SYDNEY, July 6 — Just a week after the government announced details of its bill to introduce greater restrictions on sports betting advertisements, Foxtel and Nine Entertainment are about to make history, signing a reportedly combined circa $5.3-plus billion deal to broadcast the NRL. It begs the question: Does this anti-gaming advertising legislative package have much effect on the economics of the media companies that feed off gambling advertising?
For broadcast networks, marquee sports have become their programming lifeblood and gambling advertising is a meaningful contributor to that revenue – although the networks generally don’t call out how much. The question now is whether those reforms will actually change anything for the media giants that have built their business models around betting revenue.
The proposed changes come after intense lobbying from media and gaming companies. They fought hard to keep the status quo on where and how much advertising inventory they could place, and how close those ads could sit to the live action. In the end, they did not get everything they wanted.
But they got close. For broadcast networks, marquee sports have become the lifeblood of their programming.
Gambling advertising is a meaningful contributor to that revenue, even if the networks generally do not say exactly how much. The new deal, if confirmed, would be historic. The government’s bill is meant to reduce the exposure of children and vulnerable communities to betting ads.
But if the media companies are still signing record deals, it raises the question of whether the reforms will have much effect on the economics that feed off gambling advertising. The government wants to curb the influence of gambling. The media companies need the revenue to keep broadcasting the sports that people love.
And the gaming companies, after a week of lobbying, have managed to keep much of their access intact. The NRL deal, if it goes through, will be a test case for how the new rules play out in practice.
For now, the money is still flowing, and the ads are still running.
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