As the media spotlight on Sports Direct grew more intense, its owner, Mike Ashley, played the pantomime villain. His brand targeted bargain sportswear at the lower end of the consumer market. He was notoriously media-averse. As the owner of Newcastle United Football Club, he had recently been embroiled in controversy over the decision to rename its stadium after his company. Plans were abandoned after considerable pressure from supporters, horrified at the cynical commercialism. Now conditions at his Shirebrook distribution centre were under scrutiny. Undercover reporters characterised it as the ‘gulag’ (Goodley and Ashby, 2015). Security and surveillance of workers included: finger-print scans to enter the building and searches by security personnel; public address systems implored harried workers to speed up and work faster; ‘crimes’ against the company included excessive toilet breaks and were punishable by a ‘six strikes and you’re out’ system; agency workers employed on zero-hour contracts; compulsory security searches forcing workers to remain behind at the end of a shift, unpaid, for up to 15 minutes; minimum wage for hard, physical labour in often oppressive conditions; pressure to perform under fear of dismissal; ‘estimated finishing times’ for tasks echoing the scientific management of industrial labour; the routine use of performance management (Goodley and Ashby, 2015; Hutchison, 2016).

After the initial furore came the legal battle. The trade union Unite challenged employment practices at Sports Direct, particularly the insistence on compulsory staff searches before employees could leave. This unpaid extension to the working day pulled employees below the minimum wage, in contravention of government legislation, and indicated an alarming lack of trust between employer and employee. Ashley fulfilled his role as the villain of the piece and demanded MPs visit him rather than appear before a House of Commons Select Committee, as summoned. As he attacked press and politicians for unfair publicity, he acknowledged some problems within his organisation but insisted intransigent unions, not his own management, were at fault. Unite eventually forced Sports Direct to reimburse workers affected by security measures.

Ashley reorganised his senior management team and acknowledged failures at management level. His belligerence in the face of government scrutiny and union pressure continued until a report by the House of Commons Business Select Committee reported ‘Victorian’ working conditions at Sports Direct (Armstrong, 2016a) which raised questions from shareholders as well as parliament.