.
It’s the type of guff sports owners have to say out loud to convince themselves about the merits of running a losing team. The 76ers finished eighth out of 10 teams in the NBL this year.
One of the reports commissioned into Kelley’s tenure at Vicinity was dubbed the “360 review”, which Lenaghan would later report “found a high degree of workplace dysfunction in senior ranks stemming from Mr Kelley’s behaviour”.
Later, Kelley was asked about women’s sport. “It’s certainly something that I think also ethically is really important for society,” comes the riff. “To see men and women basically achieve in tandem, their ambitions, their dreams, And to have equal opportunity.”
Cosplaying as the MLK of women’s sport would surely be news to Maria Festa, Vicinity’s former chief of corporate affairs.
“We are similar,” Kelley was found to have told Festa, “We are both attractive people. And we have had to deal with that our whole lives”.
Or when Kelley, according to the investigation, remarked to her in July last year, “I was at a lunch with [a leading corporate figure]. You and her have similar issues. You are both attractive women and have had to deal with that throughout your careers.”
It’s the low-grade, pervasive dialogue that senior blokes once called banter. The perfect tonic to a good podcast.