Eddie McGuire

Eddie McGuire (born 1964) is an Australian journalist, sports broadcaster, TV game show host, businessman, president of the Collingwood Football Club, and one of the busiest people in Melbourne, where his presence in media, sport, and business is so ubiquitous he is nicknamed "Eddie Everywhere".

Born in Melbourne and growing up in the notably working-class outer suburb of Broadmeadows, McGuire's first job in the media was as a footballtatistician and cricket reporter for the Herald (1978-82). Later he became a cadet sports reporter for Channel 10, and then transferred in 1994 to Kerry Packer's Nine network, where he became the host of a sports variety program, The Footy Show[?], acting as ringmaster as a variety of current and former football players used the announcement of team lists for the Australian Football League on a Thursday night as a pretext for a variety of antics. Sneered at by many TV reviewers, the show was a massive hit with viewers.

McGuire's role at Nine expanded when he became the host of the Australian edition of Who Wants to be a Millionaire[?], another hit that expanded his profile to the rest of Australia.

McGuire served as a football radio caller at Triple M[?], a station that had previously concentrated on wall-to-wall rock music, and wrote a football column for the Herald-Sun daily tabloid, as well as becoming involved in a variety of sports and media-related business ventures.

His activities continued to spread in the mid-1990s when he took on the presidency of Collingwood, a club that was then in financial and on-field difficulties. Muted criticism that McGuire was involved in too many activities, thus presenting many conflicts of interest and was simply spread too thin, began being made public at this point. Despite this, McGuire was elected by the vote of the members, and the club has become financially stable and its on-field performance has improved markedly (just missing out on the 2002 premiership).

Eddie's activities spread still further when he became a prominent campaigner for Australian republicanism (the replacement of the British monarch as Australia's symbolic head of state), elected as a delegate to represent Victoria at the 1998 constitutional convention that led to the defeated 1999 referendum.

When the Nine network took over the rights to broadcast some AFL games in 2002, McGuire became host of the Friday night TV coverage. This became controversial when fellow broadcaster Tim Lane[?], long-time ABC chief radio caller, was also hired by Nine but with a proviso in his contract that he would not have to call Collingwood games with McGuire (as Lane believed that McGuire, as the club president, would be seen as less than objective doing so and didn't want to be associated with it). McGuire insisted that he call all Friday night games, and Lane was sacked (at considerable cost to Nine, as they had to pay out his contract).

McGuire's business activities include TipStar, a failed commercial "footy tipping" game, and more lucratively a production company (McGuire Media, founded 1997) which actually provides the television footage of all AFL football matches to the three TV networks broadcasting the games. His business activities are conducted in partnership with his brother Frank, a former journalist.

With his huge public profile and demonstrated interest in political issues, it has often been rumoured that McGuire has considered becoming involved in representative politics, though he has denied it.

He is married and has one son.