Kerry Packer Dead!

Merlin the Magician

Merlin the Magician

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:o SYDNEY, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Australia's richest man Kerry Packer, who controlled Publishing & Broadcasting Ltd, one of the country's major media groups, died in his sleep overnight aged 68, local media reported on Tuesday.

Australian media reported a statement from his family that said: "Mrs Kerry Packer and her children James and Gretel sadly report the passing last evening of her husband and their father Kerry. He died peacefully at home with his family at his bedside."

The statement did not mention the cause of death.

Billionaire Packer owned 30 percent of PBL, which operates Australia's Channel Nine television network and publishes a string of magazines, and had interests in Australian casinos.

In 1990 he had a heart attack while playing polo in Sydney and was clinically dead for eight minutes until emergency medical officers revived him by electric shock treatment.

"The good news is there's no devil. The bad news is there's no heaven. There's nothing," Packer said after the incident.

At 190 cm metres (6ft 2in) tall, Packer's bulky physique helped make him one of Australia's most recognisable public figures.

Health problems dogged him for many years, including heart surgery and a kidney transplant.

Packer was a major figure in the cricket world, particularly in the late 1970s when his World Series challenged the existing organisation of the sport.
 
No he didn't. The one day game existed long before his rebel tour in 1977.
Domestically, the Gillette Cup commenced in 1963 and the John Player League also started in the '60s. Internationally the first World Cup was in 1975.
 
:o And actually in 1977, he reinvented limited-overs cricket to make it more appealing to a mass television audience.


Players in the Packer-backed World Series Cricket swapped their traditional white clothing for multicolored uniforms disparagingly referred to by some as pajamas.

The format was attacked as gaudy by traditionalists, but helped revitalize the game. The series also controversially featured South African players who had for some years been subject to sporting sanctions because of their country's apartheid regime.
 
Originally posted by Merlin the Magician@Dec 27 2005, 11:07 AM
and he brought about one day cricket................... :o
Click to expand...
May be my ORIGINAL post should have read with an additional couple of WORDS attached....

AS WE KNOW THE GAME TODAY!!!
 
He did a lot for polo, being the patron of Ellerston and pouring millions into the team and the sport in general.
 
BBC have just claimed that " He changed the face of one day international cricket for ever " I would add " and regenerated flagging interest in the sport " I can't bring myself to do it about horses but KP.........RIP.
 
His best horse was undoubtedly the 1996 Golden Slipper winner and champion 2-y-o Merlene, a filly by Danehill.
 
What I really want to know is, what sort of family is it where a man dies peacefully in his sleep with 'his family at his bedside'? :brows: Look, for Chrissakes, you're all in the Will, now bugger off...
 
Mike Selvey tells a Kerry Packer story in his Guardian column today:

I heard a telling story of Packer. One day, he turned up at The Australian, the Sydney golf course that he happened to own, wanting a game, only to find the place swarming with golfers.

"Who are these people?" he demanded of the manager. "It's a corporate day," it was explained. "We make a lot of money from corporate days."

"How much money?" Packer asked.

"A quarter of a million bucks a year."

The magnate reached into his pocket and ripped off a cheque for that amount. "Now," he growled, "you go and tell the lot of them to piss off so I can get a game." You don't get to be that rich without a ruthless streak
 
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